Magnetic Tape Technology in a Multi-node Archival Storage System

This paper explores storage media selection for multi-node storage systems used for the long-term archiving and preservation of digital content.

Digital preservation, or the steps taken to make digital content accessible, trustworthy and usable into the future is crucial if we are to retain the ever-growing body of digital knowledge and cultural heritage that it is accumulating, for future generations. All kinds of corporations, governments and institutions are now retaining every type of digital record including images, video, documents, records, research data, social media etc.

Once digital content is lost, it is gone forever; and it is generally unknown at the time of archiving what of the broad collection of content will have the most value in the future so the typical answer to the difficult questions of assessment are to save as much as possible and to protect that content against loss, corruption and external attack.