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I was wondering if it would technically be possible to use only a tape drive in a modern desktop computer instead of a hard drive or solid state drive.

(And yes, I know that this is impractical, I was just wondering if it is possible.)

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    "use only a tape drive in a modern desktop computer" -- Theoretically possible, but totally impractical. You're suggesting the replacement of a random-access device with a sequential-access device. It's like replacing an automobile with a skateboard.
    – sawdust
    Jan 26, 2018 at 2:35
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    Note that no modern filesystems for computer use are tape-capable. if you were to make hardware and write an OS to do it, but windows could not operate an NTFS volume backed by tape storage, as the same semantics don't express operations that would work right for tape sequential access on large volumes. Jan 26, 2018 at 5:40
  • I’m voting to close this question because this isn't a question suited for SU, see: superuser.com/help/dont-ask Jun 23, 2023 at 9:07

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As long as the BIOS recognizes the tape drive during post, it should work. Obviously, old parallel/serial port tape drives won’t work, as they require the operating system to load a driver. However, SATA, SCSI, and IDE tape drives should show up on boot.

As long as the tape rewinds at boot and the boot sector is at the beginning of the tape, there is no reason for it to not work.

Obviously, this is a terrible idea, as tapes are read and written linearly. Even the fastest enterprise tape drives would be slow for all these random reads and writes. In addition to that, there could be timeout issues, as the OS might throw an error if it is expecting a response to something in a timely fashion.

Update:

I just realized in addition to being able to recognize the drive during post, BIOS has to be able to mark that drive as bootable. I highly doubt that a standard BIOS will do this. However, you may be able to do this with a SCSI adapter's BIOS, if it supports it.

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    Would the tape even survive the boot process? I'm thinking there would be so much done with it that it might wear out. Jan 26, 2018 at 5:16
  • @LorenPechtel Tapes are very robust, as they are designed for backup and archival purposes. Since the tape heads are fixed in place, as opposed to hard drives which move, they are less likely to fail and cause physical damage to the media.
    – Keltari
    Jan 26, 2018 at 12:01
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    You've only addressed the boot issue. You still have a long way to go before you have a functional "modern desktop computer". As @FrankThomas implies above, there's no concept of a read/write filesystem for tape. Salient fact: the proper way to use mag tape is to only write in append mode. Meaning that a rewrite or replacement of a record or block anywhere in the middle of the tape is dangerous (i.e. the positioning is not as precise as a HDD). So mag tape can never be considered a direct replacement for a HDD (unless you happen to be using that HDD as a streaming device).
    – sawdust
    Jan 26, 2018 at 21:28
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No, it is not possible to replace the HDD with a (magnetic) tape drive in a "modern desktop computer".

First, tape is so much slower than a disk.
Tape is a sequential-access device, whereas disks are random-access devices.
Individual records (at normal speed) or file marks (in high speed) would have to be read and counted in order to find the requested record or file.

Second, best practice for writing to magnetic tape is to only append to the logical end of tape. Mag tape positioning is not as precise as a HDD (which has a rigid medium and uni-directional travel of that medium).
Rewriting a tape record in the middle of the tape is avoided because the integrity of the next record after the written record cannot be assured.

This write restriction essentially turns mag tape into a read-only device in this circumstance. (E.G. When you append a new version of a file, how could you mark the old version at the beginning of the tape as invalid?)
Embedded systems do use read-only filesystems, but a "modern desktop computer" would have limited utility, akin to a Linux LiveCD.

Bottom line is that magnetic tape can never be considered a direct replacement for a HDD (unless you happen to be using that HDD as a streaming device).

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In practical terms, no, a highspeed tape drive probably is not viable today. But for academic purposes, it might be an interesting demonstration. I believe some have already connected old tape drives to modern hardware, I thought I saw those somewhere, but not totally sure. For those who may remember, the cassette drives for 8-bit computers was common back then, whether for Tandy, Atari, Commodore, etc. I have a couple of Datasettes myself. After the Datasette, there was something called the Enteprepo Quick Data Drive for the C-64, which used highspeed tape wafer cartridges. This device was a compromise in speed in the days between the Datasette & the 1541, as a compromise between price & performance in the days when floppy drives were still expensive. But it flopped (pun?), as it was not fully reliable as the Datasette nor the floppy. Anyway, it would be cool to see something similar to an IBM 3420 R2R tape running on modern computers, if only as a demo. I also have a couple of backup tape drives, such as from Mountain & Colorado, of the early 1990s. It would also be interesting to convert those into highspeed streaming tapes rather than its original purpose as backup.
06/22/23

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  • Hi Rob, this site does not run like a forum. Is it possible to remove dome of the musings.:-) Jun 23, 2023 at 6:45
  • 8 bit computers C64 etc., however did not boot from cassettes. Jun 23, 2023 at 9:05
  • Well yes of course, 8bit computers did not need to boot from cassettes, because most 8 bit computers were instant-on boot via ROM, as their instant-on OSes were relatively small in memory back then as opposed to now. But the majority of them were famous for using tape drives, because they were viable & cheap for those days, as FDD/HDD were still new and/or expensive. The 8bit tape drives really were just an evolution of the aforementioned tape usage of the 1960's & 1970's, eg IBM 3420. This is a what-if scenario for today, just as the 8bit age learned tape from the mainframe/mini days. Jun 23, 2023 at 11:19

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