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Sony's massive engineering improvement in tape storage

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  Sony's massive engineering improvement in tape storage RS Wood  <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-05-04 21:38 +0000
    Re: Sony's massive engineering improvement in tape storage Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2014-05-05 09:54 +0000
      Re: Sony's massive engineering improvement in tape storage RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-05-05 11:35 +0000
        Re: Sony's massive engineering improvement in tape storage Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2014-05-05 11:44 +0000
          Re: Sony's massive engineering improvement in tape storage despen@verizon.net (Dan.Espen) - 2014-05-05 09:14 -0400
            Re: Sony's massive engineering improvement in tape storage RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-05-05 21:20 +0000
              Re: Sony's massive engineering improvement in tape storage Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2014-05-07 07:09 +0000
                Re: Sony's massive engineering improvement in tape storage Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2014-05-10 16:28 +0200
            Re: Sony's massive engineering improvement in tape storage Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2014-05-10 16:22 +0200
          Re: Sony's massive engineering improvement in tape storage Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2014-05-10 16:00 +0200
          Re: Sony's massive engineering improvement in tape storage Lewis <g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> - 2014-05-11 16:12 +0000
      Re: Sony's massive engineering improvement in tape storage Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2014-05-10 15:52 +0200
        Re: Sony's massive engineering improvement in tape storage Lewis <g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> - 2014-05-11 16:14 +0000
          Re: Sony's massive engineering improvement in tape storage Johny B Good <johnny-b-good@invalid.ntlworld.com> - 2014-05-11 18:29 +0100
    Re: Sony's massive engineering improvement in tape storage Whiskers <catwheezel@operamail.com> - 2014-05-05 15:22 +0100

#2623 — Sony's massive engineering improvement in tape storage

From the «take out the slack with a pencil» department:
Title: Sony blows away record with 185TB cassette tape
Author: Dante D'Orazio
Date: Sun, 04 May 2014 17:08:02 -0400
Link: http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/4/5681066/sony-blows-away-record-with-185tb-cassette-tape

[image 1]

Cassette tapes may have faded into oblivion[2] long ago, but magnetic tape
storage still has a key role to play behind the scenes. Extremely high
density tapes are used by corporations and government agencies for archival
purposes because they're cheaper, more power efficient, and more reliable
than disk-based storage. And now Sony has achieved an incredible storage
capacity of 18.5GB per square inch with its latest magnetic tapes — over five
times the record set in 2010 by IBM, and 74 times greater than tapes
typically used in archival storage today (like the one pictured above). With
that kind of density, one small data cartridge can hold a monumental 185TB of
data, though Sony hasn't commercialized the technology yet. Nevertheless,...

Continue reading…[3]

Links:
[1]: http://cdn1.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/32534689/Screen_Shot_2014-05-04_at_3.33.22_PM.0_standard_800.0.png (image)
[2]: http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/25/5653426/relics-of-technology (link)
[3]: http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/4/5681066/sony-blows-away-record-with-185tb-cassette-tape (link)

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#2629

On 2014-05-04, RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:

> that kind of density, one small data cartridge can hold a monumental 185TB of
> data, 

Kewl.  Just think how much data you can lose at one go.

-- 
Today is Setting Orange, the 52nd day of Discord in the YOLD 3180
“Stupidity cannot be cured. Stupidity is the only universal capital crime;
 the sentence is death. There is no appeal, and execution is carried out
                 automatically and without pity.”

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#2632

On 2014-05-05, Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote:
> On 2014-05-04, RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
>
>> that kind of density, one small data cartridge can hold a monumental 185TB of
>> data, 
>
> Kewl.  Just think how much data you can lose at one go.
>

Isn't that the case for any storage technology though?  Burn to CDs -
disks degrade; you lose data.  Offload to a NAS - even with a fancy RAID
system, what if the device catches fire? Lose a terabyte.  Etc.

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#2633

On 2014-05-05, RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
> On 2014-05-05, Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote:
>> On 2014-05-04, RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
>>
>>> that kind of density, one small data cartridge can hold a monumental 185TB of
>>> data, 
>>
>> Kewl.  Just think how much data you can lose at one go.
>>
>
> Isn't that the case for any storage technology though?  Burn to CDs -
> disks degrade; you lose data.  Offload to a NAS - even with a fancy RAID
> system, what if the device catches fire? Lose a terabyte.  Etc.

Tapes are much less reliable than any other storage medium I've ever come
across. They're also slow. Their one advantage is cheapness. I'd certainly
never rely on a single tape to back anything up.

-- 
Today is Setting Orange, the 52nd day of Discord in the YOLD 3180
“Stupidity cannot be cured. Stupidity is the only universal capital crime;
 the sentence is death. There is no appeal, and execution is carried out
                 automatically and without pity.”

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#2634

Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> writes:

> On 2014-05-05, RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
>> On 2014-05-05, Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote:
>>> On 2014-05-04, RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> that kind of density, one small data cartridge can hold a monumental 185TB of
>>>> data, 
>>>
>>> Kewl.  Just think how much data you can lose at one go.
>>>
>>
>> Isn't that the case for any storage technology though?  Burn to CDs -
>> disks degrade; you lose data.  Offload to a NAS - even with a fancy RAID
>> system, what if the device catches fire? Lose a terabyte.  Etc.
>
> Tapes are much less reliable than any other storage medium I've ever come
> across. They're also slow. Their one advantage is cheapness. I'd certainly
> never rely on a single tape to back anything up.

Tape is probably not for personal use, certainly not these monster tapes.

A tape holding 185TB is probably going to be writing that data pretty
damn fast.

I haven't intentionally used a tape in years, but you back up
transaction data and father/grandfather/son.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backup_rotation_scheme

The 3 level backup scheme works.  I once saw the primary backup
fail and had to work with operations to go back a generation,
re-run the transactions, etc.  We'd never tested it before and
there were a lot of doomsayers, but it worked.  This wasn't tape
though it was those 8 inch diskettes in a magazine.
(IBM System 34.)

-- 
Dan Espen

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#2640

On 2014-05-05 13:14:14 +0000, Dan.Espen said:
> 
> Tape is probably not for personal use, certainly not these monster tapes.
> 
> A tape holding 185TB is probably going to be writing that data pretty
> damn fast.

You're probably right – this stuff isn't for your average consumer.  It 
would still be fun though to get one of these tape decks, put a couple 
gigs of MP3s on them, and then play them back to the astonished faces 
of some young whipper snapper born in the age of the CD.  Then be like, 
"what? what? This is how we listen to music, old-school."  ["Now get 
the hell offa my lawn!"]

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#2668

On 2014-05-05, RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
> On 2014-05-05 13:14:14 +0000, Dan.Espen said:
>> 
>> Tape is probably not for personal use, certainly not these monster tapes.
>> 
>> A tape holding 185TB is probably going to be writing that data pretty
>> damn fast.
>
> You're probably right – this stuff isn't for your average consumer. 

Where do you think the data you backed up "to the cloud" gets backed up?
Assuming it gets backed up at all, that is.

-- 
Today is Boomtime, the 54th day of Discord in the YOLD 3180
“Stupidity cannot be cured. Stupidity is the only universal capital crime;
 the sentence is death. There is no appeal, and execution is carried out
                 automatically and without pity.”

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#2737

On 2014-05-07, Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote:
> On 2014-05-05, RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
>> On 2014-05-05 13:14:14 +0000, Dan.Espen said:
>>> 
>>> Tape is probably not for personal use, certainly not these monster tapes.
>>> 
>>> A tape holding 185TB is probably going to be writing that data pretty
>>> damn fast.
>>
>> You're probably right – this stuff isn't for your average consumer. 
>
> Where do you think the data you backed up "to the cloud" gets backed up?
> Assuming it gets backed up at all, that is.

Oh you cynic! :-)

The hosting ISP I started using in 2008 did claim that everything got backed
up to tapes and offered a restore service at a reasonable charge.

However a couple of years later that offer of service disappeared from their
web pages.  I didn't ask because I was already doing my own backups.

-- 
Paul Sture

The final step of #heartbleed recovery is to call your mother, and advise
her to change her maiden name                                  -- @gojomo

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#2736

On 2014-05-05, Dan.Espen <despen@verizon.net> wrote:

>
> Tape is probably not for personal use, certainly not these monster tapes.
>
> A tape holding 185TB is probably going to be writing that data pretty
> damn fast.

Yep, and you need fast hardware to keep the tape working at full speed.

> I haven't intentionally used a tape in years, but you back up
> transaction data and father/grandfather/son.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backup_rotation_scheme
>
> The 3 level backup scheme works.  I once saw the primary backup
> fail and had to work with operations to go back a generation,
> re-run the transactions, etc.  We'd never tested it before and
> there were a lot of doomsayers, but it worked.  This wasn't tape
> though it was those 8 inch diskettes in a magazine.
> (IBM System 34.)

I see from Wiki that the System 34 was marketed from 1977 to 1984.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System/34>

Yes, prior to 1979 I did use the father/grandfather/son scheme and it
worked fine for production data.  Where it proved insufficient was with our
sources disk pack which got corrupted but we didn't realise until the damage
had been propagated to all backups.

We got a tape drive shortly after that and with the price of blank tapes
it was a no brainer to move to something like this:

* daily - 5 tape sets
* weekly - 5 tape sets
* monthly - 3 tape sets
* quarterly - 4 tape sets

(sets because our system wouldn't fit on one tape)

All backups except the dailies were full disk images, the dailies were
incremental backups which minimised the downtime required for backups,
and made recovery of the occasional file pretty fast too.

-- 
Paul Sture

The final step of #heartbleed recovery is to call your mother, and advise
her to change her maiden name                                  -- @gojomo

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#2735

On 2014-05-05, Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote:
> On 2014-05-05, RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
>> On 2014-05-05, Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote:
>>> On 2014-05-04, RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> that kind of density, one small data cartridge can hold a monumental
>>>> 185TB of data, 
>>>
>>> Kewl.  Just think how much data you can lose at one go.
>>>
>>
>> Isn't that the case for any storage technology though?  Burn to CDs -
>> disks degrade; you lose data.  Offload to a NAS - even with a fancy RAID
>> system, what if the device catches fire? Lose a terabyte.  Etc.
>
> Tapes are much less reliable than any other storage medium I've ever come
> across. They're also slow. Their one advantage is cheapness. I'd certainly
> never rely on a single tape to back anything up.

That's not my experience, tapes have been very reliable for me, though
I must state that the backup utility concerned used CRC for automatic
error recovery.

As for speed, with the right hardware a backup from disk to tape and
back to disk could be faster than disk to disk and back.  With the
faster tape devices the problem was feeding them at full speed so that
they could stream rather than go into start/stop (aka shoe shining) mode.

DAT and Exabyte OTOH were notoriously for being write only technologies
when put to the acid test.

-- 
Paul Sture

The final step of #heartbleed recovery is to call your mother, and advise
her to change her maiden name                                  -- @gojomo

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#2744

In message <bspbs5F9vmlU1@mid.individual.net> 
  Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote:
> On 2014-05-05, RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
>> On 2014-05-05, Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote:
>>> On 2014-05-04, RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> that kind of density, one small data cartridge can hold a monumental 185TB of
>>>> data, 
>>>
>>> Kewl.  Just think how much data you can lose at one go.
>>>
>>
>> Isn't that the case for any storage technology though?  Burn to CDs -
>> disks degrade; you lose data.  Offload to a NAS - even with a fancy RAID
>> system, what if the device catches fire? Lose a terabyte.  Etc.

> Tapes are much less reliable than any other storage medium I've ever come
> across.

Really? That was not my experience in the 80s and early 90s when we
still used tape (either 9 track or 8mm).

> They're also slow.

Compared to what? Writing a lot of data is always slow. the 8mm tapes
were not bad, being only about half the speed of a hard drive. That's a
reasonable speed for a backup.

I used to have to backup a Sun using 8mm tapes in a 7 day incremental
rotation. On Sundays I had to do a weekly full backup rotation (13
sets). The daily backup was quite fast, taking only an hour or two. The
Sunday backup was 12 hours, but I got paid double time for the first 8
hours and triple time for the next four, so I didn't really care. One
Sunday was enough to buy me a 19" TV with RCA video/audio inputs that
lasted me about 15 years.

> Their one advantage is cheapness. I'd certainly never rely on a single
> tape to back anything up.

I'd never rely on a single anything to back anything up.

-- 
Is a vegetarian permitted to eat animal crackers?

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#2734

On 2014-05-05, Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote:
> On 2014-05-04, RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
>
>> that kind of density, one small data cartridge can hold a monumental 185TB of
>> data, 
>
> Kewl.  Just think how much data you can lose at one go.

That has me thinking about the unreliability of DAT...

But if this technology has the kind of reliability I used to enjoy with
DLT IV tapes (35/70GB capacity) I'd be interested.

For the second time today I am reminded of a Usenet sig from a decade or
more ago:

"Nothing beats the bandwidth of a truck load of tapes"

:-)

-- 
Paul Sture

The final step of #heartbleed recovery is to call your mother, and advise
her to change her maiden name                                  -- @gojomo

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#2745

In message <ahn14b-e1o1.ln1@news.chingola.ch> 
  Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> wrote:
> On 2014-05-05, Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote:
>> On 2014-05-04, RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
>>
>>> that kind of density, one small data cartridge can hold a monumental 185TB of
>>> data, 
>>
>> Kewl.  Just think how much data you can lose at one go.

> That has me thinking about the unreliability of DAT...

> But if this technology has the kind of reliability I used to enjoy with
> DLT IV tapes (35/70GB capacity) I'd be interested.

> For the second time today I am reminded of a Usenet sig from a decade or
> more ago:

> "Nothing beats the bandwidth of a truck load of tapes"

The line as I know it is:

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of 9-track
tapes hurtling down the highway.

-- 
Some people are like a slinky: Totally useless, but you
can't help but smile when you push tehm down the stairs

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#2747

On Sun, 11 May 2014 16:14:19 +0000 (UTC), Lewis
<g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:

>In message <ahn14b-e1o1.ln1@news.chingola.ch> 
>  Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> wrote:
>> On 2014-05-05, Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote:
>>> On 2014-05-04, RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> that kind of density, one small data cartridge can hold a monumental 185TB of
>>>> data, 
>>>
>>> Kewl.  Just think how much data you can lose at one go.
>
>> That has me thinking about the unreliability of DAT...
>
>> But if this technology has the kind of reliability I used to enjoy with
>> DLT IV tapes (35/70GB capacity) I'd be interested.
>
>> For the second time today I am reminded of a Usenet sig from a decade or
>> more ago:
>
>> "Nothing beats the bandwidth of a truck load of tapes"
>
>The line as I know it is:
>
>Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of 9-track
>tapes hurtling down the highway.

 And, the one I remember is:

 "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a Jumbo Jet's worth of data
CDs"
-- 
Regards, J B Good

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#2635

On 2014-05-04, RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
> From the «take out the slack with a pencil» department:
> Title: Sony blows away record with 185TB cassette tape
> Author: Dante D'Orazio
> Date: Sun, 04 May 2014 17:08:02 -0400
> Link: http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/4/5681066/sony-blows-away-record-with-185tb-cassette-tape
>
> [image 1]
>
> Cassette tapes may have faded into oblivion[2] long ago, but magnetic tape
> storage still has a key role to play behind the scenes. Extremely high
> density tapes are used by corporations and government agencies for archival
> purposes because they're cheaper, more power efficient, and more reliable
> than disk-based storage. And now Sony has achieved an incredible storage
> capacity of 18.5GB per square inch with its latest magnetic tapes — over five
> times the record set in 2010 by IBM, and 74 times greater than tapes
> typically used in archival storage today (like the one pictured above). With
> that kind of density, one small data cartridge can hold a monumental 185TB of
> data, though Sony hasn't commercialized the technology yet. Nevertheless,...
>
> Continue reading…[3]

[...]

Could this be the development that will make Sinclair Microdrives useful
at last?

-- 
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
--  Whiskers 
-- ~~~~~~~~~~

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