LONDON: Storing data on tapes may seem a little antiquated, since the invention of CDs, cloud services and other forms of digital storage, but it is still used by many businesses and archives around the world.

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And now, by tweaking how it produces this magnetic tape, Sony has created a way to boost the potential of the iconic material to not only match its digital rivals, but surpass them.

The Japanese firm has developed tape for businesses that can store up to 185TB of data — 74 times the capacity of traditional tapes and the equivalent of 3,700 Blu-rays.

It could, in theory, be used by anyone but has been designed specifically for organisations that need to store large amounts of data.

Magnetic tapes with a coating of magnetic powder are currently used as the mainstream form of tape storage media — with a recording capacity of 2.5TB.