Comments on: Magnetic tape prototype makes data leap

IBM and Fuji Photo devise system that holds 15 times more data than most popular types of magnetic tape.

[NotParker]

5 years?

300GB SATA drives are now about 100$.

400GB LTO tapes are about 120$.

750GB SATA drives are now 500$.

750GB LTO tape drives ... aren't here yet.

Drives are winning.

[tygrus]

I think tapes will still be around for the forseable future.

Quantum offer DLT-S4 with 800GB raw capacity per tape with advertised $.065/GB (compressed 2:1) so about $100 per 800GB tape.
750GB SATA drive now about $500 ?

In 3-5 years, 750GB HD will be $100 - $150 ?
In 3-5 years, 3TB HD will be $500 ?
In 3-5 years, 2-4TB tape will be $100 - $150 ?

I think tapes will still be around for the forseable future.

[Heebee Jeebies]

The problem is...

Right now there is no other technology that has the shelf life of magnetic tape. This is why major corporations, the library of congress, the national archives and many many other data archive businesses and others use it to back up data. Hard drives last longer than CD and DVD, but not long enough, CDs and DVDs are about as archival as a strainer is water tight.

What we need is a good, fast, feature rich, affordable tape system that can back up 1TB at a wack. The drives need to be $200 or less and then tapes $20 or less.

Until then we have no real long term and viable way to backup our data. Plain and simple.

Robert

[Remo_Williams]

How to reliably backup 1 Tb at home?

DVDs won't cut it, I'll need 125 of them. Tape is my only chance, but a cartridge at $100 a pop is worthless if I have to buy a $500 device to read/write.

-R

[Alvin English]

Tape Is CHEAPER then you think.

You guys need to take another look at tape. I just upgraded my workstation with a VXA tape drive 172GB ($600). The 320GB version of that drive is less than $900. The 320GB tape cartridges can be had for as little as $35 each - that is less then $0.11 per gigabyte.

Yea, you may windup spending more for your backup system then the PC, but that doesn't matter. What matters is what it cost to replace the data that you lost. Some things - family photos - can't be replaced.

You are making a big mistake, depending on another hard drive - vulnerable to viruses - to back up your system. If a corrupt operating system can access that drive - it is TOAST!

I making copies of all my systems and putting the tapes in a safe deposit box. What say you now?

Cousin Chet.

[grey_eminence]

Tape shelf life 10 years Max

what do you say to that ?

[grey_eminence]

Randon Seek Read Write for 300,000 years

Ferroelectric densities of 2D .2 to .5 Petabits = 200 to 500 Terabits sq. in. / 3D 40 Petabits = 40,000 to 100 Petabits = 100,000 Terabits cu.cm. or 2D 200,000 to 500,000 Gigabits sq.in. / 3D 40,000,000 to 100,000,000 Gigabits cu.cm. with symmetrical read / write times of < 160 picoseconds for 100 year non-volatile storage having infinite rewrites.

This is not the end by any means as Tohoku says their target is 2D 4 Petabits a sq. in or 3D 375,000 Terabits cu. cm. using a .4 nanometer cell size.

[Alvin English]

Tape Shelf Life 10 Years?

grey_eminence, I agree with you. 10 years is the max you can expect from the old tapes. The new metallic tapes are being hyped to last 30 years. I believe that estimate a just a little optimistic, but it is too early to tell how long they will last. I have been in the business long enough to know you ruin a tape instantly by crimping it ... ditto for dropping a hard drive.

But, assuming we archive our files on old mylar tape - 10 years beats the heck out of 5 years the industry expects CD-Roms to last ... and a hard drive can fail the first time it is turned on.
If you are serious about recovering from a disaster, you have to archive to tape.

[Alvin English]

Logical Replacement for Tape

The only logical replacement I can visualize for tape must have no moving parts to fail ... we are talking about the equivalent of a one terabyte compact flash drive.

That is why I believe we will using tape for a long time.

OK. I am off my soap box.