In context: While consumers are mostly dealing with SSDs and HDDs for their storage needs these days, tape-based solutions are still the way to go for archiving the massive amounts of data that cloud and internet companies have to regularly manage and compute upon.
Colorado-based company Spectra Logic recently introduced the latest product in its line of tape libraries for truly hardcore storage enterprise needs. Spectra Cube is the first library specifically designed for cloud environments, the backup company said, providing easy deployment and management opportunities with a remarkable overall storage capacity and full support for the latest tape technology standards.
Spectra Cube is compatible with several iterations of the Linear Tape-Open (LTO) format, from LTO-6 to LTO-9. LTO is a magnetic tape technology for data storage originally developed in the 1990s as an open standard alternative to proprietary tape formats, with built-in encryption and a dedicated file system (LTFS) that allows access to files stored on tape as if they were on disks or removable Flash drives.
The new library can offer up to 30 petabytes of native storage capacity, which can go up to 75 petabytes (or 75,000 terabytes) when compression is used. Data throughput is 32 TB per hour, and the library can even adapt to future generations of the LTO format when they become available. Spectra Cube includes the company’s own library management software (LumOS), which can seemingly provide an intuitive and “feature-rich” interface to monitor all that data from remote locations.
The company said Spectra Cube can be deployed quickly, can be dynamically scaled to meet a client’s specific needs, and doesn’t need specialized tools when servicing is required. Tape slots can be dynamically added with no downtime or service calls, while modern backup solutions and asset managers are fully supported. Amazon S3 and Amazon S3 Glacier API support is there as well.
Matt Ninesling, Spectra’s senior director of tape portfolio management, highlighted how public cloud storage costs are escalating at an accelerated pace. Enterprise players are expressing a growing interest in alternative solutions, like moving their data to more economical locations including on-premise cloud and hybrid cloud platforms.
Ninesling provided some remarkable cost-cutting prospects, as Spectra Cube libraries are seemingly good enough to reduce costs for cold storage by “half or more.” Furthermore, the new tape library can even offer better data control and protection from today’s most dangerous security threats like ransomware. Spectra didn’t provide any specific information about Spectra Cube’s price, a telltale sign of the fact that this is not a storage product for traditional consumers.
