Others note that disk drives are not designed for "cold storage." Quantum's Kenyon says that, whereas Super Digital Linear Tape (SDLT) media is rated at 30 years of reliable life for archival purposes, a powered-down disk may start to lose data and start to demagnetize after a year or two. "Disk is designed for very fast I/O operations," he says. "The disks have to keep spinning for them to work."
In the future, disks may be designed with features that would make them better suited for long-term archival. The Information Storage Industry Consortium (INSIC), which establishes five- and 10-year technology roadmaps for the disk drive industry, has started to consider how to extend the shelf life of a powered-down disk.
"It's certainly something of interest, and people are certainly thinking about what would need to be different for disk drives for archival storage," says Paul Frank, director of INSIC. But today, most hard drive vendors are not doing any actual R&D in this area.
Ultimately, Daly believes, the adoption of disk-based backup systems is largely a cultural issue: Most IT managers are accustomed to backing up data to tape. "It's easy to show the economics, but I think no one's going to do it until they get some operational expertise with disk backup systems."
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