The SymplyPRO Ethernet LTO appliances enable Acceleration and De-centralisation of Data Protection
Cambridge, Great Britain – 5th September 2023 – Symply, a pioneering technology company specializing in professional storage solutions, is thrilled to announce the launch of a new range of cutting-edge LTO appliances with Ethernet connectivity that expands the SymplyPRO family. Designed for Ethernet-based and Hyper-converged environments including media & entertainment, enterprises and datacentres, the SymplyPRO Ethernet LTO appliances provide secure, shared access to LTO tape drives over a 10Gb Ethernet network.
Elevating Data Protection with Network Efficiency
By deploying the appliances on a network, organizations can reduce reliance on dedicated and expensive servers by dispersing and de-centralising data protection tasks with readily available high-speed access to Linear Tape-Open (LTO) technology.
Unparalleled Configuration Flexibility
SymplyPRO Ethernet LTO appliances are available with half-height LTO drives in single and dual-drive desktop and 1RU configurations, with 2RU rackmount configurations featuring full-height LTO drives offering native performance up to 400MB/sec per drive. Dual 10Gb Ethernet SFP+ interfaces offer flexibility in network connectivity. The appliance can support either an additional two LTO drives via a SymplyPRO SAS LTO making a total of four LTOs, or the appliance can be connected to a LTO tape library installed with one or two LTO drives, providing maximum flexibility.
The Heart of Performance: A Potent ARM Processor
At the core of these appliances lies a potent ARM processor, enabling lightning-fast command processing and data traversal on distinct pathways. This results in maximum block transfer sizes to the LTO drives across the Ethernet network, while integrated data acceleration technology ensures optimal performance without straining host system compute resources. Resultantly, SymplyPRO Ethernet LTO appliances provide a remarkable 20% performance increase over conventional SAS-connected LTO drives. With dedicated Dual 10Gb Ethernet network connectivity, client systems can achieve aggregated performance of up to 2,000MB/sec when reading from or writing to the LTO appliances.
Your Pathway to Enterprise-Class LTO Storage
"Our vision for these new Ethernet-connected appliances is to make enterprise-class LTO storage readily accessible for organizations of all sizes," said Keith Warburton, CEO of Symply. "By moving LTO to a dedicated Ethernet fabric, a user experiences a new level of performance, scalability, and dispersed ease of use for important data protection initiatives."
Key features of the new SymplyPRO Ethernet LTO appliances include:
The new SymplyPRO Ethernet LTO appliances are available to order now starting at $7999 and can be seen on the Symply stand at IBC 2023, Hall 7, Stand C21.
More information can be found at https://gosymply.com/item/ethernet-lto/
About Symply:
Symply is a forward-thinking, dynamic technology company based in Cambridge, Great Britain, specializing in cutting-edge storage solutions. With a dedication to innovation, performance, and security, Symply continues to redefine data management for creative professionals, businesses, and enterprises worldwide.
Press Contact:
Roman Minalto
Roman@gosymply.com | +44(0)1223 228040
SYMPLY
Unit 7 Kings Court
Cambridge
CB4 2PF, UK
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In recent blogs, we have touched on backup and archive strategies utilising Linear Tape Open (LTO), or a combination of LTO with on-premise disk and public cloud. We have also talked about the current generation of LTO, LTO-9, migration strategies for LTO, and the LTO roadmap going forward and how this compares to hard drives. In this blog, the aim is to expand on where the various digital storage technologies such as hard drives (HDDs) and LTO compete with each other and the future of the various technologies.
The recent pandemic years of 2020 and 2021 saw a growing demand for digital storage, especially HDDs driven by data centre expansion and client computing to support remote working. LTO also did extremely well in 2021 growing 40% over the previous year with 148 Exabytes (EB) shipped, versus 114 EB in 2019 and 105 EB in 2020 (note these figures are for compressed capacities, but still impressive).
2022 for HDDs and SSDs saw a slowdown, especially in the second half of that year, as economic uncertainty increased, demand dropped, which led to significant oversupply in the market. Trendfocus, Inc. released preliminary results for CQ4 2022 showing HDD shipments decreased between 11.5 and 12.5 million units or around 25% quarter on quarter. That said, SSD is now dominating in many areas that were traditionally the preserve of the hard disk, such as laptops and desktops, portable storage, and high-performance storage solutions which are becoming increasingly dominated by SSD media. This has relegated the HDD to higher capacity nearline storage applications where the price per TB for SSD is too high. The increasing use of SSD media is contributing significantly to the decreasing sales of HDDs, particularly in conjunction with the global economic slowdown that occurred in the latter half of 2022.
2022 saw the release of 20TB HDDs from Seagate, Toshiba, and WDC, with WDC going one better and releasing a 22TB HDD. Let's also not forget that LTO-9 was released in 2021, admittedly a year late and with not quite the promised capacity, with 18TB native and 45TB compressed per cartridge. What is driving these very large capacities both on HDD and LTO? In a nutshell, it is largely the cloud hyperscalers, who are demanding, along with other countless data centres, ever higher capacities on both HDD and LTO.
This demand for ever-higher capacities has caused problems for the HDD vendors and the problem is density. Consider that an 18TB hard drive has a density of 1022 Gbit/sq inch versus the LTO-9 cartridge which has a density of only 12Gbit/sq inch. Put simply, this means that LTO-9 tape can achieve the same capacity with only 1/85th of the areal density as that of the same capacity disk. This is why it is possible for LTO technology to keep increasing capacity at historical rates, with capacity doubling every generation (see LTO roadmap).
The latest LTO roadmap features LTO-14 with a native capacity of 576TB per data cartridge, which you can expect to be available in the mid 2030s, assuming a 3-year gap between generations, with LTO-10 rumoured to be released in the latter half of 2023. These higher capacities have already been demonstrated in a lab, with IBM and Fujifilm demonstrating 220TB on a tape as early as April 2015, using barium ferrite (BaFe) technology. Then in December 2017, IBM and Sony achieved a 330TB native tape. Not to be outdone, Fujifilm resumed its partnership with IBM and in 2020 achieved a capacity of 580TB a density of 317Gbit/sq inch (remember an 18TB HDD has a density of 1022 Gbit/sq).
The road to 576TB LTO tape is unlikely to be without its problems. LTO-8 ended the backwards read compatibility of two generations of LTO, due to changes in the head technology. There was a problem with media supply due to the patent dispute between Sony and Fujifilm that disrupted the supply of LTO-8 media in the early days of that generation. This led to the rather ill-conceived LTO-8M technology stopgap, the less said the better (in our opinion). Currently, LTO-8 and LTO-9 media uses BaFe technology, but it is likely that future LTO media will use new magnetic particles, such as epsilon ferric oxide (ε-Fe2O3) the most likely candidate for LTO-10, and then further down the line, Strontium Ferrite (SrFe) which was used to achieve that 580 TB on a tape in 2020. Changes in the magnetic particles used will have a knock-on effect on the new generation of drive heads and vice versa, which will inevitably lead to changes and restrictions in compatibility between generations. The low cost per TB to store data on LTO, combined with the fact that Fujifilm estimates that the carbon emissions from LTO is 43% less compared to HDDs, could beg the question: Do these speculated changes to compatibility between generations even matter?
As we have just seen, areal density on media does not affect LTO, but it certainly affects HDDs. The current 20TB and 22TB HDDs use Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR), utilising perpendicular magnetic recording on the disk platters, as their forebears have done for a decade or more. But they are very likely to be the last of their kind. To gain higher track densities on the disk platters, manufacturers are turning to Shingling Magnetic Recording (SMR) and Energy-Assisted Magnetic Recording (EAMR) technologies. Shingling offers a relatively easy capacity gain of about 10% by overlaying tracks on the disks, like roof shingles or tiles(hence the name), the downside of this is that the process to write the tracks is more complicated and therefore slower, especially if data has to be changed or deleted. To replace a single shingle (tile) on a roof, many other shingles have to be removed to change the desired shingle, and the principle is the same with shingled HDD technology. So SMR hard drives are traditionally more suited to data sets that are changed infrequently, but frequently read. Indeed, the hyperscalers and data centre customers have in place software strategies to take advantage of these higher capacity drives.
WDC introduced, what they call, ultra-SMR drives in 2022, which feature their OptiNAND technology. Essentially this is an additional NAND flash layer incorporated into the drive and used for key drive housekeeping functions that can take advantage of the speed of the NAND flash to store more metadata which enhances the performance of the drive along with freeing up capacity on the disk itself that would otherwise be taken up by the metadata. This means the same drive heads and media used in the WDC 22TB CMR HDD can be stretched to provide 26TB in the ultra-SMR format.
Seagate has SMR HDDs as well, but Seagate has also bet big on Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR), which is a form of energy-assisted magnetic recording to build the next generations of high-capacity hard drives. HAMR technology allows for even high densities on the disk platters without using shingling. This is where looking at WDC and Seagate, the digital storage strategy differs for the two companies, with WDC much more heavily invested in NAND Flash. Although to be fair to WDC, they pioneered Helium-filled drives in 2013 and announced their energy-assisted offering ePMR back in 2020. But it is Seagate, with their implementation of HAMR technology, that looks set to break free from the 1022 Gbit/sq inch density shackles and ship 30TB+ HDDs in 2023. Indeed, Seagate is confident in its ability to deliver a 50TB hard drive by 2026.
At Symply we are also fans of another Seagate hard drive technology, called MACH.2, which we use in our products. These drives feature dual independent actuators that can transfer data to storage systems concurrently, essentially doubling the performance of a standard single actuator drive, providing up to 480MB/sec of sustained throughput. This is on par with SATA SSDs, but at a much lower price per TB than SSD. Currently available in 14TB, 16TB and 18TB capacities, it will be interesting to see how HAMR and MACH.2 technologies converge to solve one of the key problems of higher-density hard drives… the reduction of performance as destiny increases. By enabling the storage system to request and receive data from two areas of the drive in parallel, MACH.2 doubles the IOPS performance of each individual hard drive, more than offsetting any issues of reduced data availability that would otherwise arise with higher capacities.
Toshiba, who along with WDC and Seagate make up the three manufacturers of HDDs, are pursuing their own energy-assisted magnetic recording technology, microwave-assisted magnetic recording (MAMR). Toshiba is targeting a 30TB HDD by 2024, with a plan to have HAMR HDDs available in 2026 with capacities in the range of 40TB. Industry associations, such as the Advanced Storage Research Consortium, an HDD industry association, believe that a 200TB HDD should be possible by the mid-2030s. Interestingly around the same time that the LTO consortium might be shipping a 576TB LTO tape.
So where does that all leave us? As the world’s demand for data will continue to explode, the IDC projects a cumulative annual growth rate of 23%. A Seagate-commissioned report (again from IDC) put the amount of digital data in the world in 2025 at 163 ZB. Of course, it is not all going to be stored long term, but IDC predicts that a capacity of 11.1 ZB will have to be stored in 2025 and 60% to 80% of that data will be cold or archival data.
It is clear that NAND Flash technology is going to continue to eat away at hard drive sales. In the media and entertainment industries most of the portable HDD-based single and dual-drive systems, and mobile hard drives have been replaced by SSD. Undoubtedly, how to store that 11.1 ZB of data is going to be down to HDDs and LTOs. HDD shipments in terms of capacity are inevitably going to be picking up again after the current economic uncertainty passes. What is certain is that with the HDD vendors pushing the 30TB+ capacities, it is unlikely that NAND Flash devices are going to get near the price per TB of HDDs, so they will remain the preserve of high-performance storage. As the preferred nearline digital storage solution, the HDD solidifies its position not just among hyperscalers and data centres, but also among establishments seeking to store their cold or archived data for 5 to 7 years, with the added convenience of swift and effortless access. Although LTO sales have increased in terms of capacity, the hard drive remains far ahead in terms of scale, with disk capacity in 2021 reaching 1,269EB compared to tape capacity of 148EBIt will be interesting to see towards the end of the decade when tape capacity could be double that of HDDs, what the balance between HDDs and LTOs will be, given the additional benefits of data security, media longevity, cost per TB and a significantly lower carbon footprint.
Greg Johnson, Creative Director at BW Productions, first ran in to limitations in his data management around 10-years ago when buying new hard disk drives for projects became cumbersome and problematic. Returning to hard drives sitting on the shelf brought about various issues such as connectivity, reliability, and data integrity problems. In the realisation that hard drives aren’t meant to stay on the shelf for more than a few years, and after some research, Greg discovered LTO (Linear Tape Open) technology. In its sixth generation at the time (LTO-6), Greg moved to using LTO data tape cartridges to securely store massive amounts of data for the lowest price point available.
Having been using LTO-6 for around 6-8 years, Greg looked to move to a newer generation of LTO and chose an LTO-8 device. Unfortunately for Greg, the product they chose was not reliable and the manufacturer who supplied the drive were not supportive in remedying issues Greg and the team at BW Productions were experiencing with their new hardware. After sending their device back and forth to the manufacturer their issues were still not resolved and very quickly their servers were becoming overloaded, and they were drowning in data management issues.
“Reliability is so crucial for everything that we’re doing within our workflow. So, when we have any single piece of equipment go down, it leaves a large ripple effect throughout our entire organisation,” explains Brent Uberty, Managing Director and Founder of BW Productions. It was clear that their current LTO backup solution wasn’t cutting it for them anymore, and they needed to switch to a more reliable system that wouldn’t give them any issues. After doing some research, BW Productions found Symply’s LTO offerings and felt confident that this would be the right choice for them.
“As soon as we received the Symply LTO, we put it to work and it worked flawlessly,” exclaimed Greg Johnson. “Quickly, we got caught up with all of our backlogged data and we were churning out tapes all night, all day, and it was great.” Having chosen the latest LTO-9 tape drive technology in a SymplyPRO 1RU system with Thunderbolt 3 connectivity, BW Productions were now able to backup a tremendous amount of data at extremely fast speeds.
BW Productions shoot around 350 projects a year, and that translates to around six to eight terabytes of data per week. When they originally purchased the 1RU SymplyPRO unit, they chose a single LTO-9 half-height drive because that met all their current data demands. Shortly after though, BW Productions landed a large project where they had to backup dailies for a major streaming platform. “Once we landed that contract,” begins Brent, “it was so easy for us to upgrade and add another drive to our unit to give us dual writing capabilities.” Right now, BW Productions are churning through about four to ten terabytes a day with dual copies being made simultaneously through their two LTO-9 drives in their SymplyPRO 1RU system, with verification being handled through YoYotta software for macOS.
“Since installing our SymplyPRO LTO system we have had zero issues. And our system runs almost 24/7 with the sheer amount of data that we’re going through,” adds Brent. “I can’t say that about any other LTO system that we’ve used in the past.” Brent feels that a lot of this comes from the build quality of the hardware and Symply’s attention to detail in developing a platform from the ground up. “Reliability, usability, and upgradeability are all really important things to us when we’re looking at expanding our equipment. Symply provided the right needs from an equipment perspective, and we’ve been so happy with it overall.”
As Greg mentioned at the beginning, he has been using LTO technology for about ten years now, and he can honestly say that Symply LTO has been the easiest experience with LTO he has had to date.
About BW Productions
From Salt Lake City to the world. BW Productions genuinely care and know how daunting video production can be. BW Productions have a commitment to transparent pricing and quick project turnarounds that makes hiring their team of video and photo specialists a piece of cake. For more information visit www.bwproductionsllc.com.
It is amazing to us that so many creative professionals are not aware of LTO Tape, and the benefits that it can bring to their workflows for backup and archive. It is as if LTO is a secret society, known only to a few, who reap the benefits of the technology, At Symply, we are dedicated to promoting the benefits of LTO, and we encourage you to read our blog posts on this topic.
One of the biggest trends at NAB was workflow processes relating to optimizing where content and assets are stored. The "cloud boomerang" phenomenon appears to hold a significant degree of truth, particularly in the Sports, Media, and Entertainment sector. It involves companies retrieving their content from public cloud providers and once again storing it on their own premises. While cost is the primary driver for this migration out of the cloud, as companies seek to avoid recurring and escalating cloud storage costs, there are additional benefits for customers. These include the ability to maintain better data governance and meet local performance requirements. At Symply we believe that a hybrid approach is likely the best fit. So, contact us to ask about our in-facility private cloud, [Symply Perifery] and [Symply Transporter], along with our public cloud, [Symply Nebula].
High-performance desktop shared storage was a massive hit, in the form of [Symply Workspace XE]. Everyone is talking about our distinctive desktop design, which combines 8 hard drives with up to 8 ultra-high-performance E1.S NVMe modules. Shipping as standard with 2x25/10Gb ethernet interfaces, and support for all the major NLE and VFXs apps, and GB/Sec of performance.
Let's get backups trending in 2023!
In today's world, data has become an integral part of businesses across all industries. With the increasing reliance on digital systems and the Internet, data backup has become crucial for businesses of all sizes. This blog will explore the importance of digital data backup for all businesses, including giants like Samsung, film studios like Warner Brothers, government departments, pharmaceutical companies, banks, and fintech.
Samsung, one of the world's largest tech companies, experienced a major data loss due to a software bug that affected their data storage systems. Film studios like Warner Brothers rely heavily on digital data for their productions. In the film & TV industries, digital data is used for everything from scripting and pre-production to post-production, virtual sets, and distribution. Losing data during any stage of production can lead to significant financial losses, delays, or entire projects getting cancelled. Government departments handle top secret, confidential and personal data, and they have a legal obligation to protect it. In the pharmaceutical industry, digital data is used for research and development, clinical trials, and regulatory compliance. Losing data during any of these stages can be costly and set back a drug's development timeline and could be a small department within the organisation running a project outside of the main IT department backup routine.
These events highlight the importance of a robust data backup plan. Without data backups, a business can suffer significant losses, both financially and in terms of reputation. Data loss can also lead to legal complications and breaches of confidentiality. Samsung's situation demonstrates that no business is immune to data loss and that even the most technologically advanced companies need to be prepared.
Banks and fintech companies also heavily rely on digital data for their operations. Banks use digital data to process transactions, manage customer accounts, and perform risk assessments. Fintech companies use digital data to develop and offer innovative financial products and services. Losing critical data in either of these industries can lead to significant financial losses, legal repercussions, and damage to reputation.
In conclusion, digital data backup is critical for all businesses, regardless of industry or size. With the increasing reliance on digital systems and the Internet, the risk of data loss due to cyber-attacks, system failures, rogue employees, or natural disasters is higher than ever before. A data backup system can protect a business's data, reputation, and financial stability. Therefore, businesses must invest in robust and secure data backup systems to ensure the continuity of their operations and maintain their customers' trust.
Backing up critical business data is essential for any organization, regardless of its size. Even small businesses can benefit from using an LTO drive and/or cloud storage to prevent data loss and protect business-critical information.
Symply offers a complete range of backup solutions that cater to the needs of businesses and vertical markets. From Desktop and Rackmount LTO and Thunderbolt RAID protected storage through to fully encrypted desktop and rackmount S3 Native Private Cloud and Public Cloud supporting geo-replication for enhanced data durability.
Symply Transporter and Symply Periphery are hardware solutions offering S3 Native Private Cloud, while Symply Nebula offers Public Cloud for backup applications
Using LTO solutions offer several benefits to businesses. It provides a cost-effective and reliable backup solution, which is essential for maintaining business continuity. Additionally, LTO tape drives offer long-term storage, with tapes lasting up to 30 years, making them an ideal solution for archiving critical business data that needs to be stored for many years. Storing data offline provides an added layer of security often referred to as an “airgap”, protecting businesses from cyber-attacks and data breaches.
Private Cloud solutions, such as SymplyPERIFERY, offer numerous benefits for organizations that prefer to keep their data and applications on-premises. The key drivers for organisations deploying private cloud solutions include data sovereignty, local performance requirements, and predictable costs that are not continually reoccurring. With Private Cloud, organizations can exert greater control over costs, data management, and compliance, including customizing their security policies and ensuring regulatory compliance. It also eliminates the need to transfer data to public cloud storage, potentially reducing data egress costs. Hybrid private and public backup and archive workflows are often deployed to meet PRO and TRO goals by making backups highly available and instantly recoverable, with older archive data moved to cold storage tiers in a public cloud. In conclusion, all businesses, from individuals to the largest cooperates in the world, should have a reliable data backup solution in place to prevent data loss and protect critical information. Symply offers a complete range of backup and archive solutions, with an ethos of Disk, Tape, and Cloud that can be tailored to the specific needs of businesses of all sizes.
In today's world, data has become an integral part of businesses across all industries. With the increasing reliance on digital systems and the Internet, data backup has become crucial for businesses of all sizes. This blog will explore the importance of digital data backup for all businesses, including giants like Samsung, film studios like Warner Brothers, government departments, pharmaceutical companies, banks, and fintech.
Samsung, one of the world's largest tech companies, experienced a major data loss due to a software bug that affected their data storage systems. Film studios like Warner Brothers rely heavily on digital data for their productions. In the film & TV industries, digital data is used for everything from scripting and pre-production to post-production, virtual sets, and distribution. Losing data during any stage of production can lead to significant financial losses, delays, or entire projects getting cancelled. Government departments handle top secret, confidential and personal data, and they have a legal obligation to protect it. In the pharmaceutical industry, digital data is used for research and development, clinical trials, and regulatory compliance. Losing data during any of these stages can be costly and set back a drug's development timeline and could be a small department within the organisation running a project outside of the main IT department backup routine.
These events highlight the importance of a robust data backup plan. Without data backups, a business can suffer significant losses, both financially and in terms of reputation. Data loss can also lead to legal complications and breaches of confidentiality. Samsung's situation demonstrates that no business is immune to data loss and that even the most technologically advanced companies need to be prepared.
Banks and fintech companies also heavily rely on digital data for their operations. Banks use digital data to process transactions, manage customer accounts, and perform risk assessments. Fintech companies use digital data to develop and offer innovative financial products and services. Losing critical data in either of these industries can lead to significant financial losses, legal repercussions, and damage to reputation.
In conclusion, digital data backup is critical for all businesses, regardless of industry or size. With the increasing reliance on digital systems and the Internet, the risk of data loss due to cyber-attacks, system failures, rogue employees, or natural disasters is higher than ever before. A data backup system can protect a business's data, reputation, and financial stability. Therefore, businesses must invest in robust and secure data backup systems to ensure the continuity of their operations and maintain their customers' trust.
Backing up critical business data is essential for any organization, regardless of its size. Even small businesses can benefit from using an LTO drive and/or cloud storage to prevent data loss and protect business-critical information.
Symply offers a complete range of backup solutions that cater to the needs of businesses and vertical markets. From Desktop and Rackmount LTO and Thunderbolt RAID protected storage through to fully encrypted desktop and rackmount S3 Native Private Cloud and Public Cloud supporting geo-replication for enhanced data durability.
Symply Transporter and Symply Periphery are hardware solutions offering S3 Native Private Cloud, while Symply Nebula offers Public Cloud for backup applications
Using LTO solutions offer several benefits to businesses. It provides a cost-effective and reliable backup solution, which is essential for maintaining business continuity. Additionally, LTO tape drives offer long-term storage, with tapes lasting up to 30 years, making them an ideal solution for archiving critical business data that needs to be stored for many years. Storing data offline provides an added layer of security often referred to as an “airgap”, protecting businesses from cyber-attacks and data breaches.
Private Cloud solutions, such as SymplyPERIFERY, offer numerous benefits for organizations that prefer to keep their data and applications on-premises. The key drivers for organisations deploying private cloud solutions include data sovereignty, local performance requirements, and predictable costs that are not continually reoccurring. With Private Cloud, organizations can exert greater control over costs, data management, and compliance, including customizing their security policies and ensuring regulatory compliance. It also eliminates the need to transfer data to public cloud storage, potentially reducing data egress costs. Hybrid private and public backup and archive workflows are often deployed to meet PRO and TRO goals by making backups highly available and instantly recoverable, with older archive data moved to cold storage tiers in a public cloud. In conclusion, all businesses, from individuals to the largest cooperates in the world, should have a reliable data backup solution in place to prevent data loss and protect critical information. Symply offers a complete range of backup and archive solutions, with an ethos of Disk, Tape, and Cloud that can be tailored to the specific needs of businesses of all sizes.
The latest generation of Linear Tape Open, LTO-9 was shipped in 2021, but the release was clearly hampered by the pandemic. Despite Symply leading the LTO-9 charge and being the first to market with desktop and rack mountable LTO-9 Full Height and Half Height drives respectively, it has taken the market some time to adopt LTO-9.
For LTO-9 the ride has not been smooth, the development cycle was four years, as opposed to the usual three years, and the capacity was only 18TB native instead of 24TB native, as originally road mapped. Typically, LTO capacity doubles every generation, see below.
The latest published road map shows that the doubling of capacity is going to return with LTO-10, providing 36TB native per tap. LTO-10 is rumoured to be on course for release towards the end of 2023.
Let’s start at the beginning. What is LTO-9? We have seen LTO-9 Full Height and Half Height tape drives provide even higher capacity and performance (with Full Height drives) than previous generations, and Symply was the first company to offer the drive technology in a variety of form factors including Thunderbolt3 and SAS connectivity, in desktop and rack-mounted configurations. LTO-9 offers a native capacity of up to 18TB and up to 45TB compressed (assuming 2.5:1 compression). LTO-9 is fully compatible with Linear Tape File System (LTFS), and the LTO-9 drive mechanisms can read and write to the previous generation LTO-8 cartridges. Like LTO-8 the technology is only backwards compatible one LTO generation.
LTO-9 Full Height vs Half Height drives. LTO-9 drives are available in both Full Height and Half Height formats and are available from Symply. Let's see how they stack up.
You can see the primary difference between LTO-9 Full Height and Half Height drives is the performance, with the Full Height drive providing an extra 100MB/Sec of throughput. The additional speed also means faster seek times to data on the tape so that read or write operations begin faster on Full Height drives compared to their Half Height counterparts. It is also worth noting that the higher performance of the Full Height drives is also seen when reading and writing to LTO-8 cartridges.
Full-Height drives also have much higher reliability for load and unload cycles, that is not to say in any way that Half Height drives do not have high reliability for loading and unloading media, just that as Full height drives were originally designed for enterprise tape libraries, thus are built to a higher specification.
Changes to LTO backwards compatibility that started with LTO-8. In the past LTO technologies have always been able to read back two generations, and write back one generation. So, an LTO-7 drive could read LTO-7, 6 and 5 tapes, and could also write LTO-7 and LTO-6 tapes. This read backwards two generations ended with LTO-8, meaning that an LTO-8 drive will read and write LTO-8 and LTO-7 tapes, but cannot read LTO-6 tape. Likewise, an LTO-9 drive will read and write LTO-9 and LTO-8 tapes, but will not read LTO-7.
This change to backwards compatibility was driven by the never-ending demand for capacity, speed and reliability of new generations of LTO, primarily driven by the large public cloud hyperscalers that are desperately in need of ever higher capacity tapes and hard disks to sustain the ever-increasing data they are storing. This demand for capacity meant that there had to be a change in the underlying head technology and media composition. Earlier versions of LTO used Giant Magnetoresistive (GMR) read/write heads that had reached their density limits. LTO-8 and LTO-9 drives now use Tunneling Magnetoresistive (TMR) read/write heads, a technology that unlocked more density, performance and reliability for LTO.
LTO-9 also utilizes Barium Ferrite (BaFe) media, similar to LTO-7 and LTO-8 (vs. metal particle, or MP used in LTO-7 and older generations), in order to continue the significant gains. The combination of the new TMR heads and BaFe media has increased capacity and performance, but limited the backward compatibility to a single generation. This change will obviously affect how current users of LTO technology approach upgrading to LTO-9 drives. We will consider these possible workflows for upgrading to new drive technology as well as some thoughts around the migration of older media to newer tape formats, after a quick recap on backup and archiving.
Backup and Archiving – are not the same thing. Before we talk about migration strategies and how to approach new technologies, it is worth having a recap over the difference between, Backup and Archive:
Backup creates a copy of data and restores it in case of data loss or corruption. A company may have multiple copies of the same information for backup purposes. Increasingly, flash or disk drives are the primary targets for first line backup, but many organizations still use tape for secondary, immutable (WORM), and air-gapped backup targets.
Backup LTO tapes are very rarely migrated between LTO generations, as typically backup data sets are very short-lived and can be defined in weeks or at most months. So there is little or no point in migrating backup tape sets between LTO generations.
Archiving creates a ‘master’ copy of a file, typically on a less expensive storage platform. The archive copy is used to free up the obligation to continue to backup that data and permit the more efficient use of primary storage systems, or backup storage.
Archiving can use tiered storage and intelligent software to protect data and provide fast and efficient access. As the amount of data retained in archives expand, an active archiving system combines highly scalable archive storage, like LTO technology, with intelligent software that uses rich metadata, indexes, directories, and tags to unlock archives. Tapes used in archiving, especially active archives, are more likely to be prioritized for migration between LTO generations.
Tapes that are used in more compliance-type archiving, have policies typically dictated by governments or industry bodies. These tend to have defined expiry dates, and longer retrieval time frames than other archives, so it is less frequently accessed, if at all.
Whether you are backing up or archiving, or a mixture of both, may change the strategies that you deploy.
Considerations for upgrading LTO. Upgrades between LTO generations are typically driven by the requirements to increase capacity and/or performance. Traditionally as LTO supported the read backwards two generations, it was common practice for LTO users to skip a generation between upgrades of technology. In many instances, this made practical and economic sense for LTO customers.
For example, the difference between performance and capacity increase from LTO-5 to LTO-6 was minimal with native capacities going from 1.5TB to 2.5TB, so many LTO users did not see a compelling reason to upgrade from LTO-5 to LTO-6. However, the increase from LTO-6 to LTO-7 was much greater in terms of both capacity and performance than that of LTO-5 to LTO-6. LTO-7 offered a native capacity of 6TB and performance of 300MB/Sec so it was a big step up from not only LTO-6 but also a substantial difference from the LTO-5 capacity of 1.5TB. This meant for the vast majority of LTO users there was a clear-cut case for migrating from LTO-5 to LTO-7. So it is easy to see that until LTO-8 this skipping of a single generation of LTO was a valid strategy for managing backups and archives.
Things are different if a customer skipped two generations of LTO for example migrating LTO-4 to LTO-7, the customer would have to consider what to do as the LTO-4 media could not be read in an LTO-7 drive. From LTO-8 onwards, the decision to skip just a single generation will need to be considered carefully.
As mentioned earlier in this document, technological advancements have resulted in significantly larger increases in capacities between newer LTO generations. For instance, between LTO-7 and LTO-8, and LTO-8 and LTO-9, there has been a capacity increase of 6TB, which is much higher compared to previous generations.
According to the guidance provided by the LTO consortium, although LTO-9 did not achieve the doubling target from LTO-8 (due to pandemic-related development setbacks), the doubling of capacity is expected to resume from LTO-10 onwards, as indicated in the roadmap. This will make upgrading with each LTO release more compelling due to the increased capacity, and the ability to read/write back a single generation, making data access and migration easier.
Migration Factors to Consider. Whether you operate at data centre scale or smaller, customers may have a significant number of tapes relative to the size of their operations, and face the same decisions when it comes to migrating LTO media. While the desire may be to migrate all old media to new media, this may not be necessary or practical. It's important for customers to understand which media needs to be migrated and which does not. For example, it's entirely possible that content on aging media is no longer required, and the media can be retired. Conversely, some media is highly likely to be accessed again and will need to be migrated.
Types of Migration - Traditional. Traditional migration refers to the process of restoring data from existing archives and backups to a primary storage and then migrating the media from the primary storage to the new LTO generation.
For example, an LTO-7 tape drive with the correct backup/archive software solution could be used to restore data from LTO-5, 6, and 7 tapes to a primary disk storage system, and then the same or even alternative software could be used to backup/archive the data to the latest LTO-9 generation tape drive and tapes.
Since this requires a full restore and rewrite, it is best performed as a task in the background over a period of time. When all the data tapes are migrated the older generation LTO drive and media can be retired.
Types of Migration - Tape to Tape Copy . “Tape to Tape Copy Migration” refers to a migration process that does not involve data being restored to a primary disk or flash storage device in order to be backed up or archived to a new generation of LTO tape. This is made possible by certain backup/archive software applications. In archive environments, it has been made easier by the fact that since LTFS (Linear Tape File System) became a standard format implemented initially in LTO-5, the vast majority of data archived on LTO is in the open LTFS format. This means that it can be read and written by a wide range of software applications that offer a significant return on investment.
In a Tape to Tape Copy Migration, the fact that the data does not need to be restored to a primary storage tier means that migrations can happen much quicker and without the need for using space on a more expensive primary storage volume.
In practice, a combination of both traditional and tape-to-tape copy migration policies is likely to be deployed, along with the policy of retiring material that is no longer needed. The ultimate goal of moving older LTO media to LTO-9 media. This will ultimately increase capacity, save time and even reduce the hardware footprint required to carry our backup/archive tasks.
Do I need to migrate? Some usage models mean that some customers have decided not to migrate, like the larger corporates, hyperscalers, and institutions involved in high-performance computing. The data sets may be too large to migrate and the user just maintains older generation LTO drives to read older LTO media, if required. But data capacities do not have to be excessively large to skip migrating media, many small and medium-sized customers are also doing this, just leveraging newer drive generation and gaining the benefits of the higher capacities, while they maintain older LTO drives as required. There is certainly no shortage of companies that offer the ability to read older generations of LTO media as required.
How Can Symply Help? From desktop SAS and Thunderbolt-enabled tools to full rack-mounted systems, Symply's line-up of LTO products offers a unique take on the world of long term storage: we built them to answer the actual challenges faced by businesses and end users. Our solutions include both Half-Height and Full-Height LTO drives from LTO-7 to LTO-9, as well as special availability on LTO-6 for those customers that need to read LTO-4. Our dual-drive desktop and rack solutions can be configured to support both LTO-7 and LTO-9 in the same enclosure allowing easy support for both Traditional and Tape to Tape Copy Migration processes. Symply hardware is compatible with industry-leading LTO backup/archive software applications including but not limited to Archiware P5, Hedge Canister, StorageDNA, Tiger Technology Bridge, XenData, and YoYotta.
LTO Superpowers are its dependable performance, extended lifespan, and minimal energy usage. In this the final blog in the series, which has covered the key questions raised as a result of the video from Gavin Slow Mo Guys of YouTube fame, where he discussed his struggle to secure 10 years of content, and how he turned to LTO to help solve this challenge. Our examination will encompass not just the exceptional dependability and durability of LTO media, but also it's standing as the most environmentally-friendly storage technology currently in use.
Our first blog in the series “Death, Taxes and Data Loss”, discussed the general need for data protection, the difference between backup and archive and why they are equally important, but often confused. In the second blog of the series “Tape is Dead. Long Live Tape?”, we dispelled the myth that tape is dead, and in fact went a long way to prove that it is likely to win out in the capacity battle between LTO and HDD over the next ten years or so. We encourage you to consider that it may make sense to invest in LTO versus that ever-growing mountain of hard drives, or indeed public cloud storage solutions. But remember, no man, or in this case, data protection strategy, is an island.
This blog post will examine the reliability of tape compared to hard disks, the longevity of LTO, the necessary precautions to ensure its optimal lifespan, and also explore the eco-friendliness of the technology.
So is tape more reliable than a hard disk? This is one of the questions we are asked most frequently, and the short answer is yes, and here’s why. The high reliability of LTO technology stems from the data redundancy strategies employed to check that the data being written to the tape is correct. LTO uses something called Error Correction Code (ECC), which is generated at two levels (C1 and C2) to protect data written to the tape. C1 and C2 are highly efficient Reed-Solomon ECC, commonly used to protect data on storage systems. C1 is designed to detect and correct media errors, and C2 operates as an Erasure code to correct any residual errors from the C1 process. So these codes are added to the data, before it is written to the tape and then verified after it is written, to ensure an extremely low bit error rate (BER). But how low can it go, I hear you ask? 1 error event in 10-19 bits, and that is a very, very small number. So to put that number in context, it would take 130 tape drives, each writing data continuously for a whole year before any of them would encounter an that could not be fixed by the error correction technology employed by LTO.
In contrast to a hard disk that generally has a bit error rate of 1 error in 10-15 bits. Let's not kid ourselves, this is still a small number, but it does mean that LTO is some 10,000 times more reliable than hard disks, and even 1000 times more reliable than SSD. To put it another way the odds of getting an uncorrectable error using LTO media are some one in 10 quintillion, the odds of getting hit by lightning are one in a million, getting killed by a shark one in 11.5 million (unless you live in Martha’s Vineyard), or one in 259 million for that dream lottery win (I must remember to get my ticket).
Another advantage of LTO is its impressive life span, which the LTO consortium publicises as up to 30 years. This is significantly longer than the life span of even an enterprise hard drive. I was recently at an event with Pro Device Global, a company that specialises in Cybersecurity Strategies. They had been tasked to recover data from a large archive of reel-to-reel tapes, some of which were 50+ years old. Although the tapes had been stored at a relatively constant temperature, no other precautions had been taken, which meant that the tapes were in a poor condition… but a staggering, 98% of the data on the tapes was still recoverable. As a side note, Pro Devices believe the only way to irreversibly erase data from an LTO tape is by using a powerful pulse of induction of up to 22,000 Gauss (2.2 Teslas).
Therefore, let us examine the lifespan of a hard drive. This graph, courtesy of the team at BackBlaze (who have been helpfully publishing hard drive reliability since 2013 - https://www.backblaze.com/b2/hard-drive-test-data.html), shows their current figures for annualised failure rate of all the hard disks they use.
The annualised failure rate from the start of 2018 through to the end of 2022 is 1.37% across 230,921 enterprise class drives from various vendors (but not consumer or NAS drives, which are less reliable and are not used by public cloud providers). Back in 2013 the data shows that 80% of the installed drives would be expected to survive for four years, this fell to 50% after six years. So after 6 years only half of the originally installed hard drives were still working. In 2021, the life expectancy of a hard drive being alive at six years was 88%. This data suggests that although drive reliability has increased, as you might expect over time, it is still nowhere close to the reliability of an LTO cartridge.
It is important to note that these statistics are for enterprise-grade hard drives that are part of large storage systems designed to optimise the environment for hard drives (minimising vibration and heat) and incorporate protection measures such as Erasure Coding and RAID. These hard drives are in constant operation 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Hard drives used in smaller multi-bay systems or single drive systems usually spend the majority of their time turned off, which is not great for a hard drive. This increases the chance of mechanical failures, and without the hard drive being powered on, the error correction technologies employed by hard drives to protect against bit rot (the slow deterioration in data integrity of data stored on storage media) are not active. This means that the disk is more prone to mechanical failure, along with an increased risk of the data corrupting over time. Of course you could plug in all your hard drives every six months to test them, but who has the time to do that? Perhaps better to live in blissful ignorance, and hope for the best!
Let's return to the impressive 30 year life span of LTO. The lifespan of an LTO tape does depend on the usage, as well as how the tapes are actually stored long-term, when not in use. In terms of operation, LTO is generally good for 300 full-file passes (reads or writes), 20,000 short-section durability passes, and 20,000 loads and unload cycles (for half-height drives), which is a lot of operations! As a general rule, LTO tapes only need replacing in very high volume backup applications (think of banks and other large corporations), where there is a high degree of change occurring as backup sets are appended and tape sets are reused again and again. Typically, much of the data written to LTO in a media environment is relatively static, so the number of reads and writes are not relevant. Always remember to follow the 3-2-1 rule for best practice data protection, your content is not secure if the only copy is on a single LTO cartridge.
In terms of storing data tapes for long periods of time, it varies a little from generation to generation, but as a rough rule of thumb LTO tapes should be stored between 15°C to 25°C (59°F to 77°F), in humidity levels between 20% to 50% (non-condensing, with a 22°C dew point maximum). The LTO data cartridges can easily be shipped and can tolerate much more extreme temperature conditions for those shorter periods of time, for example -23°C to 49°C.
The LTO cartridges are robust and can be transported, but care needs to be taken to make sure they are packed correctly. Always ship and store the data cartridge in a jewel case, typically cartridges always come in a jewel case, unless they are being used in tape library applications, where they come in a library pack, which provides the appropriate protection. If you are shipping the cartridges make sure they are securely packed in their original packaging material or better. There are various hard plastic cases solutions on the market, certified for transporting up to 20 tapes at a time, that are extremely robust.
Before using a cartridge it is very important to let it acclimatise to the normal operating environment for a minimum of 24 hours. At Symply, we typically recommend keeping the drive and media storage together for this acclimatisation period. Before inserting the cartridge into a tape drive there are some very simple checks to carry out to ensure good operation. Firstly, ensure that all surfaces of a cartridge are dry (this goes to the point of acclimatisation), check for signs of damage to the cartridge (cracks in the plastic), you should also check the cartridge door is not damaged. If you do drop a cartridge, it is important to open the cartridge door and check that the leader pin is properly positioned inside an LTO tape cartridge, if the leader pin is out of position it can interfere with the operation of the drive.
More detailed guidance on handling and storing LTO media can be found at https://support.gosymply.com/support/home
Many organisations the world over are also embracing the drive to Net Zero emissions, and there is no greener storage media in terms of emissions. This applies to both the manufacturing process versus a hard drive, but also to the operating costs of the storage. There is no doubt that LTO offers a huge saving in energy consumption. Tape drives use little power when not reading or writing tape cartridges, and a tape cartridge in a library or stored on a shelf uses no power at all. It is estimated that 1PB of tape storage (in a library) uses 300 watts, while 1PB of HDD storage uses about 3500 watts. The LTO.org estimate that simply converting 33% of disk storage to tape could save 200 million megawatt hours per year globally. That’s enough energy to drive an electric car some 7,200,000,000 miles (next stop Neptune).
I hope what you have gained from this blog series is that, above anything else, it is really important to implement a robust data protection strategy. Employing the correct data protection strategies means that your data can remain protected in the event of system failures, malware attacks, data security breach, user error, or the corruption of media over time. Remember there are two types of people: those that have experienced data loss and those that will. LTO is a fantastic medium for protecting data, due to its cost, reliability, longevity, lower power consumption, and ease of transport. Tape is far from dead; on the contrary, it is going to outperform hard disks in terms of capacity over the next decade, growth that is being driven by the hyperscale cloud providers. So the irony is that even if you don’t own a tape drive or media, if you own a smartphone then you use tape, you just don’t know it.
This blog is the second in the series that is going to touch on some of the questions raised after Gavin Free (of The Slow Mo Guys) published a video talking about his struggle to secure 10 years of video content, and how he turned to Symply and LTO to help solve this challenge.
Our first blog in the series “Death, Taxes and Data Loss” discussed the general need for data protection, along with the differences between backup and archive and why they are equally important, if a little confused sometimes. In this blog we are going to look at data tape as one of the most cost effective, robust and efficient long term solutions for data protection, after which we are going to dispel the myth perpetuated by flash and hard drive manufacturers that tape is dead.
Let's start with a brief history of LTO, or to give it its full title Linear Tape Open, sometimes also referred to as LTO Ultrium. It is a magnetic data tape technology that was originally developed in the late 1990s through a joint initiative between IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Seagate Technology, to be an open format, optimized for high capacity, storage density and performance.
First launched in 2000, LTO-1 had, wait for it…, a staggering capacity of 100GB per cartridge, which does not sound a lot, but was at least double the size of most hard disks drives at the time. Fast forward to 2021 when LTO-9 was released, with a native capacity of 18TB (45TB compressed) on a tape. This compares well to the current generation of hard drives, especially when considering the costs. At the time of writing this (February 2023), it is about $145 for an LTO-9 tape, with a 18TB USB hard drive priced around $320.
LTO technology is continually advanced by 30 companies including IBM Corporation, Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Quantum, who are part of the LTO Program. The fact that it is an open format, and licensed by some of the most prominent names in the storage industry, ensures that there is a broad range of compatible tape drives and carriages. To date approximately 5.6 million drives, 351,732,245 cartridges and some 370,870 Billion GB of media capacity have been shipped (according to the LTO.org). It is therefore no wonder that LTO has become so widely adopted and is extensively used across many industries for backup and archive… What format do you think the hyperscale public cloud providers store data on long term?
Recently, new generations have been introduced to the LTO roadmap, with a path to LTO-14, that will have a native capacity of 576TB per data cartridge, some 32 times greater than the current generation of LTO-9.
What's more, these high capacities are not just wishful thinking on the part of the LTO consortium in their war against hard drive capacities. This technology has actually already been demonstrated in the lab by Fujifilm and IBM, where they achieved a capacity of 580TB, equating to a areal density on tape of 317Gbit/sq inch back in 2020. Let's consider that the current 18TB hard drive features a density of approximately 1022 Gbit/sq inch versus the LTO-9 cartridge that has a density of only 12Gbit/sq inch. Put simply, means that an LTO-9 tape can achieve the same capacity with only 1/85th of the areal density than that of the same capacity hard disk. This is why it is possible for LTO technology to keep increasing capacity at historical rates, with capacity doubling every generation (see LTO roadmap).
Density per square inch is a bit geeky, we admit, but demonstrates the significant difference between the ability of a hard disk to store information, with that of LTO. Hard disk manufacturers have been stuck at a data density of approximately 1022 Gbit/sq inch for many years now. They have employed technologies, such as SMR, to increase capacities by 10% or so on the same disk platters, but it is new technologies, such as HAMR (Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording) which are being pioneered by Seagate, that look set to deliver 30TB + hard drives in the not too distant future, with the potential for 200TB + hard drive available sometime in the mid 2030s… right around the time a 576TB LTO tape is predicted to be available. We cannot know for sure, but LTO looks set to win the capacity trophy over the next decade or so.
The question of total cost of ownership is obviously not as simple as comparing the cost of an LTO-9 data cartridge with that of an 18TB USB drive, as you will need an LTO drive to get data on to the tape, which requires an upfront investment. To make a commercial decision you should consider the amount of data you need to secure and for what period of time, taking into account the best practice 3-2-1 Data Protection Strategy. Public cloud is certainly another option, making up part of a robust data protection strategy, indeed there will be a blog on the subject from us in the near future. We were going to crunch the numbers comparing LTO to public cloud, and put together some great graphs, but our valued partners at Archiware got their first and saved us a lot of time (thanks to David Fox and the team).
For more information check out their article, but spoiler alert… LTO compares rather well to public cloud. https://blog.archiware.com/blog/comparison-of-lto-and-cloud-storage-costs-for-media-archive/
In summary, we have demonstrated how LTO can be an integral piece in any robust data protection strategy, supporting both backup and archive usage models. This blog has shown that tape is far from dead, indeed is likely to win the capacity arms race between HDDs and LTO in the next decade or so. The cost of adoption of LTO can be problematic for some customers, but if you are looking to protect 150TB to 200TB per year, over a 3 year plus time frame, then LTO should definitely be a consideration, but other factors such as compliance, governance and data sovereignty may dramatically reduce the starting point for many organizations.
In the last blog of this series, we are going to look at the longevity and reliability of LTO when compared to hard disk based solutions.
This is the first of three blogs that will expand upon and address some of the topics raised by the video Gavin Free (of The Slow Mo Guys) posted on YouTube following his struggle to secure over 10-years of content, and how he turned to LTO to solve this challenge. Gavin is not alone, with many content creators whether they be small independents or large corporations having a similar dilemma. And in all honesty, we at Symply are helping to create the problem as we too sell large capacity disk arrays for use in production and post-production. These hard disk drive RAIDs get filled up with hundreds and thousands of hours of content incorporated in project data that includes high resolution and high bit-depth source files, as well as other related content that is only on an upward trajectory in terms of capacity requirements.
The problem of data management is essentially the same across many industries. The old adage relating to ‘Death and Taxes’ could equally be replaced with ‘Death and Data Loss’. The causes of data loss take many forms, namely corrupted media or file systems, failed drives or devices, malicious attacks, and even just user error. In the modern world rich with data there are said to be two types of people: those that have experienced data loss and those that will. Data loss is inevitable unless robust data protection strategies are put in place. So, what are the strategies to protect content?
It’s pretty important to quickly point out that ‘backup’ and ‘archiving’ are not the same thing. They are frequently confused and often referred to as different sides of the same coin. So, before we go on let’s cover why backup and archive are different.
A backup creates a copy of data so that the data can be restored in the event of data loss or corruption. A company may have multiple copies of the same data for backup purposes. Increasingly, flash or disk drives are the primary target for an initial backup but many organizations still use data tape (such as LTO) for secondary copies, taking advantage of key features of LTO such as WORM (Write Once Read Many) that makes the data immutable; meaning it cannot be changed once written. In addition, LTO provides an “air gap” to backups making them beyond the reach of Ransomware, whilst providing additional data security through encryption. LTO tapes are also small, extremely lightweight, and portable so second copies can be easily stored at different locations.
Data sets backed up to LTO tapes tend to be short lived and can be defined usually in weeks, or at most months in many usage models. Typically, at the start of a week a full backup of primary storage is carried out after which incremental backups are scheduled to ensure that any changes made are also regularly backed up. These incremental backups will continue until the end of the week when another full backup is made, and the cycle of incremental backups begins for the last full backup. Depending on data protection requirements full backups may be held for weeks or months. Once the backup set has expired, the LTO tapes are generally reformatted and used again for new backups.
By contrast, archiving creates a ‘master’ copy of a file, generally on a less expensive storage medium, such as LTO, or cold cloud tiers (in which data is ultimately residing on LTO). The act of creating the archive copy is used to free up the obligation to continue to back up the archived data, typically as it is older and no longer needed to be held on the primary storage device. By archiving old or stale data this permits the more efficient use of primary and backup storage systems. Best practice is to have at least two copies of any archived content to ensure resilience in the event of a copy being lost, which leads us very nicely into the next topic: the ideal data protection strategy.
The fabled 3-2-1 data protection strategy. What is it, and how should it be applied?
3: Always maintain at least three (3) copies of your data. So, in addition to your primary data you should have at least two other copies. Why? Well, the chance of something going wrong with three copies at the same time is a lot smaller than with two copies.
2: Store your copies across at least two (2) different storage mediums. It is not recommended to store copies on the same type of media. For example, you could put a copy on LTO and a copy on another hard disk, or a copy in a public or private cloud. If you are storing both copies on LTO, making sure the tape cartridges are from different manufacturers even protects you from any potential batch issues.
1: Store at least one (1) of your copies at an offsite location. It is highly recommended to keep at least one copy of the data away from the physical location of both the primary storage and the primary backup copy. Think about protecting against fire, flood, theft, earthquakes etc… LTO is ideal for this as it is high capacity and easily transportable, but equally valid would be public or private cloud storage.
Going a step further, due to the rise of Malware and Ransomware, many organizations are now adopting a 3-2-1-1-0 policy. The first three steps are the same, so let's cover off the additional 1 and 0.
1: Keep at least one (1) of the copies offline. This means storing one of your copies completely offline with no active access or network connections so that if a hacker or person of malicious intent has accessed your environment, they have no access to your copy that is offline. Such an offline copy is called an “air gapped” backup. LTO is ideal for this, along with any public and private clouds that support ‘object immutability’.
0: Be sure to have verified the copies created have been made with zero (0) errors. Backups and archives are only meaningful if verified as being identical to the original data. Backups should also be monitored as part of a daily routine, and errors or inconsistencies solved as soon as possible. It is also important to perform restore tests to make sure everything is working as it should.
The key take home from this blog is the need to implement a robust data protection strategy, otherwise your data doesn’t really exist as it is at risk of being lost at any moment. LTO technology remains unrivalled in terms of cost for capacity, reliability, portability, and security, and continues to play a crucial role in data protection. But LTO tape solutions are being used increasingly more often as a complement to a disk, flash, public and private cloud-based data protection strategies. LTO provides the most cost-effective solution for creating multiple copies of data with its portability making it easy to transfer large amounts of data to different and offline locations as part of a robust 3-2-1 (1-0) data protection strategy.
In the next two blogs we will talk about other mediums for data protection, address the misconception that “tape is dead”, and look at the best practices around media handling.
