InformationWeek
Defining The Business Value Of Technology
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November 6, 2000 |
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New Formats Fight To Dominate Tape Storage
Quantum banks on SuperDLT to keep it on top as IBM, HP, and Seagate ramp up LTO technology
By Larry Kahaner
he tape storage wars have begun, and the battle lines are being drawn. In one corner stands IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Seagate Technology, offering a new format for tape storage called Linear Tape-Open (LTO), which they will license to any qualified company. In the other corner is Quantum, the current reigning champion and market leader, which has kept its Digital Linear Tape (DLT) format pretty much to itself.The battle involves technology with an old-fashioned image--tape storage dates to the early 1950s. However, tape storage remains the most reliable and cost-effective way to store large amounts of data--tapes are durable and can be taken off-site for safekeeping without damaging their data.
"Tape cartridges hold more data per square inch of recording surface than any other technology," says Brad Renfree, senior manager, product marketing for LTO at Seagate Technology. "It's still the most cost-effective storage and safest media we have."
As if the concept of tape storage isn't retro enough, small tape backup systems rely on jukebox-like mechanisms--roving robotic arms and software working together as autoloaders--that insert tape cartridges into single drives which store, retrieve, read, and write data. Larger backup systems, called tape libraries, contain storage racks for holding many cartridges and multiple robotic arms for moving the cartridges to drives that operate simultaneously. A small tape library may contain several drives and dozens of cartridges. Large libraries can hold more than 100 drives and thousands of cartridges.
About 30% of drives are currently integrated into libraries, and this is increasing as companies' data storage needs rise. Libraries' scalability is also a big plus. Because they're built modularly, libraries can easily handle more data by adding more drives and additional autoloader mechanisms.
As E-business servers handle more data, the market for tape storage continues to grow. Total revenue for third-party manufacturers and integrators of high-performance tape units was $1.2 billion in 1999 and is expected to increase to $1.8 billion by 2005, according to Bob Abraham, president of Freeman Reports, a management consulting firm that specializes in data storage. Worldwide, the tape-automation market will reach $4.6 billion by 2004, according to consulting firm International Data Corp. However, as companies back up ever-larger files from their servers--due to the increasing deployment of graphics, video, and sound on the Web--these estimates may turn out to be conservative.
More than money and market share are at stake in the business of tape backup. There's also a changing of the guard. "Until now, Quantum was the only kid on the block," says Abraham. "Now there's competition."
Quantum has dominated the tape-storage industry, and its products are known for high quality and reliability. Quantum has shipped more than 1.5 million Digital Linear Tape drives and more than 50 million cartridges since acquiring the DLT technology about five years ago. The technology, purchased from Digital Equipment Corp., was languishing as an 8mm product before Quantum brought out a half-inch version that took off.
However, due to Quantum's market dominance, there have always been complaints about lack of choice. Quantum licensed its proprietary format to only one company, Tandberg Data in Oslo, Norway; this irked customers who felt that even if Quantum was the world's best choice for tape storage, they still had no options.
About three years ago, IBM, HP, and Seagate teamed to establish a new tape standard in hopes of breaking Quantum's hold on the market. It was openly licensed to all comers that met the criteria. About 20 companies have received licenses to produce these LTO products. "Why did we go after this market?" asks Bob Maness, IBM's LTO product manager, in Somers, N.Y. "We saw that customers had no options. Quantum was the only supplier and our research showed customers wanted choices."
Two versions of LTO products will be offered: Ultrium and Accelis. The Ultrium format uses a single-reel tape cartridge, handling about 100 Gbytes of uncompressed data per cartridge, with a transfer rate of 15 Mbytes per second.
The Accelis format is aimed at users that require faster access. Due to its configuration--it uses a dual-reel tape cartridge and a midpoint loading feature--it claims to reduce search times to less than 10 seconds on average. First-generation tapes hold 100 Gbytes of data, rising to 200 Gbytes, with transfer rates of 10 Mbytes to 20 Mbytes per second. Vendors are waiting to assess customer interest in Accelis storage systems before unveiling specific products.
One advantage touted by LTO's backers is a feature called Statistical Analysis Reporting, developed by IBM and integrated into LTO. Statistical Analysis Reporting uses a special chip embedded into each cartridge that memorizes which recording tracks have been corrupted. Customers can see how badly worn a tape is and decide if they want to reuse it. However, users of the DLT technology, which didn't have a similar early-warning system, have complained they were unsure how many times a tape could be reused, so they routinely threw tapes away after one or two uses.
In September, IBM began shipping its Ultrium Tape Drive desktop SCSI drive for small office applications and a high-end scalable library. "It's an incumbent market, so we are pricing aggressively, toward the current DLT market, which is $9,000" for a desktop unit, Maness says. IBM's 3584 ultrascalable library, dubbed Anaconda, can contain up to 24 drives and handle up to 721 cartridges. Total storage capacity is 72 terabytes, and prices range from $42,000 to $75,000.
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Illustration by Kaly Lemay
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