16 March 2023
Eric Bassier, senior director of products, Quantum
With the amount of digital data being created and stored constantly on the rise with no sign of slowing down, organisations are becoming more aware of the impact their storage requirements have on the environment.
Where once the main priorities for storage were primarily cost vs efficiency, now environmental, social, and governance (ESG) concerns are a top consideration. That’s especially so for data centres, where the pressure is on to ensure data storage is more sustainable without compromising performance levels.
To address this challenge, organisations need to replace these systems with a storage architecture that enables the effective management of data over longer life cycles for a wider variety of workloads - at a higher level of sustainability.
Tape technology + object storage = transformative capabilities
As the need for more environmentally friendly storage solutions increases, tape storage is rising in popularity once again primarily for long-term storage in place of less sustainable disk-based solutions.
When it comes to finding more eco-friendly storage architectures that will deliver seamless and high-performance access to massive data sets, recent pioneering innovations in tape technologies now make it possible to manage both cold and hot data storage in a scalable and highly efficient manner.
With more data being retained for compliance or business reasons, much of this information may not be accessed again for years, if ever, which makes using hard disk storage solutions geared towards the constant availability of data a far from efficient option. However, by combining hyperscale tape technologies with advanced object store software it is possible to deploy low cost, secure, and environmentally friendly storage systems that will reliably store data for decades.
Offering high-performance access to massive data sets, this new class of storage solution, based on tape technology, enables organisations to resolve the challenge of handling long-term data retention in a greener and more cost-effective way. So how does tape make this possible?
Reducing power, not performance
One of the leading benefits of tape storage has always been its lower acquisition costs; per gigabyte, the cost of tape hardware is about half that of disk-based solutions. Add to that the lower power consumption and heat generation levels of tape storage, and the arguments in favour of switching to tape across a wider range of use cases become even more compelling. And especially so for data centres, where this can create significant savings in energy usage and emission levels.
In practical terms, tape libraries consume very little to no energy unless data is being read or written, with almost no heat dissipation or cooling requirements as a result. In a modelled production environment, one study found that migrating data that is less active from disk drives to tape drives could achieve an 85% reduction in CO2 emissions resulting from running approximately 500Tb of less active data on tape versus HDD over a twelve-month period.
Taking care of the environment
Alongside reduced electricity consumption, tape storage also has a lower overall lifespan impact on the environment compared to disk-based systems.
For example, magnetic tape storage has a much longer lifespan than most hard disk drives. When hosted in an environment with stable humidity and temperature controls, tape will last anything between 10-20 years depending on usage levels. By contrast, most hard disk drives in use today will only last three to five years, not least because disks rely on many more moving parts that are liable to wear out and fail over time.
Making the switch to tape storage instead of disk drives means organisations can achieve anything up to a two-thirds reduction in their disposal requirements and reduce the e-waste associated with circuit boards that contain highly polluting components.
Towards a more sustainable storage future
For organisations trying to meet ESG requirements while not missing out on high-performing storage solutions, tape is a reliable and popular way to ensure that storage doesn’t cost the earth – literally. Adopting tape storage for less active data can help organisations lower their CO2 emissions, reduce disposal costs, and crucially keep energy consumption down.
When it comes to looking after the environment without compromising on performance, organisations can now take advantage of today’s advanced object store and hyperscale tape solutions to achieve their ambitious ESG targets in an efficient and seamless way.
