LTO Tape Cold-Storage
Tape-Out Process
- Purchase brand-new LTO cartridge(s) from us.
- Pay the one-time setup fee ($100/tape).
- Your VM will be allocated one 18 TB virtual disk per tape.
-
Partition the disk with filesystems,
or stream raw data to it.
Examples:zfs send -w -R pool@tape1 | zfs recv ...mkfs.ext4and copy files over- stream
tar + age/gpgto disk
- At the end of the month, we will unload your tape, and transport it safely to a temperature/humidity controlled locker in our office.
Note: We only sell brand-new LTO cartridges.
This ensures our autoloader + tape drive stays nice and clean.
Cartridge Prices
| Generation | Capacity | Price |
|---|---|---|
| LTO-8 | 12 TB | $75 |
| LTO-9 | 18 TB | $100 |
Service Prices
| Service | Price |
|---|---|
| Initial Setup | $100/tape |
| Off-Site Storage | FREE |
| Recovery Sessions | One free session per year. Extra sessions: $100/tape. |
After purchase, you own the tape! No recurring fees :)
Compare us to Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive...
| Provider | Storage | Recurring Cost | Retrieval | Network Egress |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| zfs.rent LTO-9 |
18 TB | None! $200 one-time! |
FREE (1x/year) | N/A * |
| AWS S3 Glacier Deep Archive |
18 TB | $432 per year | $756 retrieval | $1,620 transfer |
"Network egress" doesn't apply to tape → VM sessions.
However... exporting 18 TB across our network yields about ~$90 (at our standard $5/TB rate).
Specifications
- Generation: LTO-9
- Capacity: 18 TB Uncompressed
- Lifespan: Up to 30 years
Notes
- The full 18 TB is at your disposal. All tapes are brand new.
- Use recovery sessions to read, rewrite, or append data.
