Magnetic storage and tape recording in the era of big data

In the era of big data, the exponential growth of digital data has created an urgent demand for storage technologies that offer large capacity, low energy consumption, high reliability, and cost-effectiveness. Currently, negative-AND Flash, hard disk drives, and magnetic tape form a hierarchical architecture in modern storage systems, where magnetic storage technologies of hard disk drives and tapes remain the preferred solutions for warm and cold data storage. Based on a comparative analysis of current primary data storage solutions, this paper provides a detailed introduction to the physical mechanisms of magnetic recording media and the principles of magnetic storage technology. It further focuses on analyzing the principles of magnetic tape storage for long-term backup and archiving of massive data, as well as the most recent research on the new generation of ultra-high-density tape recording media, such as M-type hexaferrite (Ba, Sr) Fe₁₂O₁₉ and orthorhombic ε-Fe₂O₃.