7.8 MAGNETIC TAPE
Magnetic tape is the oldest and most cost-effective of all mass storage devices. While it is used less and less, many businesses still use magnetic tape for archiving. First-generation magnetic tapes were made of the same material used by analog tape recorders. A cellulose-acetate film one-half inch wide (1.25cm) was coated on one side with a magnetic oxide. Twelve hundred feet of this material were wound onto a reel, which then could be hand-threaded on a tape drive. These tape drives were approximately the size of a small refrigerator. Early tapes had capacities under 11MB and required nearly half an hour to read or write the entire reel.
Data was written across the tape one byte at a time, creating one track for each ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Read now
Unlock full access