Spectra Logic’s TFinity ExaScale Tape Library is now able to store an exabyte (one million terabytes) of uncompressed data in a single 45-frame system using LTO-9 tape. Among the largest-capacity storage systems available, the Spectra TFinity enterprise-class tape library achieves the storage density, scalability, reliability and affordability needed for data-driven computing environments, within a very small footprint.
The ninth generation of LTO (Linear Tape-Open) specification exceeds the per-cartridge capacity of LTO-8 by 50 percent to 18TB native, and increases full-height LTO-9 drive transfer performance by 15 percent to 400 MB/s native. The LTO Program has issued an LTO roadmap of objectives extending to Generation 12. It projects future per-cartridge capacities of LTO specifications, with LTO-10 achieving up to 36TB native LTO-11 up to 72TB native and LTO-12 up to 144TB native. This progression advises tape users of the security of their investment in tape, and of the ongoing cost per gigabyte to store their data over its lifespan.
Data Access, Storage and Preservation
Spectra’s tape libraries are in use at organisations such as the British Film Institute, Imperial War Museums, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Minnesota Supercomputing Institute, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and University of Bristol, among others.
Spectra’s line of tape libraries, including the Spectra TFinity ExaScale, Spectra Stack and several others, will integrate with LTO-9 tape and support LTFS (Linear Tape File System), WORM (write once read many), hardware encryption and Spectra’s Media Lifecycle Management, which records health related data points and returns diagnostic information used to proactively manage tape media.
Certified with major ISV software for data centres, Spectra’s tape libraries directly integrate with Spectra’s BlackPearl Object Storage Platform. With that integration, users can create a system of multiple types of storage giving greater data access, storage and preservation to disk, tape and cloud. Furthermore, the Spectra libraries support three tape systems in the same library – LTO, IBM’s TS 11xx and Oracle’s T10000.
“Spectra’s tape libraries protect data at a significantly lower cost than flash or cloud,” said Fred Moore, president of Horison Information Strategies. “They also form an extra layer of protection because tape is an air gapped medium. No electronic connection exists to the data on a removable tape cartridge, preventing malware and ransomware attacks. Unlike disk systems that remain online and are inclined become vulnerable to cybercrime attacks, tape is a more likely safety net for long-term data preservation.”
As well as making an exabyte of uncompressed storage capacity available in a single system, Spectra’s TFinity addresses extreme data growth in such industries as high performance computing, scientific research, media and entertainment, cloud storage, education, healthcare, finance and traditional IT.
More About TFinity Tape Libraries
The tape libraries are scalable from 3 to 45 frames, over 56,000 slots, with bulk loading. They include isolation service frames, which are used to control which applications can access which data at what locations, and increase availability to robotic servicing. The design is modular, making it easier to service and upgrade, and fits in a standard rack-row data centre environment
As well as Media Lifecycle Management, Data Integrity Verification and CarbideClean help to verify the quality of the media. Data Integrity Verification is a series of scans that actively check data already written to tape, and the tape itself. CarbideClean uses a carbide cleaning head to remove particulates created during manufacturing, prior to a tape’s initial use
To make connectivity easier, Spectra Swarm brings Ethernet connectivity to the LTO tape libraries, adding a modern interface that supports the use of Ethernet with SAS tape drives instead of Fibre Channel or or direct-attach SAS architecture. Ethernet is an advantage because it can handle both file and object storage, and support hyper-converged infrastructures that combine storage, compute and networking into one scale-out layer of servers.
Along with this news, Spectra has released a new e-book that outlines the most efficient approaches to storing and protecting massive, rapidly growing data sets. A free copy of the e-book is available here. spectralogic.com
