Gadgetory

you might still have some Michael Jackson or Led Zeppelin albums on cassette tape lying around your house but chances are these days you're listening to mp3s of Billie Jean or stairway to heaven instead but even though magnetic tape has been long obsolete for music it's still going strong for data storage wait a sec Luke how is that even possible haven't modern SSDs and hard drives displaced everything else I mean even optical discs are becoming a thing of the past but believe it or not tape has some pretty significant advantages that have made its popular storage medium lasts for over 60 years in fact the first tape drive appeared all the way back in 1951 and had a name that made it sound like something out of a Jetsons episode the yunus servo this was actually the tape drive that was used for the famous UNIVAC one the first ever commercial computer built in the US the univac took up an entire room and not surprisingly the you know servo was a behemoth as well holding nearly a quarter mile of tape on large reels but only about 225 kilobytes of data later though tape storage became more practical due to switching from heavy metal tapes to plastic tape coated in magnetic substances that store the actual data more advanced recording methods such as using the entire width of the tape to increase data density health brain capacities over the years to 10 terabytes today in a package that weighs only half a pound but then why don't we see people using tape drives and personal rigs very often aside from the drives being very expensive they also tend to be very slow think about how long it took to rewind the tape from Blockbuster way back in the day when they were still a thing unlike hard drives or SSDs which can go directly to the data you want in a small fraction of a second tape drives have to wind themselves back and forth sequentially to access files meaning they're just too sluggish to use in day-to-day computing but even though a tape storage solution requires a large upfront cost for a drive the tape cartridges themselves are pretty darn cheap compared to other forms of storage media and they tend to have great longevity making tape a great choice for archival storage and data backups not only is magnetic tape pretty Hardy but the fact that most organizations use it strictly for backup and aren't constantly accessing their tape drives mean that they're less prone to wearing out than something like a mechanical hard drive which is constantly spinning shortening their lifespan and tapes appeal for mass backup storage doesn't appear to be going anywhere in fact Sony recently developed a new type of tape that can hold 185 terabytes on a single cartridge so if you miss your cassette collection from the 1980s you can always digitize all 23 million of your songs and just stick them on one tape speaking of listening to things audible.com/anna Bolcom is the leading provider of audiobooks with more than 180,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature including fiction nonfiction and periodicals audiobooks are great to listen to you while you're doing stuff that whatever you're listening to isn't super important whether that's driving somewhere sitting on the subway doing chores around the house going to the gym maybe you're playing a video game and you don't need to hear the music for the four hundred eighty seventh time not a bad idea for our audience members audible is offering a free 30 day trial just go to audible.com slash tech quickie and browse for over the like I said 180,000 audio programs download a title for free and start listening it's that easy to try their service I've been listening to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone from JK Rowling you might be wondering why is that came out a while ago but there's that new spin-off movie coming out much like Star Wars I want to catch up so go to audible.com slash tech quickie and start your 30-day free trial today alright guys thank you for watching if you liked it like it if you disliked it sorry about that I guess also check out channel super fund my video on the screen melter prank is almost at 2 million views and I have no idea why so maybe go watch it and tell me also in the comment section down below let us know if there's other fast as possible episodes you'd like us to create and before you go don't forget to subscribe and follow