Tape Formats

Magnetic tape data storage uses digital recording on to magnetic tape to store digital information. Modern magnetic tape is most commonly packaged in cartridges and cassettes. The device that performs actual writing or reading of data is a tape drive. Autoloaders and tape libraries are frequently used to automate cartridge handling.

When storing large amounts of data, tape can be substantially less expensive than disk or other data storage options. Tape storage has always been used with large computer systems. Modern usage is primarily as a high capacity medium for backups and archives. As of 2011, the highest capacity tape cartridges (T10000C) can store 5 TB of uncompressed data.

This section is a reference guide of all tape media formats, choose the format above (3rd row of buttons) for specific information.