8 Terabyte Portable Storage?

[Balthasar]

From Engadget: (http://www.engadget.com/2006/05/17/ibm-fujitsu-developing-8-terabyte-magnetic-tape-cartridges/)

Using barium ferrite crystal film from Fuji and read/write technology from IBM, the two companies are reporting success in creating storage densities of up to 6.67 billion-bits/square-inch, which is something like fifteen times the capacility of current backup tape. Unfortunately there is no word yet if the cartridges, which should be available in about five years, will be able to fit in your old 8-track player for rocking millions and millions of MP3s.This looks like more of a challenge to Blu-Ray's attempt to become the next go-to format for PC data backup than the "next-gen" home video format war.

[ElectricMonk]

this could actually be useful. then between computer re-installs and wipes you can just back your entire hard drive to the tape and never worry about losing data

[phantomhitman]

doesnt the ps4 use this?

[bean19]

This looks like more of a challenge to Blu-Ray's attempt to become the next go-to format for PC data backup than the "next-gen" home video format war.

We really don't know enough to judge. What is the data transfer rate for reading and writing to the tape? How much does it cost to create?

If it is like other tape drives of old, then it will be useless for anything but as data backup. If your data transfer is limited to how quickly you can spool to it on a tape, then it will be very slow.

Still very interesting stuff though. I'd like to know more. . . seems like engadget just used a press release that was void of facts for this though. :(

[agentgray]

Two words.

Flash drives.

I want to plug it in and copy. They are amazing. I don't want to have to use software and wait for this and wait for that. At work, we've moved all our burner users (used for transferrring files) over to 1-2GB flash drives.

This is five years (!) off. Sigh.

[51|RandoM]

oh please, the cartridges won't even be available for at least 5 years. In that timeframe blu-ray will have failed or succeeded already.

...and anybody positioning blu-ray as a data backup format needs their head examined. Optical is far to slow and not near dense enough for backups. You can work it into an HSM strategy, but for pure backups just about anything else---modern, that is---is better.

[ProfPuppet]

That's a lot of porn.

In reality though, I'd want cheaper, 1/2 Terrabyte drives that linked up well. I've had too many drives, portable and otherwise, die completely to want to put all my eggs in one basket.

[Norse]

Please don't tell Sony or they will develop a tape drive for the PS4. Brings back memories of the good old C64...

[51|RandoM]

If it is like other tape drives of old, then it will be useless for anything but as data backup. If your data transfer is limited to how quickly you can spool to it on a tape, then it will be very slow.

Storagetek usually has one tape drive line focused at very fast load and file access times, I've built imaging systems with HSM components with the 2nd tier was on tape. The 9840c is the current model that fits that bill.

http://www.sun.com/storagetek/tape_storage/tape_drives/9840/specs.xml

Won't be around much longer though, imho. Fast tape is not dense tape, so people are ripping out that tier nowadays and replacing it with 500GB SATA harddrives and then slap on a 3rd tier of high capacity tape for offline/nearline.

[Balthasar]

We really don't know enough to judge. What is the data transfer rate for reading and writing to the tape? How much does it cost to create?
All fair questions, but like most of these formats that have been talked about since Blu-Ray and HD-DVD entered the social consciousness, its a bit of a way off and no one knows how economically feasable any of them are. It does seem like sooner rather than later we will come to regard the GB the same way we now regard the KB. Exponential growth.

[devicelimit]

Sony is using their own proprietary cartridge called the blue-tape and it's way better than anything ever seen before.

[Murtaug]

Sony is using their own proprietary cartridge called the blue-tape and it's way better than anything ever seen before.

Is it just a tape I can go pick up at Staples with "Blue-Tape" written on it with a Sharpie?

[51|RandoM]

Is it just a tape I can go pick up at Staples with "Blue-Tape" written on it with a Sharpie?

No, but if you store your movies on it, they'll age like fine wine.

[Mason]

All fair questions, but like most of these formats that have been talked about since Blu-Ray and HD-DVD entered the social consciousness, its a bit of a way off and no one knows how economically feasable any of them are. It does seem like sooner rather than later we will come to regard the GB the same way we now regard the KB. Exponential growth.
The question is content. We jump storage formats, not because they can let us cram in more old stuff, but because they remove a barrier to an entirely new usage. Audio and video, we're all on the same page about that. But what can TB-level storage actually bring to consumers?

Corporate users have an inexhaustible hunger of course, but it is hard to imagine a new application driving consumers to those levels. We all need more data, but not in gigantic static chunks. The safe money is on bandwidth, with physical media for back-up and niche applications.

Until they perfect smellovision, of course.

[Wombat]

Slightly off topic, I was reading an article talking about the posibility of a 'universal library' halding all human data, and saying it would need however many petabytes of storage. It didn't say, so exactly how many zeroes is a petabyte?

[Balthasar]

The question is content. We jump storage formats, not because they can let us cram in more old stuff, but because they remove a barrier to an entirely new usage. Audio and video, we're all on the same page about that. But what can TB-level storage actually bring to consumers?
An end to compressed formats? If you can hold 8 terabytes in your pocket, why bother making mp3's? Or mpegs?

[Johan]

Slightly off topic, I was reading an article talking about the posibility of a 'universal library' halding all human data, and saying it would need however many petabytes of storage. It didn't say, so exactly how many zeroes is a petabyte?

Don't know about a petabyte, but we already have a universal library...the Internet. Just about anything/everything is getting digitized and is accessible online.

[Thenetcase]

this could actually be useful. then between computer re-installs and wipes you can just back your entire hard drive to the tape and never worry about losing data

Actually... why have a hard drive at all? Creat a permanent RAM drive and load everything off the ram... It'd be 100x faster and you'd never have to worry about physical failure due to spinning too many times. ;)

-TNC-

[51|RandoM]

Actually... why have a hard drive at all? Creat a permanent RAM drive and load everything off the ram... It'd be 100x faster and you'd never have to worry about physical failure due to spinning too many times. ;)

-TNC-

Well, it'd have to be flash ram.
...and ECC.
...and mirrored.
...and on a self-correcting file system like ZFS


Cosmic rays are a bitch. :p

[StarGypsy]

Slightly off topic, I was reading an article talking about the posibility of a 'universal library' halding all human data, and saying it would need however many petabytes of storage. It didn't say, so exactly how many zeroes is a petabyte?

A petabyte is 1 Quadrillion bytes or 1,000,000,000,000,000 bytes.

[scuzzmonkey]

Slightly off topic, I was reading an article talking about the posibility of a 'universal library' halding all human data, and saying it would need however many petabytes of storage. It didn't say, so exactly how many zeroes is a petabyte?

petabyte = 1024TB

[StarGypsy]

pebibyte = 1024TB

[Balthasar]

pebibyte = 1024TB
According to wiki, a pebibyte is actually 1024TiB.

[Mason]

An end to compressed formats? If you can hold 8 terabytes in your pocket, why bother making mp3's? Or mpegs?
Well lossless formats I could see, but even then that's not a new application, just a modification to an old one.

[Balthasar]

Well lossless formats I could see, but even then that's not a new application, just a modification to an old one.
True, but instead of trying to find new ways to make our audio and video files smaller, we can start to see audio quality go back in the direction of vinyl and perhaps better, if that's at all possible.

[StarGypsy]

According to wiki, a pebibyte is actually 1024TiB.


Oops :o


Your right Balthasar.

Stupid 2 tier systems....