4 ms·

tape storage would be perfect for storing movies. There is not much random access and it's cheap. Also need it to last 100 years would be a good selling point.

tape storage would be perfect for storing movies. There is not much random access and it's cheap. Also need it to last 100 years would be a good selling point. DVDs work but they do fail over time. Still waiting for that holographic or DNA storage.

shiroiushi 2y ago
If you need to store the entire Netflix catalog, then yes, tape would be the way to go here. If you're just storing your own personal collection, then definitely not. It's much cheaper to just buy or build a NAS with some large HDDs and store your entire library there, plus you can have immediate access to it any time with Jellyfin or Plex. The problem with tapes is that the tapes themselves aren't that cheap, and the drives are prohibitively expensive and require an HBA card (even more money). On top of that, enterprise software for tape management is horrifically expensive (and you probably can't buy it anyway as an individual), or you have to manage them manually at the command line with `tar > /dev/tape`. Even worse, if your tape drive dies (it is a complex mechanical item with lots of moving parts after all), then to read your tape library, you can't just go buy a new one, you have to get one of the same or similar generation as the tapes: an LTO-7 drive can't read a LTO-4 tape, for instance. At least DVDs are a fixed format that hasn't changed in decades, and getting a drive to read them is easy (and BluRay drives can read them too). DNA makes no sense for storage: it isn't even very good for storing our own genome, and needs complicated mechanisms to ensure integrity, and even then frequently fails, resulting in mutations (which is how evolution works). What we need is glass-based holographic storage. There is some commercial work here that I think Microsoft is involved in, but it seems to not be moving very quickly.

shiroiushi 2y ago

If you need to store the entire Netflix catalog, then yes, tape would be the way to go here. If you're just storing your own personal collection, then definitely not. It's much cheaper to just buy or build a NAS with some large HDDs and store your entire library there, plus you can have immediate access to it any time with Jellyfin or Plex. The problem with tapes is that the tapes themselves aren't that cheap, and the drives are prohibitively expensive and require an HBA card (even more money). On top of that, enterprise software for tape management is horrifically expensive (and you probably can't buy it anyway as an individual), or you have to manage them manually at the command line with `tar > /dev/tape`. Even worse, if your tape drive dies (it is a complex mechanical item with lots of moving parts after all), then to read your tape library, you can't just go buy a new one, you have to get one of the same or similar generation as the tapes: an LTO-7 drive can't read a LTO-4 tape, for instance. At least DVDs are a fixed format that hasn't changed in decades, and getting a drive to read them is easy (and BluRay drives can read them too). DNA makes no sense for storage: it isn't even very good for storing our own genome, and needs complicated mechanisms to ensure integrity, and even then frequently fails, resulting in mutations (which is how evolution works). What we need is glass-based holographic storage. There is some commercial work here that I think Microsoft is involved in, but it seems to not be moving very quickly.