The Greenest Storage Technology is Dying? Says Who?
The Greenest Storage Technology is Dying? Says Who?
September 25, 2007: Love it or hate it, Tape storage is a very real part of most data centres and is hailed as the greenest storage technology available.
It seems those who offer competing technology find endless amusement pronouncing a technology is on its way out, or has already died. Despite these types of pronouncements being thrown tape’s way, the medium is very much alive and kicking with reams of research funding being heaped into its advancement.
Tape has been around for many years, and in recent times the biggest boon has come from the global warming phenomenon which has captured hearts and minds all over the world. This has put the focus on developing technologies which cost less energy resources then before, and in the storage world this means not only the energy used to run the device, but also the energy used to cool it.
In terms of practical application, data centres can have a drive which uses a tiny fraction of the amount of power it used too, but if it requires a huge increase in cooling to operate it then the environment hasn’t benefited at all. Whilst a number of drive advancements have seen the emergence of green friendly devices which require no extra cooling and less power then before, they are still light years behind the greenest technology of them all, which is Tape Storage.
Tape can quite happily function with no additional cooling whatsoever and has dramatically less power requirements then other storage options such as hard drive based solutions. So whilst hard drive producers were rushing to spend research & development dollars to green their products, tape producers already had the real deal, with no chance of anyone catching up.
So what’s in store for the future of tape storage? Is it really dying? See IDM’s upcoming September/October issue for the full story.