Critics say DOGE replaces the magnetic tape archive with the number is a dangerous step.

“the Usgsa The IT team has provided one million dollars annually by converting 14,000 magnetic tapes (70 years of old technology to store information) into permanent modern digital records.

While this step may initially seem a logical decision to update government services, critics were quick to refer to the benefits of magnetic tapes on digital. The post is characterized by DOGE with a societal memo that highlights some of the reasons for the use of the magnetic tape, including the fact that they can store data more efficiently and provide material “Airgap” so that data cannot be stolen by Internet criminals.

Once again in 2020, IBM Publish an article He explained that since the amount of data stored on Internet balloons is year after year, large companies and educational institutions have turned into a tape -based storage for archiving purposes. The company wrote: “With regard to costs, storing data on the tape is a penalty for each GB and when they are not in use, the tape does not require any energy unlike the hard disks and flash.” “Simply put, the stored data guarantees the tape that cloud service providers have the data they need when they need it. In addition, when stored properly, the data recorded on the tape today will remain readable within 30 years.”

Anyone who was on the Internet knows frustration with old websites and social networks in non -communication, which effectively gives huge amounts of human creation in one blow. Some organizations such as the Internet archive intervened to help maintain websites before they are lost until time, but only one institution can do a lot. The correlation, as it is called, is actually the result of storage costs, but magnetic tapes are cheap. Today the average magnetic tape can store about 15 terabytes of data, but IBM says that the new tapes that have been developed can be stored 580 Terabayte. Contrary to what Dog said in his position, The tape technology continues to improve.

Meanwhile, cloud servers are expensive to work, and solid drives can last in general up to five to ten years. Large companies such as Meta and Google use RAID backup to prevent damage and loss, but again, this is costly. It is ridiculous that the team in charge of reducing costs in the government may completely the opposite with this step.

Also, to some extent, the phrase “permanent digital records” are anximorone. Digital is fast -wrapped – this is why some people still prefer material copies of their media. The service is stopped and your digital memories go with it. XKCD years ago I created a picture This explains frustration briefly: