Tape for Back Ups: What about Restore and a Few Other Trivial Questions?
December 31, 2020
I read “Fujifilm Created a Magnetic Tape That Can Restore 580 Terabytes.” Amazing. Remarkable. Incredible. Tape!
The write up reports:
The breakthrough, developed jointly with IBM Research, uses a new magnetic particle called Strontium Ferrite (SrFe), commonly used as a raw material for making motor magnets. Fujifilm has been investigating Strontium Ferrite as a possible successor to Barium Ferrite (BaFe), which is the leading material today.
Yep, strontium. Definitely a favorite among some laboring at LANL, Oak Ridge, and Argonne as well as among home experimenters with highly chemical reactive substances. Plus, there’s IBM in the mix. Yep, the Watson folk. Greetings, Blue folk.
I learned:
To put 580 terabytes in perspective, it’s roughly the equivalent of 120,000 DVDs or 786,977 CDs — IBM notes that stacking that many CDs would result in a tower 3,097 feet (944m) tall, or taller than Burj Kalifa, the world’s tallest building. All that data can now fit in a tape cartridge in the palm of your hand.
And how long will this wonder persist as usable media? 30 years.
I do have a couple of questions:
- Write speed?
- Read speed?
- Actual restore speed for 500 terabytes (there is overhead on these puppies, right?)?
- Mechanism to locate the specific blocks required for the restore?
- In use error rate?
- Storage environment required? (Faraday room, cavern in Kansas, in a pile on a metal rack in the junk closet?)
- What’s the cost in fully loaded dollars for the software, device, and staff time for write and restore?
- What’s the tensile strength of the medium in 29 years?
Ah, but there are no answers in the write up.
There you go. Let’s ask Watson or someone who has reported to a client, “Your tape backups are unreadable.” Ever heard that before? I sure have.
Stephen E Arnold, December 31, 2020
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