[nylug-talk] backup media

[Joshua Zeidner]

On Wed, Mar 5, 2008 at 3:41 AM, Alex Pilosov <alex at pilosoft.com> wrote:
> Another thing I wanted to bring up:
>
>  Backups on tape may be soon outdated, and we'll think of them as quaint as
>  punchcards.
>
>  The current HDD pricing is comparing very favorably with cost of tape
>  media. For example, 500GB HD is ~100$ (20c/GB). 750GB is ~140$ (18.5c/GB).
>
>  LTO-3 (400GB) media is 35$ (8.75c/GB)
>  LTO-4 (800GB) media is 100$ (12.5c/GB)
>  AIT-5 (400GB) media is 50$ (12.c/GB).
>
>  However, random access drive is much easier to deal with - no delays,
>  near-0 cost of reader, which results in ability to pack *lots* of backup
>  storage in small space (vs huge tape changers). I think we will see a
>  very-very-low-cost huge HDD "storage" arrays (no full access to all drives
>  concurrently, instead, a backplane with software-selectable access). I
>  don't know of a product like that yet, but I'm sure there'll be one soon
>  (think low-cost "thumper"-like chassis)
>
>  Historically, while cost per byte for HDDs has been dropping fast, cost of
>  per byte for magnetic tape media has been dropping far slower. I think in
>  a year or two, we'll see HDDs catch up with cost per byte.
>
>

  Holographic storage is another cool thing in the pipeline:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_memory

  the capacity of holographic media is many orders of maginitude
greater than 2-d media like CD-ROM or HDDs.

  -jmz


-- 

   - http://www.joshuazeidner.com/