Magnetic tape

7-inch reel of ¼-inch-wide audio recording tape, typical of consumer use in the 1950s70s.

Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic storage made of a thin, magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic film. It was developed in Germany in 1928, based on the earlier magnetic wire recording from Denmark. Devices that use magnetic tape could with relative ease record and playback audio, visual, and binary computer data.

Magnetic tape revolutionized sound recording and reproduction and broadcasting. It allowed radio, which had always been broadcast live, to be recorded for later or repeated airing. Since the early 1950s, magnetic tape has been used with computers to store large quantities of data and is still used for backup purposes.

Magnetic tape begins to degrade after 10–20 years and therefore is not an ideal medium for long-term archival storage.[1] The exception is data tape formats like LTO which are specifically designed for long-term archiving.[2]

  1. ^ Pogue, David (1 September 2016). "Digitize Those Memory-Filled Cassettes before They Disintegrate". Scientific American. Archived from the original on 19 August 2016. Retrieved 26 July 2022.
  2. ^ Coughlin, Tom. "LTO Tape Capacity Shipments Up In 2022". Forbes. Retrieved 19 December 2023.