It is clear the world is getting smarter. Billions of devices are connecting people and businesses. These new devices, and the transactions they enable, are generating vast amounts of data which needs to be stored, copied, analyzed, classified and audited, sometimes for decades. Industry estimates show that data storage requirements are growing 20% to 40% yearly, but storage budgets have a very low rate of growth at about 1%-5% leaving a large gap to manage. Tape technology can help companies address this big data challenge. With its very low power usage, low cooling costs, and low cost per TB tape is the optimal choice for long-term storage. IBM offers an extensive portfolio of tape backup, recovery and archiving solutions for data protection and retention. IBM made available the first commercial magnetic tape computer storage in 1952, The first tape drive was the IBM 726 which stored about 2 million bytes and ended up launching decades of IBM tape technology innovation. Since the first tape introduction, IBM has delivered many offerings in tape storage and the innovation continues today. In fact, we’re just getting started. Now, on 2012 we proudly celebrate the 60 years of Tape, Our latest advancements in tape technology are changing the way data protection and retention is managed . In 2010, IBM created the Linear Tape File System (LTFS), a tape storage specification that makes access to data on tape easier than ever before. LTFS makes data access as easy to use as a USB flash drive creating new use cases for tape storage for a variety of industries with big data including media and entertainment and digital video surveillance. In 2011 IBM introduced the TS3500 Shuttle connector, which enables the connection of multiple IBM tape libraries into a single high capacity complex, storing up to 2.7 Exabytes for really “Big Data” storage helping users to manage and protect large data archives . In that same year, IBM launched the fourth generation of enterprise tape drives, the IBM TS1140 enterprise tape drive that can hold 2 million times more data than the first 726 tape and is designed to provide high levels of performance, reliability, and capacity. IBM continues with tape research and its developing new technologies, these new technologies are estimated to enable cartridge capacity that could hold up to 35 trillion bytes (terabytes) of uncompressed data and more. This is about 23 times the capacity of IBM LTO current generation 5 cartridges. With this remarkable history of accomplishments, and the continual commitment to research and development from the Tape Storage team at IBM, it is clear that tape is not old but in fact, is like a fine wine….just getting better all the time! Happy 60th birthday IBM tape!
A timeline spanning from 1966 to 2060 looking at breakthroughs from IBM using water to cool computers.
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