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Cassette tapes are back, and the storage space is AWESOME!

DaikunDaikun
edited November 2012 in Technology
Remember that old audio recording hardware that predated CDs?

IBM is bringing them back, and these babies can store 35-100 terabytes of data!
Post edited by Daikun on

Comments

  • Victor FrostVictor Frost
    Tapes have always had large storage capacities (though not THAT large). The key question is access times. Slow access times and large capacity are why companies traditionally used tapes for backups and not regular storage.
  • AprecheApreche
    Tapes are also only sequentially accessible. You can either write the whole tape or read the whole tape. You can't jump around the tape reading and writing different files. Tape has been, is, and will be the standard for archival backups for a very long time. It is not something normal people need to worry about. An increase in storage density isn't really the biggest news, and it's definitely not some revolutionary development.
  • Dragonmaster LouDragonmaster Lou
    Yeah. I work for a company that makes disk-based backup products, and even we advertise ease of copying to tape as one of our key features. The idea is your most recent data will live on our disk-based backup stuff, but we'll make it easy for you to move your really ancient stuff to tape later.
  • RymRym
    It's funny. Every few years, a bunch of people find out that tapes still exist and are widely used for data storage.
  • SquadronROESquadronROE
    It's funny. Every few years, a bunch of people find out that tapes still exist and are widely used for data storage.
    I'm just waiting for the next evolution of punch cards.
  • Jack DraigoJack Draigo
    My car has a tape deck and its an 03.
  • MattMatt
    I recently moved into a house previously occupied by rich people in the early '90s. It has a sauna in the basement. There is a tape deck built into said sauna.
  • no fun girlno fun girl
    It's funny. Every few years, a bunch of people find out that tapes still exist and are widely used for data storage.
    I'm just waiting for the next evolution of punch cards.
    Happened about a decade ago. I think 3M made nano punch cards that could hold a TB of data in a postage stamp size. Just wasn't practically feasible.
  • SchnevetsSchnevets
    Next to me at my desk is an LTO-4 (Linear Tape Open) tape that holds 800 gigs uncompressed (they advertise it as 1.6 terrabytes with a 2:1 compression) and that's technology from 2007. LTO6 is supposed to get released in a month at 2.5 terrabytes natively.

    From what I can conclude, seems like this expected upgrade isn't from a new breakthrough or anything substantial, just the usual improvements in software and making certain parts smaller.

    And I give this a Romney's chance in Ohio that this will lead to any new user format. From here on out, almost any format upgrades are happening in the data centers where customers download their data.
  • open_sketchbookopen_sketchbook
    I will just be happy if we can go back to having big spools of tape spinning in the background of important high-tech government facilities in movies.
  • Dragonmaster LouDragonmaster Lou
    I will just be happy if we can go back to having big spools of tape spinning in the background of important high-tech government facilities in movies.
    Cool looking, but not gonna happen. :P Tape, especially when used in today's high capacities/speeds, is too fragile to not be protected by some sort of cassette or cartridge mechanism.

  • SchnevetsSchnevets
    I will just be happy if we can go back to having big spools of tape spinning in the background of important high-tech government facilities in movies.
    Cool looking, but not gonna happen. :P Tape, especially when used in today's high capacities/speeds, is too fragile to not be protected by some sort of cassette or cartridge mechanism.

    No, but we do use robots!
  • WindUpBirdWindUpBird
    Thinking about getting a tape drive to archive my media libraries once they break 5TB.
  • AprecheApreche
    Thinking about getting a tape drive to archive my media libraries once they break 5TB.
    You are better off using something like Amazon Glacier.
  • Dragonmaster LouDragonmaster Lou
    Thinking about getting a tape drive to archive my media libraries once they break 5TB.
    You are better off using something like Amazon Glacier.
    Whis is, surprise surprise, a cloud interface to tape!
  • WindUpBirdWindUpBird
    Thinking about getting a tape drive to archive my media libraries once they break 5TB.
    You are better off using something like Amazon Glacier.
    You're my boy, Scott! I need to program an interface, though, don't I?

  • AprecheApreche
    Thinking about getting a tape drive to archive my media libraries once they break 5TB.
    You are better off using something like Amazon Glacier.
    You're my boy, Scott! I need to program an interface, though, don't I?

    There's a web interface.
  • WindUpBirdWindUpBird
    Cool cool cool. I wonder if I can write a plugin for XMBC to manage media backups to Glacier.
  • Dragonmaster LouDragonmaster Lou
    Just remember, it can take several hours to get your information back from Glacier.
  • WindUpBirdWindUpBird
    edited November 2012
    Right, but it'd ideally only be used to load hard drives with TV, movies, and music when necessary, to keep me from having to torrent stuff again. Also my photo archives, which need to have been backed up to the cloud like two months ago.
    Post edited by WindUpBird on
  • Dragonmaster LouDragonmaster Lou
    Right, but it'd ideally only be used to load hard drives with TV, movies, and music when necessary, to keep me from having to torrent stuff again. Also my photo archives, which need to have been backed up to the cloud like two months ago.
    Fair enough, although I'm not sure if Amazon Glacier is cost-competitive with other cloud backup providers like Carbonite. Carbonite charges $59/computer/year for unlimited storage. Glacier charges $0.01/GB/month. Let's round Carbonite to $60/year to make the math easier, so we have $5/month for Carbonite. If you're backing up less than 500 GB/month, then Glacier is cheaper. More than that, and Carbonite is cheaper.

    That is for home/personal use though. If you're backing up multiple computers for a business, then Glacier may start to become cheaper than Carbonite -- which isn't surprising as Glacier is meant to be a business, not personal, cloud backup solution.

  • WindUpBirdWindUpBird
    Yeah, Carbonite is way more cost effective. Cheers!
  • MattMatt
    If you're willing to go all-in, Carbonite offers discounts for signing up to their 2 and 3-year plans. $110 for 2-year, $140 for 3-year, and you can easily Google for a 10% off coupon code.
  • SailSail
    Am I the only one who really hates Carbonite's GUI?
  • Dragonmaster LouDragonmaster Lou
    I actually have yet to try Carbonite, but I've heard good things about it. I've been a Mozy customer up until now, but that was only because I got a discount due to working for their parent company. My wife also had a separate, fully paid for Mozy account, but she stopped using it because their Mac client leaked memory like crazy -- within hours it would balloon to over a gig of RAM and leave her MBP so slow she couldn't do her Adobe CS work on it.
  • WindUpBirdWindUpBird
    Actually I have like 100GB right now through Creative Cloud, so I should use that.
  • DaikunDaikun
    I'm just waiting for the next evolution of punch cards.
    How much data can bamboo store?
  • no fun girlno fun girl
    edited November 2012
    It was IBM I was thinking of.
    Post edited by no fun girl on
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