unix like operating system lovers

Magnetic tape can last multiple decades. There's no telling whether THIS magnetic tape lasted that long, but the medium is pretty hardy.

I recently dug up my father's floppy disks. Stored in a dark dry attic. Each one contained about 10 photos of him on holidays and my birthday when i was 7. I had about 10 usable disks.

The disks are at least 25 years old. He died about 20 years ago.

It is true. Not all photos were saved but the disks held op really well!

I suspect that if you throw resources at the problem, you can tolerate much more degradation than standard tape readers.

Magnetic tape can be pretty good. This specific tape I don't know, but there's a reason enterprises to this day STILL widely use magnetic tape to store archives.

Though, that may be because a single tape cassette can hold way more than a hard drive, and is cheaper. But I imagine they'd need to have longevity too.

No they do not. Where did you get that piece of crap info from?

Magnetic tape storage is pretty standard. depends on many factors but might read just fine.