DOGE Replacing Magnetic Tape Archives With Digital Is a Dangerous Move, Critics Say

While the move may at first seem like a logical decision to modernize government services, critics were quick to point out the benefits of magnetic tapes over digital. The post by DOGE features a Community Note highlighting a few reasons to use magnetic tape, including the fact that they can store data much more efficiently and offer a physical “airgap” so that data cannot be stolen by cybercriminals. Back in 2020, IBM published an article explaining that as the amount of data stored on the internet balloons year after year, large companies and educational institutions have turned to tape-based storage for archival purposes. “In terms of costs, storing data on tape is pennies per gigabyte and when not in use, tape requires no energy unlike hard disks and flash,” the company wrote. “Put simply, tape-stored data ensures that cloud providers will have the data they need when they need it. In addition, when stored properly, data recorded on tape today will still be readable in 30 years.” ... Read full article.