Data Storage

OPTICAL TAPE — A New Way to Archive Data

Optical Tape combines storage density of optical discs and surface area of magnetic tape…

  …creating the highest volumetric density and lowest cost per unit storage of any media in the industry.

Key Features:

  • Advanced Surface Nanoforming™ (ASN) tape preformatting enables 7-60 TB (1TB=1,000 GB) capacity in a single standard-format tape cartridge
  • Optical Tape drive uses "off-the-shelf" DVD components for proven performance and low cost
  • Leverages multi-million $ investments in hardware and media products
  • Compatible with existing storage infrastructure (tape libraries, etc.)

MicroContinuum's optical tape combines the high data density of optical discs with the high storage area of magnetic tape, resulting in a medium with extremely high data capacity in a minimum space. The high data density of standard DVDs is made possible by the molding precision nanostructures that are used to locate, store, and read data on the surface of the disc.

The key technological breakthrough developed by MicroContinuum is the ability to put similar nanostructures on the surface of a very thin tape substrate by a continuous, high-speed roll-to-roll (R2R) process, allowing optical tape media production to take full advantage of the characteristic benefits of R2R manufacturing: extremely high volumes with low production costs.


Another advance is the use of an array of independent DVD heads to read and write data. Because every standard DVD head is built with the ability to automatically track and focus, the use of an array of independently tracking DVD heads offers a substantial advantage over magnetic head arrays, which, because the heads are formed as a single block, must all move together. This is important consideration particularly as magnetic tape increases in track density, since mechanical or thermal distortion of the tape media results in the magnetic heads not being able to simultaneously follow multiple tracks.


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Optical Tape Archiving:

  • medical image archiving
  • financial records
  • law enforcement records
  • geophysical/seismic data
  • supercomputer data
  • satellite weather images
  • e-mail archiving
  • motion picture and TV
  • security imaging


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