Fujitsu has announced a new technology called Virtual Integrated File System that it says could help magnetic tape storage compete with hard disk drives as a low-cost, large capacity storage alternative.
With the feud between Sony and Fujitsu around LTO resolved late last year, all eyes are now on LTO-9, which is expected to be delivered in 2020. This iteration will deliver capacities up to 26.1TB (uncompressed) and raw throughput of up to 708MB/sec.
That’s a higher capacity than the largest hard drive on the market (currently 20TB) – also faster and likely cheaper too. Add in on-the-fly compression capabilities and, suddenly, it’s all looking rosy for the venerable tape.
