IBM recently released its latest Magnetic Tape Drive, compared with the previous generation, the storage capacity has more than doubled, which will help cloud storage providers and other enterprise customers more efficiently Store massive amounts of data.
Tape storage is a mature technology that, although rarely used by the average consumer, is a long-term backup solution for many organizations due to its ability to store large amounts of data on relatively small media, such as IBM Such companies have been continuously developing the technology.
This week, IBM took another step in this area. The company’s new TS1170 drive can store 50TB of uncompressed data per cartridge and uses new JF media. With a 3:1 compression ratio, the capacity can be expanded to 150TB. This technology offers a 250 percent increase in capacity over previous-generation TS1160 drives and JE media, which offered 20TB uncompressed and 60TB compressed.
In addition, the TS1170 has a native data transfer rate of 400 MB/s and can reach 900 MB/s when processing compressed data. IBM’s new drives come in two flavors: the Model 70F has a dual-port 16 Gb Fiber Channel interface, and the Model 70S has a dual-port 12 Gb SAS interface. The Model 70F also supports stand-alone installation via a traditional fiber optic host accessory interface for cloud-based and open computing setups. Plus, the 3U form factor rack mount kit makes the Model 70F compatible with most 19-inch racks and can be mounted from the front or rear without tools. The device supports IBM’s TS4500 tape library and is RoHS-3 compliant.
It is noticed that other features of TS1170 include speed matching, high-resolution tape directory, channel calibration, dynamic adaptive equalization, capacity expansion, WORM storage (write once read many times), data compression, etc. Cryptographic functionality is implemented through the IBM Security Key Lifecycle Manager, which can be managed by a library or an application.
However, due to the newer cartridge format, the TS1170 is not compatible with the E or D-size cartridges used by previous generations of drives. Also, the drive does not currently support connection to the IBM TS7700, and the TS1170 can only be used by one system at a time.
