ᴉpᴉǝH 🐐💕
Kevin Karhan 
Shouting in the Datacenter
Frank Heijkamp@alterelefant @Heidi unless you use SSDs...
@kkarhan @Heidi Indeed, SSD storage is amazing for fast storage but not very cost effective for storing vast quantities of data that is not in need of lightning fast retrieval time. HDD's still have their place in the storage landscape and in certain scenario's they are considered to be more robust and more reliable than SSD's although in practice this is usually not really an issue.
@alterelefant @Heidi I think that is true, abeit #HDD|s will sooner or later follow #LTO and other #Tape drive systems as they fall behind in data density, power efficiency and longterm price per TB.
@alterelefant @Heidi I know - it's just that long-term they'll get more and more nieche-cased as #LTO isn't designed for constant random access because the lifetime durability is decreasing with every band pass...
@alterelefant @Heidi again: Of you need to cram Petabytes of Data into a single bank vault box as #offline #backup and expect to handle the tape.maybe once a year, it's fine.
I just think that longterm, both #Tape and #HDDs eill be superseded by #Flash and I'm confident that with the massive enfattening of #Games ideas like the #NeoFloppy / #StiffyDiskDrive will gain demand.
@alterelefant @Heidi As of now, we can see stuff like the #ExaDrive, a 100TB 3,5" SSD for #online - #archival storage.
- As #Helium-filled #SMR-#HDD|s struggle to meet the demand for storage at an acceptable thermal & power envelope and price, #SSD|s will inevitable take over as not only the more robust media but also cheaper, more dense and easier to use.
As for the #NeoFloppy that thing could be made - I'm just not good enough layouting PCBs with the precision needed for #PCIe signalling...
- Needless to say if constant write speed and lifetime in writes is secondary, then a stack of cheap #SATA-SSDs already beats #LTO-9 tapes unless you need to backup literal #Petabytes and need the fancy features like #WORM media.
That being said, it's inevitable that even WORM as a feature may be copied over.
- In fact #ZFS can already offer many features of #LTFS, including read-only snapshots and thus append-only #archives.
Until there are #COTS solutions tho, LTO #Tape and other options will OFC remain dominant and relevant.
- Still I'd happily see storage vendors take up the NeoFloppy and build something off it.
Apicultor 🐝@kkarhan >a stack of cheap #SATA-SSDs already beats #LTO-9 tapes unless you need to backup literal #Petabytes and need the fancy features like #WORM media
Data retention is a fancy feature now? Sure, flash beats tape if you don't mind returning to blank SSDs after a couple of years in storage.
@apicultor @kkarhan @Heidi Horses for courses. A company in need of long term archive will invest in proven technology and install a LTO tape library. They are not going to mess around with cheap SSD's. The TCO is more than just the initial investment. A supplier providing a maintenance contract and who will guarantee that the solution they installed works as advertised will be awarded the contract. I don't expect this to change much in the next twenty years or so.
@alterelefant @apicultor @Heidi OFC...
The only competiton so far besides #LTO and #IBM3592 is #ODA or #OpticalDiscArchive which is basically a fancy cartridge system containing 12 #bluray discs each...
- Needless to say the need for #fast and #portable storage will make the use of #SSD|s (even if just simple NOR-Flash ROMs) sooner or later unavoidable given #BDXL has been maxed out at 128 GB, HDDs are too sensitive for many scenarios (we had #iomega #Jaz & #Rev already, and #RDX exists to this day) unavoidable, as data requirements rise faster than the average internet speed.
@alterelefant @apicultor @Heidi #ODA is #Sony's successor to #SAIT using #BluRayDisc|s in Caddies, designed to offer several Petabytes of longterm storage.
- AFAICT they also use anorganic binder for longer lasting media at the cost of more expensive production...
@alterelefant @apicultor @Heidi OFC the "final level" of #Backups would be "#CrystalStorage":
- Basically the density of a #BDXL, but with hundreds if not thousands of layers for Petabytes if not Exabytes of Storage per disc/shard/crystal...