US Government Says It Will Save $1M/Year By Getting Rid Of Magnetic Tape - So Is There Still A Place For Tape In 2025?
Techradar.pro, Monday, April 7th, 2025
DOGE is getting rid of magnetic tape - but what will be the effect?
The US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) boasting the IT team of the US Gerneral Services Administration (GSA) 'just saved $1M per year by converting 14,000 magnetic tapes (70 yr old technology for information storage) to permanent modern digital records.'
The comment doesn't include any context as to what tape technology was used (reel-to-reel or cartridge), how long it took to transfer the data from the tapes and what the new storage technology replacing the tape is.
The word 'permanent' leads us to believe that it is a 'Write Once, Read Many' solution (WORM) where once written, the data cannot be modified.