Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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jfruh (300774) writes "Who says tape storage is out of date?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.'"

6 of 208 comments (clear)

  1. 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!)

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

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

    --
    If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
  3. 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.

    --
    She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
  4. Yeah, but by rsilvergun · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/