End to Tape Storage Not on Horizon

We receive this email from Dr. Roy Cideciyan, research scientist, IBM Research, Zurich, Switzerland:

I read your article End of Removable Storage Media? with interest.

Removable magnetic tape storage is the most cost-efficient way to store cold data and therefore will be used for many decades to come. Cloud storage companies are either storing cold data on tape drives or are studying how to reduce their storage cost by storing data on magnetic tape cartridges. Recently, IBM Zurich Research lab in cooperation with Fujifilm demonstrated a world record areal density of 317Gb per square inch for storing data on Strontium Ferrite magnetic tape.

The first 2 paragraphs of the above article submitted to IEEE describe why an end to magnetic tape storage is not on the horizon and therefore may be of interest to your readers.

The areal-density scaling of HDDs has slowed from a CAGR of over 100% in the late nineties, to about 39% in the early 2000’s and to an average of about 7.6% over the last several years [1]. This slow-down in HDD scaling in combination with the ongoing exponential growth in data is driving demand for scalable, cost-effective storage solutions.

Areal Density Trends. HDD, Tape Product and Tape Technology Roadmap

State-of-the-art tape systems provide high data rates and very low TCO for storing large volumes of data, with the drawback of a higher access latency compared to alternatives such as HDD or flash. This trade-off makes tape well suited for the long-term storage of less frequently accessed data that can tolerate higher latencies, i.e. “cold” data. As a result, tape systems are increasingly used for the storage of cold data in tiered storage infrastructure, both in on-premise data centers as well as in cloud and hybrid cloud solutions. As the amount of data produced continues to grow, the need for cost-effective storage solutions will also grow and hence it is critical to continue scaling the areal density and capacity of tape systems.

State-of-the-art commercial magnetic tape drives provide a native cartridge capacity of 20TB and operate at an areal density of about 11.7Gb/in², which is today about two orders of magnitude lower than the areal density of HDD [1]. Considering that tape systems utilize the same basic magnetic recording principles as HDD, there is a significant potential for tape to continue scaling before it encounters the challenges currently faced by HDD. Indeed, the 2019-2029 Information Storage Industry Consortium (INSIC) Tape Roadmap projects that the areal density of magnetic tape systems will scale with a CAGR of about 34%, leading to an expected tape areal density of 278Gb/in² in 2029 [1].”

[1] Information Storage Industry Consortium (INSIC) 2019-2029 Tape Roadmap