Sometimes the math just does not add up
Solutions north was founded during the hey day of the internet boom, which coincided with the proliferation of office Ethernet modernization. The principle desire was to expedite the conversion from older networking to Ethernet with minimal disruption to the business. Today SNC is focused on technical services and analysis. As a strong supporter of storage infrastructure initiatives, we have done copious work around magnetic tape. Recently I can across an advertisement that struck me funny.
In no way is my desire in this article to directly discredit the company that has posted the information, but I do challenge the assertions in the data. As with many companies that are working to get a foot hold in a very competitive environment, they have chosen to attack tape storage. There are times when tape should not be considered the candidate for storage, but long term storage of data for Bar, and active archives is not one of those times. Let’s start out with the claim: “A typical customer protecting 1 petabyte of data on tape…saving $218,000 per year”.
This is a a pretty strong claim, and rather than dispute any numbers we are going to lay out the market data for 1 petabyte of tape.
- Assuming minimal compression
- 80 LTO-8 Cartridges at current market price of $100 per cartridge = $8,333.33
- An IBM TS4300 which is a market competitive solution also offered by Dell, HP and Spectralogic, for 2 drawers and 6 LTO-8 tape drives at standard discount rates = $28,000
- Back-up administrator for small solution 25% time per year at $150,000 burden = $37,500
- Assuming aggressive growth We add another drawer to the stackable library with 50% population of media = $10,200
Total acquisition for 3 year solution = $84,033.33 + $75,000 for administration
The entire solution for 3 year TCO with 12.5% annual growth is $159,033.33. Since the industry stackable library is a rack mountable system, there is less than 6 sq ft of floor space consumed. The advertised solution essentially indicates that tape cost allocation is $59,000 more per year in allocations of management than an entire 3 year TCO!
The math does not work. Tape is the lowest cost storage in the industry and although it is most competitive at higher data capacities, it is still very competitive in the 1 petabyte range. SNC has looked at the numbers provided by the company and the claims are appropriately assigned, but the values assigned to managing tape and managing cloud infrastructure appear to be misleading.
Tape is not difficult to manage, it is integrated into the most efficient environments in the world, including Hyperscale environments. Gone are the days of removing tape from libraries for storage off-site or to make room for capacity. Modern tape infrastructure can storage 13 petabytes of uncompressed data in less than 10 sq ft of floor space. That is uncompressed, and the average client outside of the media and entertainment industry is achieving 2.5:1 compression, that is 26 petabytes in less than 10 sq ft.
Do not be mislead by claims of huge saving for storing or protecting your data. Tape offers modern interfaces and processes for storing and protecting data at the best price for performance.
Add your comments agree or not we are always looking for your input!
Harli Drobnjakovic