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Well, if you're going to go to a cartridge style format, the competition is hard disks, which can store three or four terabytes each in a highly reliable form;
by rwallace 13y ago
Well, if you're going to go to a cartridge style format, the competition is hard disks, which can store three or four terabytes each in a highly reliable form; sure, they cost more per disc, but the upfront costs are very low; I suspect the volume at which cartridges would become cheaper is larger than the market would support.
- sspiff 13y agoHard disks are also not very good at long term storage, I believe most aren't designed to hold their magnetic charge for decades without being powered and rewritten.
- rwallace 13y agoSure, but the same is true of every high-density medium. You have to either accept data storage is a dynamic process of repeated copying, or else do it the old-fashioned way and store your data on acid-free paper. (Well, unless you want to use one of the exotic technologies that etch your data on metal plates or whatever; but in practice, paper is a lot cheaper.)