Here Comes Optical Tape ... Again.

MARK: Hal, I've just heard some wonderful news. There's a new version of optical tape in development.

HAL: You know I'm a big fan of "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer," but I never expected optical tape to come back from the dead.

MARK: Don't drive a stake through its heart until you hear what it's about. A startup called MicroContinuum, in Cambridge, Mass., is working on it. Most of the people involved are ex-Polaroid, who stayed with optical tape after Polaroid pulled out of a consortium with Avid, Lucent, and LOTS Technology.

HAL: Too many cooks....

MARK: I know. But apparently, the cooking is almost done, and the broth may be ready to serve up this year. They say they're in the "commercialization" phase.

HAL: That's the toughest one, though, isn't it? Everybody who's tried to bring out products based on new storage technologies has been 'way under-funded.

MARK: MicroContinuum's money is coming from industrial and government contracts.

HAL: They'll need to reach into deep pockets, all right. I remember the optical tape system that came out ten years ago, from a Canadian company called Creo. The drive cost a couple of hundred thousand dollars--in 1990 dollars--and they wound up giving them away to the Canadian government for accumulating data from seismic explorations. How much does MicroContinuum expect to charge for their recorder, and where do they say the customers are?

MARK: Back in 1990 when Creo and Imperial Chemical--which made the media--were putting that system together, there was only one application that could accept hundreds of gigabytes of streaming data, and that was remote telemetry. But things are different now. I don't have to tell you about the data explosion. I'll bet there are a hundred companies whose commercial databases are larger today than the Canadian government's seismic database was a decade ago. And that's not counting all of the folks who are talking about streaming audio and streaming video from servers.

HAL: I'll grant you that demand has exploded exponentially. But to meet that demand you still have to be cost-effective.

MARK: They seem to have covered that base too. A DLT library that can hold 6.8TB on 170 cartridges costs about $600,000. MicroContinuum is developing 1TB cartridges and a seven cartridge library. And their target price for the equivalent in storage capacity is almost an order of magnitude lower: fully populated, you'd have 7TB for just $70,000.

HAL: I have to admit: that's impressive.

MARK: So, now take a quick trip down memory lane: What was the format of that Creo system?

HAL: It had a reel-to-reel transport; the tape was one inch wide, and it was write-once only.

MARK: Hold onto your seat: MicroContinuum is talking about rewritability.

HAL: In addition to write-once, or instead?

MARK: They say they'll offer both. They anticipate media manufacturing will begin in the second half of this year.

HAL: What's the underlying recording technology? It must be phase-change.

MARK: Right. And actually, they have three core technologies altogether. Phase-change materials, of course, for the recording layers. Something they call "advanced surface microforming," which is supposed to be in their second-generation product--

HAL: Ooop! They're talking about the next generation before they've even built the first?

MARK: They're talking three generations ahead!

HAL: Uh oh.

MARK: The third breakthrough is called "linear variable data microforming." It apparently optimizes optical tape for a variety of recording applications, including prerecorded media, home-recording, and digital-projection cinema.

HAL: And when, pray tell, is THAT supposed to happen?

MARK: They don't say, and I have to agree with your skepticism there: it probably won't be very soon. A few years, at least.

HAL: A wise analyst once advised me: "Don't invest in anything that requires three miracles." I think I'll wait to recommend optical tape until they've commercialized at least one of them.

MARK: Okay. But do this first: extrapolate future products from current technologies, and tell me what other storage system would be able to compete with optical tape a few years down the road?

HAL: That's a good point. Unless there's a huge breakthrough in 12-inch optical disks--which I doubt--there won't be anything that big on the market, and certainly not in that price-range. But let me ask you a question: If they want their optical tape library to serve the streaming-data marketplace, what kind of transfer rates are they projecting?

MARK: I don't have that info, and I suspect that it's not something they can predict solely from their laboratory benches. Their first beta products are supposed to arrive in six months.

HAL: So let's revisit this topic toward the end of the year. Okay?

MARK: Fine. In the meantime, if our readers have any thoughts about the future of optical tape, please send them to me at [e-mail].

HAL: And if anybody has "historical" experience--with Creo, or with other optical tape projects--share it with me, at [e-mail].