White paper - Alternative Storage Technologies

Alternative Storage Technologies Whitepaper

MAGNETIC TAPE What it is: Magnetic tape is an analogue medium for magnetic recording, made of a thin magne- tizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic film. The plastic film is coated with magnetic material, i.e. ferric oxide powder which is mixed with a binder to attach it to the plastic. It includes a dry lubricant to avoid damaging the tape drive. The magnetic coating makes it possible to retain electronically encrypted data in digital format. The tape is normally packaged in a plastic cartridge for protection and tape drives are used to read and write the data. Cheap mass storage: Magnetic tape allows large amounts of digital data to be stored at a relatively low cost, making it well suited for a mass storage purpose. Handle with care: When using tape for archiving purposes one has to bear in mind that tape is a sensitive material that requires proper handling and environmental conditions. For instance, mag- netic fields are obviously a threat to any magnetic storage, and smoke and small particles can cause damage and loss of data. It is therefore imperative to have clean operating conditions, with the right temperature and humidity levels. With minimal usage, handled properly and stored in optimal conditions, magnetic tapes have a lifetime expec- tancy ranging between 10 to 30 years. 2 However, due to the delicate material and its high density of

Linear Tape Open (LTO) is a magnetic tape storage open technology that was developed in the late 1990s by HP, IBM and Certance (now Quantum). LTO is widely used for mass storage, and the latest generations (LTO 7) can store up to 6 terabyte. For long-term preservation purposes, it is important to be aware that data capacity increases for each generation, but this has a negative impact on the expected lifetime. As for other magnetic tapes, LTO requires a migration-based archiving strategy in order to ensure data safety and accessibility. kept to a minimum, and it is considered “best prac- tice” to migrate the data at least every 5-10 years to newer tape formats. Migrations and vendor lock-in: A drawback with magnetic tape is that data retrieval is depen- dent on specific reading devices, i.e. tape drives, which need to be maintained. New tape drives are normally not able to bring back data from older generations of tapes 3 . This means that when using magnetic tape for long term preservation, regular and endless investments in migration is needed.

storage, the risk of damage and failure increases each time the tape is used. Consequently, the usage should be

2 Fujifilm, “LTO Ultrium Technology” 2012, www.fujifilmusa.com/shared/bin/LTO_Data_Tape_Seminar_2012.pdf 3 LTO Ultrium readers are two generations backward compatible