Spectra Logic has deployed a new 18-frame exascale Tape Library at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California, USA.
The Tape Library, a data storage solution, is based on the 18-frame Spectra TFinity Tape Library to store LTO-9 tape drives and media.
According to Spectra Logic, the TFinity is the largest and most feature-rich tape library, enabling it to have a much higher storage density with a smaller footprint compared to competitors. The library can be used with LTO tape technology, IBM’s TS11X0 enterprise tape technology, and Oracle's T10000x enterprise tape technology.
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory researches develops and implements advanced scientific tools that explore how the universe works. It is currently supporting the Rubin Observatory in its 10-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time, collecting light from celestial objects and transforming it into data. The project will gather data on the entire Southern sky every few days, for a decade, a huge undertaking storage-wise.
The laboratory is operated by Stanford University for the US Department of Energy Office of Science and constitutes five joint research centers and facilities.
The last data center
Long-term data storage enters a new epoch
The laboratory is expecting its total storage needs to reach upwards of two exabytes by 2023. As a cost-effective storage method for large data sets, costing a few cents per GB, choosing a tape library can be a logical choice.
“We are very excited about the deployment of the large Spectra Logic TFinity ExaScale Tape Library at SLAC,” said Betsy Doughty, Spectra Logic vice president of corporate marketing. “Our world-class tape libraries have been deployed in many of the most prestigious scientific data centers across the globe and we could not be more honored to help SLAC protect its invaluable scientific data that is resulting in extraordinary discovery-based breakthroughs.”
Spectra Logic first managed to fit two exabytes of capacity into a single tape library in November 2018, after introducing the IBM TS11X0 tape formatting which can write up to 20TB of data onto a single cartridge.