Fujifilm has announced that it has set a new world record by creating a magnetic storage tape that can store a staggering 580 terabytes of data.
The breakthrough, developed jointly with IBM Research, uses a new magnetic particle called Strontium Ferrite (SrFe), commonly used as a raw material for making motor magnets. Fujifilm has been investigating Strontium Ferrite as a possible successor to Barium Ferrite (BaFe), which is the leading material today.
Tape is still, by far, the most efficient and cheapest way to store loads of data that doesn’t need to be accessed regularly. I find tape-based storage mediums fascinating, and this is right up my alley.
It is the cheapest, if *you need to store lots of data*.
For a practical home use. Let’s say we start with an older LTO-6 tapes:
https://www.amazon.com/Pack-C7976A-LTO-6-Tapes-C79765A/dp/B00E6617IS
The 20 pack comes with 50TB storage (*uncompressed) in total. ($482.18 / 50TB = 9.64/TB).
For HDDs 12TB size seemed to be the optimum in terms of price:
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-easystore-12tb-external-usb-3-0-hard-drive-black/6425301.p?skuId=6425301
For a similar size (4 x 12TB = 48TB) we would pay $840. So it comes to about $18.33/TB.
(I am sure it is possible to find both of them at cheaper prices).
So we save about $8/TB, which is significant.
But the main component is the drive.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1443346-REG/mlogic_mtape_tb3_lto6_mtape_tb3_lto_6_desktop.html
That is a $3,500 upfront cost (but comes with zero storage cartridges).
That means, the price only becomes competitive after storing 437TB. So if you are not working with peta-byte sized storage it actually does not save you much.
(I know used drives are cheaper, that is why I chose LTO-6, but even then the breakeven point is at 100 TBs.).
From my own experience in the corporate I couldn’t recommend tape for private use. We’ve flirted with it in various formats on and off for years in corporate and the biggest problem we’ve found is that it’s unreliable outside of a perfectly controlled environment.
I still prefer magnet-optical disk, but I think it personal preference at this (curie) point.