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| Tape Library News |
StorageMojo Discusses
Prospects for 70TB Tape
Editor:- January 26, 2010 -
StorageMojo, Robin Harris
published a new article today -
Will
a 70TB cartridge save LTO?
Harris's erudite analysis may provide
some comfort for those lonely few of you still entangled in the
knotty tape backup loop -
and it's a good read for the rest of us who - either already made the
transition to disk backup -
or were too young to ever use a tape (or
don't do backups).
New Integrity Tool for Old Tape Archives
Editor:-
January 18, 2010 - Crossroads
Systems today
announced
details of ArchiveVerify - a new monitoring option for its
ReadVerify Appliance
that safeguards the future readability of data
backed up on
tape.
"In our experience, the Achilles' heel of a data recovery
strategy is often the uncertainty of the data's readability, and this single
point of failure can render then entire restore process useless," adds
Bernd Krieger, Managing Director, at Crossroads Europe.
Editor's comments:- Crossroads was originally a specialist in
the SAN router business.
In recent years it has done a lot of work in the area of
storage reliability.
I've read lots of their whitepapers which describe their research and products
addressing data integrity. Although there has been a historic trend for users
to migrate away from
tape to disk backup - many super users of huge
tape libraries (with the
biggest archives) will be the last to migrate away - due to logistics and cost.
It's those kind of users who can benefit most from automated tools or services
which increase the data integrity they achieve and cut down media waste and
unrecoverable events.
$9 million Funding Round for flash SSD Enabled SAN Backup
Editor:-
November 18, 2009 - Axxana
announced it has
secured $9 million Series B
investment led by Carmel Ventures.
Axxana's existing investors, Gemini
Israel Funds and the serial entrepreneur
Moshe Yanai,
also participated in the round.
The funds will be used to accelerate
the adoption of The Phoenix System - the first "Black Box" Enterprise
Data Recorder which was demonstrated at EMC
World in May 2009.
"Axxana's EDR brings a disruptive solution that is well poised
to transform the entire storage replication market and create a whole new
category within it," said Ronen Nir, Partner at Carmel Ventures. "We
are impressed with Axxana's strong founding team and their achievements so far,
including impressive endorsement by leading storage vendors worldwide."
Editor's comments:- Axxana's solution is a lossless data
recovery system which sits on the
SAN and records data into a
rugged flash
SSD-enabled, locally situated, data survival box. Although Axxana talks
about it "complementing" other types of data protection - such as
offsite / online backup
my gut feel is that if the product shows itself to be usable and
reliable in a wide
range of environments - it will set a new standard for
backup which will
supercede anything possible with rotating
disk backup systems or
tape.
The
clearest explanation is in
Axxana's datasheet
(pf).
BakBone Wakes Up to Disk Backup
Editor:- September
16, 2009 -
BakBone Software
today announced
it will change its focus from traditional
tape-based data protection
solutions to disk-based
technology with new products to be launched soon. |
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| FalconStor
Claims Fastest Deduped Backup |
Editor:- June 1, 2009 - FalconStor Software
today claimed
that it now delivers the fastest
backup and
deduplication
time in the industry.
Using a 100TB test bed connected to a single cluster of 2
FalconStor VTL nodes the total time to backup and deduplicate data was under 14
hours, yielding an average of 2GB/s per second.
Physical tape production can
be achieved directly through 4Gbps
Fibre Channel links by
exporting tapes from FalconStor VTL to the physical
tape library without using
a separate media server. All hardware components used for the performance test
are commonly available standard parts, including standard
Linux-based servers and
low-cost SATA-based
storage subsystems.
Editor's comments:-
Record Breaking
claims are often hostage to editor research. We've certainly run stories about
faster backup and restores before - but they didn't include dedupe. Let's see
if this one passes the test of reader scrutiny.
Tandberg's Tape Bust
Editor:- April 27, 2009 - Tandberg Data has
filed for bankruptcy and today announced details of its
restructuring
plan.
There's no surprise here. The current recession has merely
brought forward an inevitable event. Although Tandberg had acquired and
licensed various disk backup
technologies it remained culturally wedded to
tape.
I've
chronicled the transition of the backup market
from tape to hard disk
and in some ways it's
similar to
what's been happening in the hard disk market versus flash SSD space. But the
SSD market is more complicated - because whereas
slow cheap SSDs replace
hard drives, fast
expensive SSDs replace server CPUs.
As with
hard drives, the
highest capacity tape
libraries will remain spinning the longest. Nothing stays the same in the
storage market for
long.
Looking ahead at the next 10 years SSDs will replace hard drives in enterprise
backup systems too.
But let's get back to today's news from Tandberg
Data, whose CEO, Pat Clarke, said - "The operations of the Tandberg Data
subsidiaries will continue to operate in this new structure, with a much reduced
debt burden. The difficult steps we are taking now will enable us to build a
company that can be successful in providing data protection solutions and
support to our valued customers, suppliers, and business partners for a long
time to come"
Trawling back through
gone-away / bust
storage companies list (where the score now stands at 490 BTW) a search
for "Tandberg" reveals it had previously acquired these companies:-
LAND-5,
InoStor,
Exabyte and
Computer Design Group.
Spectra Dims Sun's Lights at NASA Ames
Editor:-
April 20, 2009 - Spectra
Logic today
disclosed
that it has ousted Sun
in a big tape library
installation - following a 9 month evaluation.
Spectra recently
installed 2x
T950
tape libraries which together offer approximately 20,000 data storage
slots and up to 32 petabytes of storage capacity, with data compression.
By
replacing multiple, legacy Sun/STK
9310
silos with Spectra Logic technology,
NASA Ames has
freed more than 1,400 square feet of valuable data center floor space.
Editor's comments:- according to Sun's website, its own
suggested replacement for the 9310 is the
SL8500
Modular Library. So I guess that's the product (or the service offering)
which Spectra beat in this case.
Sun Proposes Standardizing Tape Storage Encryption
Santa Clara, CA -
February 17, 2009 - Sun Microsystems today announced an open source
initiative for removable storage encryption in Solaris environments.
This
is based on the key manager which Sun already uses in some of its
Tape Libraries. See
also:- Storage Security
New VTL Emulates 256 Mainframe Tape Drives
Burlington,
MA - August 11, 2008- Today, Bus-Tech, Inc. announced the introduction
of the Mainframe Data Library model 6000.
The new model boasts of
throughput in excess of 1 gigabyte per second, 4Gbps FICON support, 1,536
emulated tape transports and enhanced availability features. The MDL-6000
features from 3 to 6 independent emulation nodes; each of which support two
FICON channel adapters and emulate up to 256 mainframe tape drives.
...Bus-Tech profile
Sun Launches Terabyte Tape Drive
SANTA
CLARA, CA - July 14, 2008 - Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced
imminent availability of its first terabyte tape drive.
The
T10000B
tape drive offers 1TB of native storage capacity on a single cartridge with
120MB/sec throughput. It uses the same physical tape drive for FICON and
Fibre Channel, allowing
users to switch media between SAN
and mainframe environments. The new drive supports WORM capability and
encryption. Pricing starts at $37,000.
...Sun profile,
Tape drives
1U StorageLoader LTO Aims at Entry Level Tape Backup
Oslo
Norway - June 2, 2008 - Tandberg Data today announced the availability
of its StorageLoader LTO.
The 1U
tape library offers
compressed storage capacities up to 12TB and transfer rates up to 576GB/hr and
is available with LVD SCSI
or SAS connectivity.
The StorageLoader has 2x 4-slot removable magazines. ESP for the
StorageLoader LTO-4 HH is $4,499.
...Tandberg Data
profile
Spectra Libraries will Log Tape Health Metrics
SNW,
ORLANDO, FL - April 8, 2008 - Spectra Logic announced details of its
soon to be released new Media Lifecycle Management software for its tape
library customers.
MLM will reduce backup failures by tracking
more than 30 pieces of information about individual LTO tapes and logging this
on on the tape's built in flash chip. Information such as: born-on date, number
of reads and writes, error rate, media quality, date of last access, application
usage, encryption information, cleaning log and remaining capacity are tracked.
MLM and BlueScale are compatible with all major
backup applications.
...Spectra Logic
profile
Editor's comments:- already past the decline and now in
the fall years of the tape
library market it looks like customers will get all kinds of useful
information and services which they probably would have liked to have before.
This sounds similar in concept to the
SMART
logs in hard disks
and SiSMART
in SiliconSystems'
flash SSDs.
Fujifilm Launches Wireless Backup Tape Tracker
VALHALLA,
N.Y. - March 26, 2008 - Fujifilm today announced the immediate
availability of the Fujifilm Tape Tracker, a wireless tool to help data
managers increase security of data by tracking in real-time the location and
status of sensitive removable media cartridges while in transit.
The Fujifilm Tape Tracker (patents pending) is designed within a 0.5" tape
cartridge format, enabling it to fit snugly and discreetly inside nearly any
tape media case. The Fujifind application uses the information, tracking,
geo-fencing and notification capability of SC-Integrity's
LoJack
InTransit monitoring solution.
"The tremendous feedback we received from customers when we
introduced this concept last year made clear - there is a significant desire to
maintain visibility and control over removable media during shipment from one
location to another," said Daniel Greenberg at Fujifilm Recording Media. "The
ability of tape to store
large quantities of data in a cost effective, energy efficient, removable format
make it a preferred medium to backup and archive critical business data. The
Tape Tracker gives power back to the data managers to maintain a chain of
custody for these assets as they move between data center backup, vault or
disaster recovery destinations."
...Fujifilm profile
Expansion Modules Push Tape Library
Past 2 Petabytes
SIMI VALLEY,
Calif - February 20, 2008 - Qualstar Corp today announced that the MEM
ll (Memory Expansion Module), is now available on its popular XLS-812300 tape
library.
Each MEM ll delivers 535 tape storage slots in just 5.3
square feet of floor space. Using LTO 4 tape technology with typical
compression, a single MEM ll holds 856 terabytes, one of the highest storage
densities in the industry. One or two MEM ll's can be added to each XLS-812300
Library System, raising its total capacity to 1,365 slots, or 2.2 petabytes of
data.
XLS-812300 libraries hold up to 12 LTO 4
tape drives, delivering
data throughput rates of over 5 terabytes per hour to meet ever-narrowing backup
windows. Adding capacity or drives is readily accomplished in the field with
minimal interruption to on-going operations. The MEM ll can be intermixed with
the XLS-812300 Expansion Pods to provide granular solutions to meet a broad
range of data protection and archival storage growth requirements. ...Qualstar profile,
Tape Libraries &
Autoloaders
Tandberg Data Launches 100 Slot Tape
Library
Oslo
Norway - January 14, 2008 - Tandberg Data today introduced the
StorageLibrary T40+ 4U rackmount tape library
The StorageLibrary
T40+ allows users to stack up to 5x T40+ libraries together, offering from 24
to 188 slots, with capacities ranging from 9.6TB to 150TB (native). Avaialble
interfaces include LVD SCSI,
Fibre Channel and
SAS. MSRP starts
at $10,495.
"The 20 to 100 slot LTO
tape library segment is
the growing segment in the tape automation market," says Hamish Macarthur
from Macarthur Stroud
International.
...Tandberg Data
profile | |
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| tape library history:- see this
page in
2000,
2001,
2002,
2003,
2004,
2005 |
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Megabyte's
cousin, Terrorbyte, had a
huge tape library. It was a bit scary. | |
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