As the amount of data organizations create and manage continues to grow, the cost-effective storage of infrequently accessed information has become a significant challenge. There are several different technologies available for long term data storage, and the one of the significant management issues is to understand the total cost of the different technologies for long term storage of cold data. Working with FujiFilm, I developed a simple, easy to use calculator that provides an estimate of the 10-year total cost of ownership of data storage using tape, cloud and disk technologies. The tape storage costs are based on LTO 7 tape drives and media. The disk storage costs are composed of an average of high capacity, low cost disk systems using 10 TB Enterprise HDD’s while the cloud storage cost estimates are based on an industry leading cloud storage provider. The estimates include the cost of a refreshing the disk and tape infrastructure after 5 years. Here’s a link to the tool TCO Tool.
On October 10th IBM announced the next generation of LTO tape drives, LTO generation 8. The new tape drives are available in a variety of platforms, from the single half-height drive desktop system, to the enterprise class tape libraries; TS3500 and TS4500. All the platforms are planned to be available this year with different availability dates ranging from October through December. For details here is the link: Details. IBM provides a video from the development team discussing the new offering IBM LTO 8 and there is also an article in Forbes LTO 8.