4 ms·
Tape is still amazing in terms of data density and storage longevity
by 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
Tape is still amazing in terms of data density and storage longevity
- ggm 3y agoI could probably fit my entire MP3 collection as FLAC on a single DLT. Shame abou the seek times but some kind of lower bitrate forward coding across the entire dataset, a cache and seek times might not matter as much for long plays. It would be very silly to repurpose a DLT tape library for an audio jukebox: one which carried "lethal to enter if not disarmed" stickers and a ruinous electricity bill.
- jacquesm 3y agoAt a half decent compression rate it probably fits on a large micro SD card as well, unless you have thousands of records.
- meindnoch 3y agoWhy would you store MP3 as FLAC?
- ggm 3y agoI would re-encode from the original or get flac. What I have digitally is compressed because of history, more than anything else. It was a figure of speech. The point is a single DLT is huge. Well .. LTO.
- Filligree 3y agoIt’s just a pity they’re so expensive. By rights I should be using tape for my backups, but even a single tape drive is…
- ggm 3y agoFor anyone who wonders a single LTO9 tape is about $250 and holds 45TB. I'm holding about 15 to 20 years data hoarding at home on 6TB zfs. So for me, cold storage for life would be at this price point. As you say the drive is heinous too: $10k+
- anonymous_sorry 3y agoNot analogue audio cassettes though. They would get tangled in the tape deck, and be ruined. They would sightly unspool themselves, get caught on something or twisted, and be ruined. They would stretch with overuse, distorting the audio horribly and/or comically, and be ruined. In my youth it seemed like every major roadside was littered with discarded audio tape. Clumps of tangled brown film dolefully flapping about in the breeze. This is not a format to be overly nostalgic for.