The Challenges Facing Science Data Archiving on Current Mass Storage Systems

This paper discusses the desired characteristics of a tape-based petabyte science data archive and retrieval system required to store and distribute several terabytes (TB) of data per day over an extended period of time, probably more than 115 years, in support of programs such as the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS). These characteristics take into consideration not only cost effective and affordable storage capacity, but also rapid access to selected files, and reading rates that are needed to satisfy thousands of retrieval transactions per day. It seems that where rapid random access to files is not crucial, the tape medium, magnetic or optical, continues to offer cost effective data storage and retrieval solutions, and is likely to do so for many years to come. However, in environments like EOS these tape based archive solutions provide less than full user satisfaction. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to describe the performance and operational enhancements that need to be made to the current tape based archival systems in order to achieve greater acceptance by the EOS and similar user communities.