Sony Introduces 185 Terrabyte Cassette Tape

[troutman]

http://exclaim.ca/News/sony_introduc...mpaign=fbpwall

Reports suggest that considering the memory size and averaging a song out to three minutes, the cassette could hold upwards of 64,750,000 songs, or 8,093,750 days worth of music.

[nik-]

sweet road trip.

[Displaced Flames fan]

There's something wrong with their math.

First of all, who has a collection in which the songs average 3 minutes?

More importantly, I believe that you could play 64,750,000 songs much faster than in 8,093,750 days. Especially if they're only 3 minutes long.

Try 134,895 days.

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by troutman

the cassette could hold upwards of 64,750,000 songs, or 8,093,750 days worth of music.

Using 64,750,000 songs at 3 minutes each, that's 194,250,000 minutes; 2,327,500 hours; or 134,895 days. Looks like they forgot to factor in 60 minutes in an hour. Still impressive; but if their math is off there- where else is it off?

[Edit- that'll teach me to triple check my math before posting.]

[Troubamaker]

Can't wait for the tape to get tangled and then breaking out a pencil to try to reel it back in.

[habernac]

no playlist capability, or shuffle? What's next, Sony? Cranking out some new Betamax products?

[SebC]

I wonder what the seek times are like.

[Street Pharmacist]

I'm going to make my wife a sweet mix tape

[photon]

Originally Posted by SebC

I wonder what the seek times are like.

Step 1, recall tapes from offsite backup site.

Step 2, after you come into work the next day and the tape comes in, insert the tape into the drive...

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by Displaced Flames fan

There's something wrong with their math.

First of all, who has a collection in which the songs average 3 minutes?

More importantly, I believe that you could play 64,750,000 songs much faster than in 8,093,750 days. Especially if they're only 3 minutes long.

Try 134,895 days.

Average radio song is three and a half minutes. :/ I feel ya, but that is pretty close to correct for most people.

But yeah, wacky math all over that example.

A serious question though, what is the real use for a cassette like this? Video? Obviously the song thing is more of an example, a way to break the idea down.

But even with video I can't imagine anyone taking advantage of that kinda storage on a removable medium.

Edit: Ahhh, nevermind... The press conference had Sony reps explaining that the tape is intended for "long-term, industrial-sized data backup."

That is still a remarkable amount of backup. Because the fact that it is on cassettes means you planning on having several, probably many, of these things. So I guess my question still stands, what the heck is going on these things? Or is this the NSA backing up their data?