DKRZ takes up operation of a third Spectra tape library

This third new tape library was delivered by the company Cristie Data after a Europe-wide call for tenders. The new library complements the two new systems of the same type already installed in June 2023, which will be used to gradually replace the six old Oracle Storagetek SL8500 libraries that have been in operation at DKRZ for 16 years.

The new tape library has space for almost 9,600 tapes and is equipped with 14 new LTO-8 drives. These drives are able to read and write to LTO-7 Type M and LTO-8 tape cartridges. With a bandwidth of 15 gigabytes per second, data can be written to and downloaded from the tapes – this corresponds approximately to the data volume of 300 hours of favorite music or 10 hours of Netflix movies.

When fully stocked, an additional 115 petabytes of storage space will be available to DKRZ users for their climate model results. Initially, however, the library was equipped with five hundred new LTO-8 cartridges (each with 12 terabytes of storage space). Depending on demand, further cartridges will be procured and integrated into the archive in the future.For more than 35 years, the DKRZ data archive has provided secure and energy-efficient storage of climate model data over long periods of time. The DKRZ archive currently stores 212 petabytes of climate model data, with more than 25 petabytes of new data being added each year.

The tape library is highly energy efficient: the energy consumption of the entire library is around 1400 watts, which is roughly equivalent to the consumption of a standard hair dryer.

Other users of Spectra Logic Tfinity tape libraries include renowned institutions such as the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in Munich (LRZ).