The medium-term prospects for long-term storage systems

Abstract

Purpose Increasingly, the content that libraries collect is no longer on paper, a long-lived, medium whose technology changes very slowly and with which they have centuries of experience. Instead, it is stored on relatively short-lived digital media whose technology appears to change rapidly and with which they have little history. The paper aims to discuss this issue. Design/methodology/approach The storage media industry is highly competitive and is currently evolving rapidly as flash, a solid state medium, displaces spinning disk from many applications. Long-term archival storage is a small part of the total storage market. It typically re-uses media and systems intended for more general bulk storage. Findings What are the medium-term prospects for change in this market? Originality/value Much of this material has appeared in blog posts and talks aimed at storage experts, such as the recent DARPA workshop on future of storage. It is presented here for a librarian audience with the necessary additional exposition and background.