History (1989): Record for Creo WORM Tape: 1TB

CREO Products Inc. (Burnaby, Canada) has developed a drive to write-once and read an optical open reel WORM type tape, named Digital Paper, originated from Imagedata.

The 35mm-wide and 880m-long (2,900 feet) tape allows a total capacity storage of 1,000GB or the equivalent of 5,000 IBM 3480 magnetic cartridges.

The tape speed is 2.5mm/s, data transfer rate up to 3Mb/s sustained, average access time 28s, and 60s to go through the entire optical tape.

CREO’s Optical Tape Storage System Model 1003 is announced at $225,000 unit price.

CREO Optical Tape Storage System

Among the benefits of this system, CREO insists on the fact that optical data with laser reading, which means that the head does not touch the media, is safer than magnetic data, unaffected by dust and completely out of magnetic field influence.

According to CREO, optical tapes last at least 20 years, based on accelerated life testing.

This article is an abstract of news published on the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter on issue ≠18, published on July 1989.