Slashdot Mirror
220TB Tapes Show Tape Storage Still Has a Long Future
alphadogg writes: IBM and Fujifilm have figured out how to fit 220TB of data on a standard-size tape that fits in your hand, flexing the technology's strengths as a long-term storage medium. The prototype Fujifilm tape and accompanying drive technology from IBM labs packs 88 times as much data onto a tape as industry-standard LTO-6 systems using the same size cartridge, IBM says. LTO6 tape can hold 2.5TB, uncompressed, on a cartridge about 4 by 4 inches across and 2 centimeters thick. The new technologies won't come out in products for several years.
They use tapes to store all that data they get from smashing tiny bits together. Totally forget how much one of their tapes hold, but at the time I remember thinking it was a lot.
Write Once Read Never
Tape backups have been an enterprise only product for years. And they are backing up enterprise (server-grade) hard drives that cost substantially more than consumer SATA drives.
Even enterprises are using a lot of SATA drives now. The super-fast-and-reliable niche that used to belong to enterprise drives has gone to flash. It's usually cheaper to use consumer drives and some better software to manage the inevitable failure than to use enterprise drives.
As far as I can recall, tape backup systems have never been a consumer product. At least, I don't recall tape systems ever being marketed that way.
I think the big difference nowadays though, is that tape backup used to be the only real viable option for small business' computers and servers. Nowadays, it seems like cloud-based backups like Amazon Glacier are a much more sensible for smaller systems.
BTW, redundant HDDs as a backup system is a really bad idea unless you:
a) take them offline, and
b) store them offsite.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
It's usually cheaper to use consumer drives and some better software to manage the inevitable failure than to use enterprise drives.
There is NO difference in reliability between "consumer" and "enterprise" drives. The only reason to buy enterprise drives is because you have excess money that you are too stupid to keep. All the big storage companies use consumer grade drives, and several of them, including Google and Backblaze, have published data that clearly show there is no reliability or performance reason to buy "enterprise" drives. They are a scam.
"...The new technologies won't come out in products for several years."
Er, several years?
For a minute there, I thought they were referring to the restore time for a full cartridge.
Capacity isn't really the problem with tape media. It's sitting around waiting for ages if you ever have to actually execute a full restore of that much data from tape.
Not quite sure why it remains a viable solution for that reason alone, especially in this era of the InstaTwitterVine level of instant gratification. Spinning rust in the cloud might be a bit more volatile, but it will likely always be a hell of a lot faster.
RED drives are specifically designed for RAID enclosures to prevent early failure due to vibration and constant sleep/wake cycles.
Baloney. If this were true, it would show up in reliability data. It does not.
Sure in some situations you can get by with regular consumer gear, but in other situations it's asking for trouble.
Thanks for the advice. But I prefer to listen to people that know what they are talking about, and have data to back it up.
Btw, I have some super premium gold plated SATA cables that will DOUBLE the reliability of your enterprise drives!!! Please post your credit card number and address.
"I don't understand why anyone would use tape. After all I've never used it/not for years/etc."
If you feel the urge to say words like this, just stop after the first 3 words. You don't understand. That's enough right there.
Some people have volumes of data that you cannot fathom. Some organizations have use cases that you haven't encountered. Maybe even some organizations make decisions that' could be handled another way, and maybe that different way might be better too. But's that's speculative based upon NO information.
The continuing demand for tape pretty well speaks for itself though.