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Sony Tape Storage Breakthrough Could Bring Us 185 TB Cartridges

Posted by samzenpus on from the pack-it-in dept.

jfruh (300774) writes "Who says tape storage is out of date? Sony researchers have announced a breakthrough in magnetic tape tech that increases the data density per square inch by a factor of 74. The result could be 185 TB tape cartridges. 'By comparison, LTO-6 (Linear Tape-Open), the latest generation of magnetic tape storage, has a density of 2 gigabits per square inch, or 2.5 TB per cartridge uncompressed.'"

11 of 208 comments (clear)

  1. By way of context... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Since this was the first question that came to my mind: apparently HDD platter densities (in similar 'we have demonstrated the technology but don't look for it at Best Buy just yet' stage) are ~ 1 terabit/square inch.

    Obviously, the cost of packaging a given number of square inches of HDD platter is markedly higher, so the tape is likely to offer better value(if you are using enough to spread the, generally alarming, cost of the drive(s) and possibly robotic library around a bit); but it's hard to beat the density of a very tightly controlled rigid medium that never leaves a controlled environment during its entire life.

    1. Re:By way of context... by JustOK · · Score: 4, Funny

      Honey, remember this?! It's the video you shot of me shooting videos of our kids when they were first using their cameras! No, wait, that's the video the cat took when you were shooting a video of me shooting videos of our kids when they were first using their cameras. Did you ever feed that cat?

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      rewriting history since 2109
    2. Re:By way of context... by MightyYar · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There's always a tradeoff between hoarding and becoming a librarian. I could dedicate the next month of my free time to reducing my storage footprint, or I could cough up another $200 to increase my server space a bit. With the exception of running something like Grand Perspective, Space Monger, Baobab, etc. I'd rather just spend a few bucks.

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    3. Re:By way of context... by stdarg · · Score: 4, Informative

      To save that much I'd need to be using about 100TB of storage, which is a fairly small filer for a business, but an insane amount for a home user.

      That's an insane amount for most businesses too! I've helped some small business owning friends out with their computer needs before and they couldn't fill a 1 TB hard drive if they tried. One of them, a veterinarian, said he wanted to keep a copy of his xray images on Amazon S3 as an off-site backup. I thought ok that's going to be a lot of data. Total was around 60 GB for 8 years' worth of xrays. The database backup for his practice management software is about 3 GB compressed.

  2. But is it even usable? by quantumghost · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So at 185TB per tape with the write speed of LTO6 "at speeds up to 400MB/s (1.4TB/hr)" [optimal]....~132 hrs per tape. But in reality 300 MB/s or 1 TB/hr so about 176 hr/tape. 168 hours in a week.....Next weekly back up starts before the first one finished.....

    Yeah, I know, they're not all level 0 backups.....you get the idea....sometimes it might be better to have 2 smaller tapes, than 1 large.

    1. Re: But is it even usable? by davidhoude · · Score: 5, Funny

      Say what? Everyone here keeps telling me that RAID is backups!

    2. Re: But is it even usable? by FireFury03 · · Score: 5, Informative

      We have had RAID failure twice now. The idea is that even with things like SMART, the errors in the second disk (or 3rd etc) don't become apparent till you try and recover and thrash the disk properly.

      The other reason why RAID isn't a backup is because it doesn't account for software/human failures - good luck recovering your data from a RAID after accidentally running "rm -rf /", whereas time indexed backups will allow you to go back a few days/weeks/months and recover your data after you discover it's not on the disk any more.

      RAID is there to keep systems running in the event of a hardware failure - its no substitute for a backup.

      Anyway, the errors on the disks should become apparent during their operation because you should be doing regular scrubs to find the errors. Putting the data somewhere, forgetting about it and not actually checking its still there for a few years is a pretty good recipe for disaster no matter how you store it. That said, I've seen a few cases where a drive fails, and the increased load on the other (similar age) disks sends another over the edge soon after, so one disk going bad should probably be an early warning that you're likely to see the other disks start to fail soon too (so don't hang about waiting to replace the dead one!)

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      http://blog.nexusuk.org
  3. Nostalgia by StripedCow · · Score: 5, Funny

    What's next? Discs of vinyl which can hold up to 1000 songs?

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    If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
  4. Restore something after every backup by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you don't restore at least one file after every back up, you are going to discover (as a company I worked for found) that your tape is blank when you need it most.

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    She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
  5. Security cameras by wjcofkc · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This would be great for security camera applications. The number one reason resolution sucks on security camera recordings is due to a lack of storage. Rather than seeing a indecipherable black and white (color is even worse) video of a suspect robbing a store, we would get it in HD. Have a few cameras on the inside, and on the outside to capture the getaway car, this could actually discourage some crimes.

    --
    Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
  6. Yeah, but by rsilvergun · · Score: 5, Funny

    my MP3s have a warmer, more natural tone coming out of a tape deck.

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