RCC is greatly expanding The University of Queensland's research data storage capacity with 2,000 new tape cartridges installed at two locations.
With each tape cartridge holding 20 terabytes of uncompressed data, UQ is adding an additional 40,000 terabytes (40 Petabytes) to its research data storage.
RCC recently installed 1,000 new tape cartridges into the Polaris Data Centre in Springfield, Queensland, which hosts all UQ’s Research Data Manager (UQRDM) ‘Q’ collection data storage, as well as the University’s high-performance research computing and cloud.
A further 1,000 tapes were installed in the Prentice Data Centre on UQ’s St Lucia campus, which contains a complete second copy of the data.
Storage capacity is being expanded to cater for UQ's rapidly growing research data, and to provide researchers with long-term, resilient and stable data storage facilities that protect their data.
RCC Director Jake Carroll said tape media technology is an often misunderstood part of research data management. “A common misconception is that tape is old, outdated and slow. The truth is, it forms the densest, most environmentally friendly, financially viable and durable part of the data storage hierarchy in the largest and most data-intensive scientific research organisations, globally,” said Jake.
“By continually investing in and enhancing our research data storage infrastructure, UQ can ensure research data assets are useful now and well into the future, when coupled with good research data governance.
“In eResearch, scientific data is our currency, our intellectual base and the pillar on which we build our research reputation. We must care for it with appropriate diligence and concern.”
UQ’s two tape library sites are geographically distributed (the Polaris Data Centre is about 30km away from St Lucia) for risk mitigation purposes.
The new tape cartridges are part of the growth of UQ’s MeDiCI high-performance data storage fabric, and enable the UQRDM service to continue to offer sustainable data storage for all UQ researchers.
MeDiCI delivers ultra-fast multi-site data access on demand without user involvement, saving researchers valuable time to focus on their work. It is the backbone of RDM’s high-scalability, HPC-connected data storage collections.
