Wednesday, August 30th 2023
Fujifilm and IBM Develop 50 TB Native Tape Storage System, Featuring World's Highest Data Storage Tape Capacity
FUJIFILM Corporation (President and CEO, Representative Director: Teiichi Goto) and IBM today announced the development of a 50 TB native tape storage system, featuring the world's highest native data tape cartridge capacity. Fujifilm has commenced production of a high-density tape cartridge for use with IBM's newest enterprise tape drive, the TS1170. The sixth-generation IBM 3592 JF tape cartridge incorporates a newly developed technology featuring fine hybrid magnetic particles to enable higher data storage capacity.
Innovations in achieving 50 TB Native Capacity
Fujifilm has succeeded in achieving this innovative cartridge capacity by evolving the technologies developed in previous tape generations. This involved enhancing both the areal recording density (the amount of data that can be recorded per square inch) and the overall recording area (the surface area capable of recording data).
Kei Nagata, Deputy General Manager of the Industrial Products Division at Fujifilm, says:
"With 50 TB native capacity, 2.5 times the capacity of the previous highest-capacity tape cartridges, Fujifilm believes this breakthrough demonstrates the future potential of tape technology. The IBM 3592 JF tape cartridge is yet another milestone in many years of joint research and development with IBM, and we are honored to be the manufacturer of this product."
Alistair Symon, Vice President of Storage Systems Development at IBM, says:
"The advanced technology in the IBM 3592 JF tape cartridge will enable customers to realize high densities, which facilitates storage cost optimization while maintaining performance and time to data. This is the first tape storage medium with 50 TB native capacity, and it demonstrates tape's viability as an optimal choice for data protection, active archives and long-term retention in scientific data, industrial data collection and cloud service provider environments."
The innovation of the IBM 3592 JF tape cartridge, only available on the new IBM TS1170 Tape Drive, provides the ability to store up to 150 TB of data on a single tape cartridge with a 3:1 compression ratio, enabling clients to achieve ultra-high data storage on the TS1170.
Source:
Fujifilm
Innovations in achieving 50 TB Native Capacity
Fujifilm has succeeded in achieving this innovative cartridge capacity by evolving the technologies developed in previous tape generations. This involved enhancing both the areal recording density (the amount of data that can be recorded per square inch) and the overall recording area (the surface area capable of recording data).
- Nanoparticle Design Technology: Fine hybrid magnetic particles have been newly developed by combining the technologies used in the next-generation Strontium Ferrite (SrFe) magnetic particles and the Barium Ferrite (BaFe) particles that are currently used in high-capacity data storage tapes. Reduction in the size of the magnetic particles and enhancement in their magnetic properties significantly improves the areal recording density.
- High-dispersion technology for magnetic particles prevents the aggregation of individual ultrafine magnetic particles and allows for a more even dispersion of the particles.
- Improved thin layer coating technology achieves a more uniform and smoother tape surface, resulting in improved signal-to-noise ratio.
- A 15% longer tape per data cartridge compared to the previous fifth generation is realized by using a thinner and stronger base film, which is for the support of the magnetic layer.
Kei Nagata, Deputy General Manager of the Industrial Products Division at Fujifilm, says:
"With 50 TB native capacity, 2.5 times the capacity of the previous highest-capacity tape cartridges, Fujifilm believes this breakthrough demonstrates the future potential of tape technology. The IBM 3592 JF tape cartridge is yet another milestone in many years of joint research and development with IBM, and we are honored to be the manufacturer of this product."
Alistair Symon, Vice President of Storage Systems Development at IBM, says:
"The advanced technology in the IBM 3592 JF tape cartridge will enable customers to realize high densities, which facilitates storage cost optimization while maintaining performance and time to data. This is the first tape storage medium with 50 TB native capacity, and it demonstrates tape's viability as an optimal choice for data protection, active archives and long-term retention in scientific data, industrial data collection and cloud service provider environments."
The innovation of the IBM 3592 JF tape cartridge, only available on the new IBM TS1170 Tape Drive, provides the ability to store up to 150 TB of data on a single tape cartridge with a 3:1 compression ratio, enabling clients to achieve ultra-high data storage on the TS1170.
24 Comments on Fujifilm and IBM Develop 50 TB Native Tape Storage System, Featuring World's Highest Data Storage Tape Capacity
Just IBM itself storing loads of data each month, flatbed trucks full with tapes going to these "data bunkers" each month for long term storage.
But you can think of bank's transactional and accounting data, factories' production data and many other things.
When you can order back tapes in case of need, but tape return from those places might take a week or more tho.
Tapes are great because they offer the longest data, and it is also the cheapest. Profit oriented organizations love that!
HDD is 5 years and SSD is 10 years, and you can access you data pretty much instantly.
In my opinion they DO hold a candle, it is pretty close in longevity and the seek times are orders of magnitude higher.
I simply don't see a point for magnetic tapes in 2023.
Hm, this isn't LTO, so what is it? Apparently IBM also has had another format called the IBM 3592 since 2003, and is an active developer of both LTO (for peasants) and this thing here (for mainframes).
Magnetic tape costs only the fraction of HDD-s, it is around 25% of the price compared to a HDD based price.LTO boasts an impressive 15 to 30-year lifespan. In comparison, HDDs are more volatile with a higher failure rate and a life expectancy of around 5 years.
You don't get the point of long term archiving.
Also, archiving data on SSD-s are like making Phonograph records on a pure gold disk... :laugh:
Here is something to read about this:
www.popsci.com/technology/ibm-diamondback-tape-library/
TLDR
It is holding a lot of data for the cheapest ever while keeping your record for the longest time possible
Literally the best scenario for archiving in a world where annually producing ~100 ZB
"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway" - Andrew Tanenbaum (1981)
Given this conundrum I just opted to do nothing.
LTO5 tapes are 1.5TB uncompressed (and probably ~$18 a pop) so good but not quite good enough IMO. If you need ~60 to ~70 tapes for your data set it’s a tough sell.
~$4k or more for a newer standard is a tough sell.
I’ve also heard that the custom software can be expensive too. So overall not too realistic for the average Joe.
The older stuff doesn’t seem all that realistic either because of the lower capacity. You almost might as well be playing with an iOmega Zip or Jazz drive,…….almost.
LTO5 might be worth playing around with for sh!ts and g!ggles but probably not for serious use.
Edit:
Although, in the event of catastrophic data loss, it’s probably better to have some percentage of data backed up rather then losing everything.