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Fujifilm Created a Magnetic Tape That Can Store 580 Terabytes

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Re: Fujifilm Created a Magnetic Tape That Can Store 580 Terabytes

#321

Post by sedatk »

jaclaz wrote: post #296
sedatk wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here it is, it basically performed as the same as archival grade DVDs: https://www.lne.fr/sites/default/files/inline-files/syylex-g...

Yep, but the reality is that "we don't know", an accelerated, simulated aging test may (or may not) have the same results as "real" aging. 250 hours @ 90 C°/85% humidity, how does that compare to - say - 100,000 hours at a "normal" 10-40 C°/30-50% humidity?

That's right, but regardless of how "extreme" testing is, archival grade DVDs have performed as good as M-DISC, and Syylex has surpassed the rest by a huge margin. Syylex promised the same lifetime as M-DISC (unlike archival grade DVDs). I think the results are good enough to see M-DISC either doesn't live up to the expectations or archival grade DVDs exceed the expectations. Either way, bad news for M-DISC. If Syylex hadn't bankrupted, it would have been the best option of course.

Re: Fujifilm Created a Magnetic Tape That Can Store 580 Terabytes

#322

Post by meonkeys »

unwoundmouse wrote: post #169
analog31 wrote: post #142

Time for the ever golden quote: Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Andrew_S._Tanenbaum

Doing some guestimation, it seems like you could fit an exabyte into an AWS snowmobile. That's insane

Why guess? https://aws.amazon.com/snowmobile/ says 100PB.

Re: Fujifilm Created a Magnetic Tape That Can Store 580 Terabytes

#323

Post by Dylan16807 »

samstave wrote: post #318
Dylan16807 wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Help me out here; which part are you saying nope to?

Archival... Imagine saving BILLIONS of [data points](face,interactions,vids,text,etc) per person on hot or warm? NOPE Life history will be on tape in the archives of such...

Except for videos, that doesn't take up a lot of space. The oppressive part is tracking everywhere you go and everything you say, which fits easily into warm storage.

For example, storing your position every 20 seconds might take 10KB a day. You'll collect 15 million data points in a decade, but each one is only a few bytes.

Re: Fujifilm Created a Magnetic Tape That Can Store 580 Terabytes

#324

Post by samstave »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #323
samstave wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Archival... Imagine saving BILLIONS of [data points](face,interactions,vids,text,etc) per person on hot or warm? NOPE Life history will be on tape in the archives of such...

Except for videos, that doesn't take up a lot of space. The oppressive part is tracking everywhere you go and everything you say, which fits easily into warm storage. For example, storing your position every 20 seconds might take 10KB a day. You'll collect 15 million data points in a decade, but each one is only a few bytes.

scale of the infra cost... (the lifetime of a single person cost NxBACKUPS tapes...)

Edit: but i like your discourse

Re: Fujifilm Created a Magnetic Tape That Can Store 580 Terabytes

#325

Post by rkagerer »

t-writescode wrote: post #292
867-5309 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if tapes are more prone to some form of driveby attack, whereby instead of requiring physical or remote access to a location, a strong enough magnetic field within a certain distance of a datacentre could penetrate bricks and mortar and render them useless I'm envisioning a huge device in the back of a van which pulses a powerful beam, similar to typical movies (Oceans 11?) cutting the power to a bank / casi…

Are you familiar with the story of the force field generated at the 3M plant apparently in 1980? It would probably take more power than that to do what is being suggested from the distances that are being suggested. I'm not sure it's feasible.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ElectroBOOM/comments/9jig1l/can_you...

Re: Fujifilm Created a Magnetic Tape That Can Store 580 Terabytes

#326

Post by webmobdev »

Karunamon wrote: post #198
webmobdev wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. And that too if you are willing to ignore the really slow speed to write them all!

If you're doing archival storage, does the write speed really matter? If you have enough volume of incoming data where the write speed does matter, you've already eliminated most archival storage methods anyways.

True. But slow transfer speed is still a negative when we are comparing it to other archival methods (in this case, the tape drives). And that is why the demand for tape drives for consumers.

Re: Fujifilm Created a Magnetic Tape That Can Store 580 Terabytes

#327

Post by webmobdev »

wazoox wrote: post #284
webmobdev wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a good idea. But I am guessing it failed as it wouldn't be attractive for common folks because, while the tapes might be affordable, tape drives are really expensive and uncommon.

In fact the service is tentatively targeted to content producers. Most post-houses do have LTO drives (it's a requirement to work with NetFlix among other to archive to LTOs). The idea is that any content owner can bring their tapes to the post house when needed (where they would actually use it) instead of USB disk drives.

Having given some thoughts, your potential business success depends on convincing the clients to not buy a tape drive, and addressing the above concerns. Smart pricing can address the former, but the latter needs more brainstorming.

Some of the issues you need to address:

- Trust. How can someone trust you with potentially proprietary / copyrighted data?

- Speed. Is it faster to copy the data to a tape locally, then to transfer to you?

- Reliability. How can the client be sure that you have made a successful backup?

- Advertising. Did you reach your target base to make them aware of your product and address all their concern to make them consider it?

Re: Fujifilm Created a Magnetic Tape That Can Store 580 Terabytes

#328

Post by labawi »

sedatk wrote: post #320
labawi wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The objective of this study was to investigate the behavior of the GlassMasterDisc of Syylex under extreme climatic conditions (90°C and 85% relative humidity) and to demonstrate the potential of this technology for digital archiving. > The result of this study is that the GlassMasterDisc has a much longer lifetime in accelerated aging than other available DVD±R I wouldn't draw any other conclusions on normal agein…

Yes, they did an accelerated test, and M-DISC has performed as good as archival grade DVDs. Syylex, which promises the same lifetime as M-DISC, performed significantly better. That clearly shows either M-DISC didn't live up to their promise, or Syylex and archival grade DVDs surpassed expectations. Either is bad news for M-DISC, isn't it? What am I missing?

The "accelarated test" may not be in any way indicative of true lifetime in moderate conditions. Their own conclusion does not draw any such implications, the only other test they reference is done at 80°C (10°C lower), and the only writing on how or why this test could be indicative of archival lifetime was a generic two sentence: harsher conditions -> faster degradation (in part 4).

It was a pupose-built test to see how much of X would Syylex take. It took X better than others, none of which took X well. Tests like these are very good, if you want to go with Syylex, to make sure it's not worse in some way (X, or Y, Z), which would then suggest a need for further examination. In real aging, factor X may be completely meaningless, while Y and Z are crucial, so you cannot conclude which one will last more.

Why test 90°C and 85% RH, not 80°C, 50°C or 110°C, or bending, UV light, scratching, drop in acid .. whatever? For a proper accelerated lifetime test, you would need to identify (all) relevant degradation modes and model their behaviour (and interaction) in target vs. accelarated test conditions, and then extrapolate behaviour in target conditions. They didn't even write what type of degradation they are testing.

Re: Fujifilm Created a Magnetic Tape That Can Store 580 Terabytes

#329

Post by jaclaz »

sedatk wrote: post #321
jaclaz wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, but the reality is that "we don't know", an accelerated, simulated aging test may (or may not) have the same results as "real" aging. 250 hours @ 90 C°/85% humidity, how does that compare to - say - 100,000 hours at a "normal" 10-40 C°/30-50% humidity?

That's right, but regardless of how "extreme" testing is, archival grade DVDs have performed as good as M-DISC, and Syylex has surpassed the rest by a huge margin. Syylex promised the same lifetime as M-DISC (unlike archival grade DVDs). I think the results are good enough to see M-DISC either doesn't live up to the expectations or archival grade DVDs exceed the expectations. Either way, bad news for M-DISC. If Syyle…

Yes, what I mean is that - set aside the "glass" disc from Syylex - we don't know if both M-DISKs and archival grade DVDs suck or excel, let alone how long they actually last (readable) in the real world.

IF my last guess in comparison is correct, 100,000 hours at "normal" temperature/humidity is roughly 11 years, but it may well be that without "cooking" them at 90 C°, the duration is for both 200,000 hours (or whatever) ...

Single point anecdata, I had to dig i

Re: Fujifilm Created a Magnetic Tape That Can Store 580 Terabytes

#330

Post by wazoox »

webmobdev wrote: post #327
wazoox wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact the service is tentatively targeted to content producers. Most post-houses do have LTO drives (it's a requirement to work with NetFlix among other to archive to LTOs). The idea is that any content owner can bring their tapes to the post house when needed (where they would actually use it) instead of USB disk drives.

Having given some thoughts, your potential business success depends on convincing the clients to not buy a tape drive, and addressing the above concerns. Smart pricing can address the former, but the latter needs more brainstorming. Some of the issues you need to address: - Trust. How can someone trust you with potentially proprietary / copyrighted data? - Speed. Is it faster to copy the data to a tape locally, then…

Yes, that's the point. When you're a content creator and you're making at most a couple of TB of data per month (typical figures), hardly enough to fill a handful of tapes a year, it's hard to justify the expense for a tape drive. OTOH cloud storage is either too complex (S3, Glacier) or too expensive (Dropbox, Box) for this volume of data.

Trust: yep, hard to say for this one. At least I can provide actual guarantees (for instance, none of our storage is out of the country).

Speed: it's possible to send us tapes directly. However the main selling point of our solution is to allow people to upload relatively small volumes of data continuously, then archive it all to tape in large batches when you have enough to fill an LTO.

Reliability: the interface allows the user to see where their files are (on which tape), to run checksum controls on tapes, and restore from tape. Every tape is sold with 3 free operations a year (archive, checksum verification, restoration).

Advertising: that's clearly not our strong point :)

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