Four trends that make tape more than ever relevant for data storage 

Did you know that Google, Microsoft and Netflix make large-scale use of tape to store their data? Tape is often seen as an outdated medium, but through the emergence of Artificial Intelligence, IoT and streaming services it is becoming more relevant than ever. In this blog you can read more about trends that are resulting in an increasing number of organizations opting for tape.

Over the years all kinds of methods have been devised to store data. Floppy disks, tape, hard drives and flash technology. Tape has continued to survive. In fact, it is expected that the market size for tape will double in the coming years. The most important reason for this: low costs.

World record makes tape even more interesting

An increasing volume of data can be stored on a tape. A new world record has recently been established by IBM and Fuji : 317 gigabytes of data on one square inch of tape. Due to the large storage capacity, tape has the lowest cost price per gigabyte. And that is very interesting at a time when the volume of data is increasing by 60 percent annually.

There are a couple of important drivers for tape usage :

• The media and entertainment sector is using and re-using more digital content to reach consumers and increase sales. Streaming services like Netflix possess petabytes of compressed data and they are certainly not storing all that on expensive hard discs.
• Increasing use of smart cameras. Security cameras, which make use of facial recognition (AI), are being installed everywhere to take high-quality video recordings. All these images have to be stored somewhere.
• Internet of Things. Devices connected with the Internet are often full of sensors that pass on information for processing and storage.
• Increase of cyber crime. There is little chance of the theft of data from tape, because the major advantage of tape cartridges is that they can be easily stored offline. Users can keep them physically separated from computer systems (the so-called air gap).

Continued innovation in tape

The fact that tape manufacturers continuously invest in increasing storage capacity is of course also beneficial for the required storage space. Furthermore, this improves performance. Accessing data on tape is becoming increasingly faster. However, tape is primarily used for archiving. Not only because tape easily lasts thirty years, but for instance because it requires less power consumption.

As a result of legislation, many organizations are faced with long data storage periods, which makes tape especially interesting for them. That tape is scalable (for example, by connecting systems to each other) also plays an important role. Because it makes no difference where tape drives are located, they fit excellently in a hybrid strategy, where data is stored both on-premise and in the cloud.

In summary: tape certainly has a future and is particularly of interest for those who need to store large volumes of data securely and inexpensively.
Do you want to know more about storing data on tape? Download our white paper ‘Why tape storage is alive and kicking and more future proof than ever’ or contact us without any obligation.

https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/tape-storage-market#:~:text=The global tape storage market,7.8% from 2020 to 2030.
https://www.computable.nl/artikel/nieuws/digital-innovation/7108219/250449/ibm-en-fujifilm-zetten-wereldrecord-tape-opslag-neer.html
https://www.enterprisestorageforum.com/hardware/new-trends-in-tape-storage/
https://www.tapetember.com/portals/0/tape storage council 2019 november 15 final.pdf