• Forget those hard disks and SSD: 580TB on a tape cartridge!?

    From Percival P. Cassidy@21:1/5 to All on Wed Dec 16 11:39:54 2020

    https://gizmodo.com/a-new-breakthrough-in-tape-storage-could-squeeze-580-tb-1845851499

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  • From Pedro Valdez@21:1/5 to Percival P. Cassidy on Sun Jun 27 04:53:07 2021
    On Thursday, December 17, 2020 at 12:39:58 AM UTC+8, Percival P. Cassidy wrote:

    https://gizmodo.com/a-new-breakthrough-in-tape-storage-could-squeeze-580-tb-1845851499
    but what will be data transfer rate?
    LTO-8 is already painfully slow to fill up

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  • From Grant Taylor@21:1/5 to Pedro Valdez on Sun Jun 27 13:06:21 2021
    On 6/27/21 5:53 AM, Pedro Valdez wrote:
    but what will be data transfer rate?
    LTO-8 is already painfully slow to fill up

    ~chuckle~

    Insert obligatory "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon
    with the backend full of mag tapes hurtling down the highway."



    --
    Grant. . . .
    unix || die

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  • From Lynn McGuire@21:1/5 to Percival P. Cassidy on Thu Jul 8 20:30:12 2021
    On 12/16/2020 10:39 AM, Percival P. Cassidy wrote:

    https://gizmodo.com/a-new-breakthrough-in-tape-storage-could-squeeze-580-tb-1845851499

    Serial access devices are so 1980s / 1990s.

    I will take random access devices any day of the week.

    Lynn

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  • From VanguardLH@21:1/5 to Lynn McGuire on Fri Jul 9 20:45:17 2021
    Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:

    Percival P. Cassidy wrote:

    https://gizmodo.com/a-new-breakthrough-in-tape-storage-could-squeeze-580-tb-1845851499

    Serial access devices are so 1980s / 1990s.

    Um, SATA = Serial ATA using 2 differential condutors (versus the prior
    PATA = Parallel ATA using 40 wires, or 80 with grounding lines between
    to reduce crosstalk).

    I will take random access devices any day of the week.

    Who said tape drives should be used for primary storage? Only a boob
    would do that. Tapes are used for archival storage (aka backups). Even
    with your HDDs or SSDs, restoring from a backup image will be
    sequential, just like on tape.

    How big are your backup files? 317 GB per 1 square-inch of tape means
    the tape won't take long to position to the start of the next backup
    file. Besides, do you sit around waiting for a restore to finish, or do
    you start it, and go do something else? If the latter, you don't care
    how long it takes the tape to position to the start of your backup file
    if not the first one on the tape.

    Go ahead and build that tower of 50 HDDs (since SSDs would be far too expensive) and suffer the reduced MTBF (the more drives, the lower the
    MTBF) instead of using 1 tape drive.

    Also, please stop posting about technologies that won't be available for another decade to the consumer market, the primary community here.
    Corporate users deploying backup systems don't visit here. They use
    robots, tape towers, and have massive backup storage space, not just a
    single drive with a single tape.

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  • From Grant Taylor@21:1/5 to VanguardLH on Fri Jul 9 21:04:30 2021
    On 7/9/21 7:45 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
    Who said tape drives should be used for primary storage?

    It depends what you consider "primary storage" to be and what your usage
    / access pattern is.

    I've seen plenty of cases where disk based storage was effectively a
    cache to move things onto and off of tapes. The massive collection of
    data lived on tape specifically because hard drives would be too costly
    for the needed capacity.

    Only a boob would do that. Tapes are used for archival storage
    (aka backups).
    Tapes (offline storage) can also be a good way to move *MASSIVE* amounts
    of data between two (or more) locations where sufficient network
    connectivity is cost prohibitive.

    Even with your HDDs or SSDs, restoring from a backup image will be sequential, just like on tape.

    It depends how the backup and restore jobs are sliced / parallelized.



    --
    Grant. . . .
    unix || die

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  • From VanguardLH@21:1/5 to Grant Taylor on Sat Jul 10 02:47:28 2021
    Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> wrote:

    Tapes (offline storage) can also be a good way to move *MASSIVE* amounts
    of data between two (or more) locations where sufficient network
    connectivity is cost prohibitive.

    I remember the old joke that a truckload of tapes barreling down the
    highway from vault to data center was high bandwidth.

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