Tape Storage Cheaper and Less Polluting than HDDs, SSDs: Research

IBM
(Image credit: IBM)

Organizations transitioning cold data storage from hard disks to tape could save a lot of money and cut carbon emissions, according to analysis of various bodies of research by the IEEE Spectrum. The report also cites statements and guidance provided by Brad Johns, an IBM data storage business veteran and data storage consultant.

Research by IDC (PDF, 2019) indicates that 60% of all data would be a good candidate for magnetic tape storage – in other words it would usually be classified as cold data. However, only an estimated 15% of all data is kept on tape. Two key advantages of tape, compared to HDD, are its double lifespan and much lower energy consumption.

The need for data storage is increasing rapidly, with organizations and people commonly generating more, and bigger, files every year. However, research indicates that the files stored by governments, academia, and businesses, as well as busy YouTubers, TikTokers, and Instagrammers, are not necessarily stored in the most efficient way.

We like to look in awe at ultra-modern new-fangled tech solutions for geeky thrills, but sometimes the oldies are goodies. A case in point is in storage technology. We have recently covered breakthroughs in DNA storage, Nanofiche, glass, 5D data cubes and others, but HDDs remain, and optical disks keep re-appearing. Now the idea that magnetic tape should be more prevalent is being pushed forward. However, it looks like HDDs aren’t going extinct despite some companies' wishful thinking, and tape storage is rolling along quite confidently in the 2020s.

Tape storage being inserted

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

According to the IEEE report’s sources, HDDs have a working life of about five years, and produce about 2.55 kg of CO2 per terabyte per year. Compare those figures to the same metrics for tape storage: tape is claimed to have a 30 year lifespan, and produce just 0.07 kg of CO2 per terabyte per year.

The lifespan and CO2 figures show a wide gulf, which organizations can use to their advantage, but it doesn’t end there. Device costs and eWaste statistics also help make the case for cold storage tape systems. In the IEEE report an example is put forward where a data center needs to store 100 petabytes of data for 10 years. Using HDDs would result in 7.4 metric tons of eWaste, but tape storage tech could cut that by more than half, to 3.6 metric tons of eWaste.

Some total cost of ownership (TCO) figures are also put forward to help make the argument for cold storage on tape. Johns calculates that in the 100 PB example, the HDD based data center would have a TCO of $17.7 million over the decade. Meanwhile, the tape storage-based facility could reduce that to about $9.5 million. Money talks.

Companies haven’t been blind to the enduring economic appeal of tape, suggests the source report. However, bigger organizations with more resources have been able to transition better to tape, as correctly classifying and sorting your cold data takes “time, money, and effort,” it is observed.

With momentum seemingly behind its adoption for cold storage, and obvious advantages over HDDs for this data storage model, tape is set to retain a compelling advantage “probably for the next decade,” reckons Johns. That is, unless one of the aforementioned exciting storage breakthroughs ever makes it out of R&D labs.

Mark Tyson
News Editor

Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.

  • kanewolf
    What a shock!!! A metal shelf requires less electricity than a disk shelf ...
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    I'd love to have tape storage for things I'm hoarding just in case and decoupling media from drive. But a tape drive when you are only ever going to own maybe two tapes for redundancy doesn't make much economic sense.

    The 30 years useful life is quite optimistic as working compatible replacement drives may be hard to come by 15 years down the road.
    Reply
  • John Lauro
    It's still over half the price of HDD. Considering you can't do live restores due to the lack of random access speed, the price would need to be below 25% the costs of HDD to make up for the disadvantages of tape. Even if the raw costs are a little more, better off with portable 10+TB removable hard drives in most cases. Only semi useful use case would be long term archival storage where you need to keep the data 10+ years offline, and even they the value is questionable as it's more difficult to port to newer formats compared to disks.
    Reply
  • Kamen Rider Blade
    My main issue with LTO Tape Cartridges is that it's single spool and that there isn't any simple & cost effective Tape Drives for average consumers.

    We need a Tape Cartridge format optimized for the average consumer that is "Dual Spools" and uses a simple Tape Head Mechanism that won't eat the tape like old school Casette Players.

    Maybe start basing it off the physical design of a "Modernized Version" of DCC (Digital Compact Cassette) Tapes.
    Then we can scale up the physical designs to accomodate all the popular Tape Width formats.
    The DCC design is literally perfect for adding a paper insert to list the rough contents of the Casette Tape.
    Reply
  • excalibur1814
    Mmmm, marketing!

    No. I'd never, ever, EVER, return to tape.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    Kamen Rider Blade said:
    Maybe start basing it off the physical design of a "Modernized Version" of DCC (Digital Compact Cassette) Tapes.
    Linear recording on tapes is horrible for data density: DCC maxed out at a theoretical 3h at 384kbps which is only ~500MB and no 3h tapes were actually ever made. On the DAT side of things, old drives using old tapes could cram 5+GB per tape and the newest generations can cram 80+GB per tape.

    A modernized version of DCC would likely achieve a similar 1/10th of what helical recording does.
    Reply
  • MacB
    Less costly is debatable, but tapes are waaayyyy Less Reliable! Very few orgs do the work to ensure that their tape libraries are recoverable, so essentially instead of having Drives that actually will do something, you'll be wasting resources in something that doesn't
    Reply
  • jp7189
    InvalidError said:
    I'd love to have tape storage for things I'm hoarding just in case and decoupling media from drive. But a tape drive when you are only ever going to own maybe two tapes for redundancy doesn't make much economic sense.

    The 30 years useful life is quite optimistic as working compatible replacement drives may be hard to come by 15 years down the road.
    In my experience, instead of trying to keep working drives of every tape gen onsite, most companies rely on 3rd party services for restores from very old tapes.
    Reply
  • jp7189
    Kamen Rider Blade said:
    My main issue with LTO Tape Cartridges is that it's single spool and that there isn't any simple & cost effective Tape Drives for average consumers.

    We need a Tape Cartridge format optimized for the average consumer that is "Dual Spools" and uses a simple Tape Head Mechanism that won't eat the tape like old school Casette Players.

    Maybe start basing it off the physical design of a "Modernized Version" of DCC (Digital Compact Cassette) Tapes.
    Then we can scale up the physical designs to accomodate all the popular Tape Width formats.
    The DCC design is literally perfect for adding a paper insert to list the rough contents of the Casette Tape.
    Modern LTO contains approx 1 kilometer of tape. A dual spool cartridge like that would be massive as would a library that holds even a few hundred of them.
    Reply
  • PEnns
    "Less Polluting than HDDs, SSDs........."

    So are computer punch cards....and I bet they're the cheapest too!!

    Punch Cards
    Reply