Tape drives: the solution for long-term storage
Cold Archive: the solution for long-term storage
According to the IDC, the volume of global data could reach 175 zettabytes in 2025. While 30% of this data is processed in real time, a large part—between half and two thirds—will be classified as ‘cold data’, meaning it is accessed less than once a year. In France, this cold data could account for up to 14% of digital technology’s environmental footprint.
Magnetic tape storage offers a long-term and effective response to this challenge. This technology allows data to be stored for very long periods of time, while drastically reducing the environmental and economic impact. It also guarantees full compliance with regulations such as the GDPR, as well as ISO/IEC 27001 and HDS standards.
Magnetic tape storage: the future-proof low tech
From 12 years for notarial documents, 50 years for certain judgments, 6 years for personal injury claims files, 10 years for a medical file, or 6 years for accounting and financial documents: the legal obligation to retain certain documents applies to many UK professions and companies. In addition, there is the heritage value of certain archives, such as millions of hours of radio and television broadcasts, web and video game archives, or the thousands of records collected for museums and genealogy projects.
Internationally, the Internet Archive also illustrates the importance of preserving traces of our digital heritage.
Rarely accessed data
What do these archives have in common? They are read very little. In fact, 80% of the data backed up is never, or rarely, accessed after 90 days of being saved. Sometimes referred to as ‘dark data’, they present a major challenge in terms of storage costs and environmental impact.
The return of magnetic tapes
Magnetic tape storage is making a big comeback to meet these specific needs. This medium is both almost indestructible and very cost-effective, making it perfect for long-term data storage. OVHcloud is making this technology more accessible by industrialising storage:
- Infrastructure robotization to effectively manage volumes
- Increased resilience by distributing data via erasure coding between 4 geographically separate zones.
OVHcloud tape storage: a sustainable, cost-effective solution
Data resilience, integrity and sustainability
OVHcloud’s magnetic tape storage combines several advantages for optimal data retention.
- Exceptional longevity: this medium has an extended life when stored in ideal conditions.
- Enhanced security: your data is distributed across 4 remote datacentres in France using the erasure coding method, guaranteeing its resilience.
- Automated process: robotization eliminates human error and allows data to be immutable for a set or indefinite time.
- Protection against cyberattacks: the physical media is never connected to the public network, drastically reducing risks.
High storage density
The technology used by OVHcloud enables up to 20 TB of storage per cassette, and the management of 3 virtual libraries per datacentre (3 x 18,000 cassettes). This amounts to a total capacity of 1 exabyte per datacentre for a footprint of just 325 m². What’s more, the latest generation cassettes continue to offer increased storage density, making this technology even more powerful.
Cost-effective and eco-friendly
Attractive prices:
- Temporary storage space: €0.0071 ex. VAT/GB/month;
- Tape archiving: €0.0013 ex. VAT/month, with a 7% reduction above 3 PB;
- Minimum storage duration: 6 months
- Minimum billing: 1 TB, then granular billing per GB
- Data recovery: €0.005 ex. VAT/GB .
Reduced carbon footprint: unlike disk-based technologies, which require constant power, magnetic tape storage consumes no energy at rest. As a result, it generates 10 times less CO₂ emissions, making this solution an environmentally-friendly and sustainable alternative.
How does OVHcloud tape storage work?
OVHcloud magnetic tape storage is not yet integrated as a storage class in the S3* lifecycle.
For now, it applies to storage of a full Bucket. However, the service is fully compatible with the S3 API, which makes it easy to integrate.
Depositing
To start with, the data to be archived must be deposited in a dedicated Object Storage bucket, located in the Roubaix region (France). You can access it via the S3 API and Openstack, in CLI, SDK or even via an infrastructure-as-code tool such as a Terraform. To optimise read and write performance, considering gathering the data in a single file (.zip, .RAR, etc.) within your bucket.
Retention
Once deposited, your data is transferred to magnetic tapes and distributed between 4 datacentres in France using the erasure coding method, guaranteeing their resilience. Once this transfer is complete, your data is automatically deleted from the temporary Bucket. The tapes, disconnected from the system by OVHcloud robots, are then securely stored. If you need to, you can also enable data immutability for a set or indefinite period.
Data unarchival/retrieval
When you want to recover your data, it is restored in a temporary bucket, physically located in the Roubaix region (France). The unarchive time is guaranteed to take a maximum of 48 hours, regardless of the volume of data to be recovered. Once your data has been extracted from the temporary bucket, billing stops automatically (with a minimum retention period of 6 months).
Magnetic tapes for use in AI
Magnetic tape storage is proving to be a useful solution for conserving the big data produced and collected by companies for later analysis using AI algorithms. In a time where data is being produced exponentially, it is becoming crucial to implement an effective storage strategy based on data tiering: distinguishing hot, warm and cold data.
This approach is particularly relevant for massive volumes of data collected at regular intervals, such as satellite images, meteorological data or medical cohort studies. These data sets are often only of long-term value, for global or retrospective analyses.
To avoid throwing away data that could turn out to be valuable thanks to the increasing spread of AI tools, we need to refine our data tiering strategy. With an archive-tiering approach, the coldest data can be “frozen” onto tape, dramatically reducing storage costs.
And when it is needed, you can retrieve a multi-terabyte dataset in 48 hours or less, directly from your OVHcloud infrastructure, ready to be analysed.
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*S3 is a registered trademark of Amazon Technologies, Inc. OVHcloud services are not sponsored or approved by, nor affiliated with Amazon Technologies, Inc. in any way.