At SCC, the central tape library of the Tier-1 data center GridKa has been relocated to a new site and fully commissioned in recent days. The tape library is a core component of the storage infrastructure for data from the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (CERN) and plays a crucial role in the long-term archiving and safeguarding of this research data.
The magnetic tape system from Spectra Logic spans almost 13 meters in length, making it one of the largest tape libraries in Europe. It features two tape robots and 48 tape drives for data transfer. In total, around 14,900 cartridges were sorted into the shelves using special transport modules, so-called “Terapacks”. With this configuration, the system achieves a theoretical storage capacity of nearly 300 petabytes.
Beyond its enormous capacity, tape technology stands out for its energy efficiency: operating the entire library requires only 1.5 to 3 kilowatts of power—comparable to an industrial vacuum cleaner. This makes the solution significantly more economical than disk-based systems, which demand not only more energy but also higher cooling performance for long-term storage of large data volumes. While access times for magnetic tape are considerably longer, once a tape is mounted, the transfer rate matches that of high-performance hard drives.
With the successful relocation and expansion of the tape library, SCC strengthens the capabilities of the GridKa data center and ensures the reliable storage of research data for the international scientific community.