Andrew Dodd | Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Low-cost, high-durability HPE StoreEver tape with LTO-8 technology saves you money, delivers super-fast performance and guarantees long-term data availability and security.

To put this in context, that’s the data equivalent of the US Library of Congress three million times over! And with data volumes rising at a rate of of 40-50% compound annual growth (CAGR), there are a number of compelling reasons why LTO tape, so often regarded as a less fashionable storage technology in the era of “all things cloud”, will continue to play a key part in data protection, backup and archiving strategies through the coming decade.

LOWEST ARCHIVE OWNERSHIP COSTS

According to independent analysis by Enterprise Strategy Group, an organization can achieve cost savings of approximately 92% ($2.358M versus $187K) using HPE StoreEver versus the public cloud when storing a 1PB archive for a ten-year period. Add tape’s low energy consumption (<2% of an equivalent hard disk drive) and you have the most cost-effective tool for storing static and infrequently accessed data.

UNLIMITED SCALABILITY

Tape continues to scale to meet growing data demands in capacity and throughput. The latest LTO-8 tape cartridges provide up to 30 TB of compressed capacity (12 TB native), giving unlimited potential to grow and preserve data assets. Only HPE StoreEver MSL tape libraries allow you to re-use and upgrade tape drives without having to buy a new library. 

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE

Capable of transfer rates up to 300 MB/sec (native), HPE LTO-8 drives optimise performance by matching the speed of the host to keep drives streaming and increase the reliability of the drive and media. 

EASY TO USE

The familiar drag and drop interface of the Linear Tape File System (LTFS) makes tape as easy to work with as disk storage. You can present LTO tape just like any other drive, icon, or folder right alongside your primary storage. And with HPE Command View for Tape Libraries, you can manage your tape devices via a single ‘pane of glass’ from anywhere in the world, with intelligent analysis of the health and reliability of your backup and archive solution.

LIFELONG DATA PROTECTION

HPE LTO tape can be deployed as part of a fully compliant, long-term storage active archive. An active archive optimises the placement or storage of data on the most appropriate media type. It allows less time critical data to be stored on less expensive media, like LTO tape. And it eliminates the need to manually migrate data between storage systems.  

ENHANCED SECURITY

Hardware-based, business-grade, AES 256-bit data encryption and write-once-read-many (WORM) functionality offer simple and secure storage to meet the toughest industry compliance regulations. HPE LTO WORM tapes are GDPR-compliant and tamperproof.

AIR GAP INSURANCE AGAINST DATA LOSS

According to a recent report by cybersecurity specialists, Emsisoft*, there were nearly half a million ransomware infections in 2019, costing organisations at least $6.3 billion in ransom demands.  Tape is one of the best ways to the ransomware threat because it creates a physical barrier, or ‘air gap’ between the network environment and data at rest. 

DISASTER RECOVERY

Retrieving data from the cloud can become prohibitively expensive if you need regular access to your offline data.  Plus, it may also take a significant period of time and bandwidth to retrieve a large data archive from a cloud provider’s facility. A full, offline copy of data on HPE LTO tape is the most cost-effective way to ensure quick and complete recovery from any disaster. A 1PB archive can be copied onto 80 LTO-8 cartridges and shipped almost anywhere in the world in 2-3 days.

NEW POSSIBILITIES

There is a perception that the only way to deliver deep learning analytics requires a sophisticated high-end real-time data warehouse. But not every application needs instant access. Leveraging LTO tape offers many use cases at a much more attractive cost profile than alternative storage options. Active archiving solutions, like the HPE Data Management Framework or QStar Archive Manager, help you unlock business value and exploit big data analytics in areas such as healthcare, genomic research and infotainment. 

TESTED TO EXTREMES

HPE LTO Ultrium tape is designed, manufactured and tested to provide outstanding reliability for backing up, archiving and restoring your data. Since January 2019, HPE LTO product tests have pulled over 4,907 million metres (3 million miles) of LTO-8 tape and 6,947 million metres (4.3 million miles) of LTO-7 tape through writing operations. Both procedures are part of ongoing efforts to recreate customer tape use scenarios. 

As you can see, therefore, far from being yesterday’s technology, LTO tape storage has a number of compelling benefits for organisations grappling with the challenge of how to store ever growing amounts of data, safely, securely and cost effectively for long periods of time. In the ‘zettabyte era’ of big data, tape has a key role to play and will continue to be a bedrock of digital certainty through 2025 and likely beyond!