[gruez]

>Also look into LTO tape drives. LTO 6 drives should be cheaper than 7/8 (though still not cheap) and have a capacity around 6TB.

AFAIK a post on /r/datahoarders says that the breakeven point for tapes vs shucked hard drives from a pure storage perspective is around 50TB. Given the hassle associated with dealing with tapes, it's probably only really worth it if you have 100+TB of data to store.

[dehrmann]

What do you think the availability of LTO 6 drives will be in 10 years? The major benefit of SATA, and even Bluray, is the interface and drive will likely still exist in 10 years.

[fl0wenol]

I'm still able to interface with an LTO 1 tape drive. It's all SCSI or SAS. Secondary markets like Ebay have made this surprisingly affordable (used drive, unopened older media).

LTO is nice in that they mandate backwards compatibility by two revisions, which come out once every 3 years or so. So that gives you time to roll forward to new media onto a new drive without breaking the bank, and giving time for the secondary market to settle.

Adding: This was a deliberate decision by the LTO Consortium; they wanted users to perceive LTO as the safest option for data retention standards.

[_jal]

Given that you can buy LTO-1 (commercialized in 2000) drives and tapes today, and given the size of the market, I suspect they'll be around.

[cptskippy]

LTO 6 is like 10 years old, so the availability in 10 years will probably be limited. That being said, LTO 7 drives are able to read LTO 6 so that might increase your chances.

[klodolph]

I can vouch for the 50TB figure, it’s around there.

The amount of hassle depends on your workflow. If you create a backup every day and then bring the media off-site, tape is easier. Easy enough to put a tape in your drive, make the backup, and eject. Tape is not sensitive to shock and you can just chuck the tapes in your care or shove them in your backpack.

[bch]

> Tape is not sensitive to shock and you can just chuck the tapes in your car

Apocryphal story from university - somebody did this and reckons electro-magnetic leakage from their heated seats wrecked their info

[klodolph]

Modern media is much more resistant to this kind of stuff.

[ineedasername]

Depends on your archival needs. Consensus seems to be that tapes have a longer unpowered shelf life. In terms of speed it really is cold storage though. You can't just bring the tape over to a user's system and copy a file. And seek times for retrieval of arbitrary files are very slow compared to HDD.

If you really need it to last and re-writability isn't an issue, M Disc claims 1,000 years.