The Silicon Review ^Asia

Storing data on magnetic tape might sound delightfully retro, but it's still widely used for archival purposes due to high data density. Now researchers at the University of Tokyo have made magnetic tape using a new material, which allows higher storage density and more protection against interference and a new way to write to the tape using high-frequency millimeter waves.

"Our new magnetic material is called epsilon iron oxide; it is particularly suitable for long-term digital storage. When data is written to it, the magnetic states representing bits become resistant to external stray magnetic fields that might otherwise interfere with the data. We say it has a strong magnetic anisotropy," says Shinichi Ohkoshi, lead researcher on the study.

The Tokyo researchers developed a new storage material, along with a new way to write to it. The team says that it should have a higher storage density, longer lifetime, lower cost, better energy efficiency, and higher resistance to outside interference. Although magnetic tape hasn't been famous at the consumer level since about the 1980s, in the realm of data centers and long term archival storage, its slower speeds are an acceptable price to pay for higher data density.