Data-tape

"Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways, Lord Vader. Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen datatapes, or given you clairvoyance enough to find the Rebels' hidden fort..."

- Antonio Motti to Darth Vader

Datatapes were a means of storing information.

The secret plans for the Galactic Empire's powerful planet-destroying Death Star weapon were stored on datatapes. These tapes were stolen by members of the Rebel Alliance and spirited to Princess Leia Organa, who copied the data from them in the memory banks of the droid R2-D2 in order to deliver them to Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi on Tatooine.

Behind the scenes
The plans for the Death Star were described as being recorded on datatapes in the novelization of the original Star Wars film, released in 1976 before the release of the actual film, A New Hope, known at the time only as Star Wars. At the time, tapes were considered a modern means of storing information, though they later became obsolete and as of 2015 have been supplanted almost entirely by other formats and generally available only secondhand. The original film contains the only reference in canon to "datatapes," though the franchise's Expanded Universe contained a number of appearances and mentions of them in works such as Han Solo and the Lost Legacy and Fate of the Jedi: Omen. This content is now considered part of the continuity of Star Wars Legends and not canon.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope