This tower stores 75,000 TB of data, using technology that predates floppy disks

It is estimated that 80% of the data stored has not been used in the last year. That is why the cloud also uses mass storage solutions. Spectra Cube is a tape cartridge-based tower, offering up to 75,000 TB of space in the size of a closet.

Since most data stored in the cloud is not used often, many companies offer cloud storage solutions. hybrid cloud. Less used data is stored in mass storage systems, such as cartridges on tapea technology prior to floppy disks, which became popular in the 80s of the last century.

The specialized company Spectra Logic has just launched Spectra Cube, a tower that uses tape cartridges in formats from LTO-6 to LTO-9, to store 30,000 TB of uncompressed dataand up to 75,000 TB of compressed data.

Goodbye to storage problems

Tape cartridges are a mass storage solution adopted by many companies. They are literally magnetic tapes Similar to classic cassette tapes, but thicker, and protected by a cartridge.

The format currently used is LTO (Linear Tape-Open), developed by HP, IBM and Seagate, of which there are several versions. The newer ones store more data. Spectra Cube accepts LTO-6 data cartridges, which store 2.5 TB of uncompressed data, or 6.25 TB compressed:

Spectra Cube is compatible with cartridges with the LTO-9 format, which has a capacity of 18 TB uncompressed, and 45 TB compressed. But it is already under development up to the LTO-14 format, with a capacity of 576 TB uncompressed, and twice as much compressed.

The price of an LTO-6 cartridge like the one in the photo, with 6.25 TB of data, is around 35 eurosso they are much cheaper than an SSD, and even a hard drive.

Other advantages of tape cartridges are that their data density is much higher (more data fits in less space), they are very reliable, last for decades, and They cannot be hacked, because the data is saved in analog format.

Of course, its speed is not very high. In the case of Spectra Cube, it can help about 32.4 TB of data per hour. It is enough to store data that is not frequently used. Spectra Cube encrypts everything it stores.

As you can imagine, the price of a tower of this type is not cheap. According to comment TechRadar Pro, Spectra Cube filled with cartridges on tape costs between 60,000 and 800,000 eurosdepending on the type of tape you use.

It is a solution designed for data centers and companies that work in the cloud. For them it is a reasonable price, since they get up to 75,000 TB of compressed data, 75 Petabytes (75 PB), in a relatively small space.