Perth's Spectrum on how to avoid "catastrophic data loss"

Perth-based backup house Spectrum Data has launched a new "virtual tape" offering built on Amazon Web Services to avoid what it said is a growing problem of "catastrophic data loss"

Spectrum has released a video showing how storage media degrades over time as the oxide that forms the data recording layer deteriorates and renders content useless. (Click here for video)

The company, which bills itself as the largest independent data management company in the Southern Hemisphere, has explained that over time, the Mylar of tape media absorbs moisture, which makes it "soft and sticky" and causes the tape layers to swell.

"The end result – known as 'stiction' – is that the side of the tape holding the data sticks to the back of the layer of tape on top of it and in many cases results in the sticky binding agent simply peeling data off the tape layers in succession below it," according to a statement from Spectrum Data.

The company's founder and managing director, Guy Holmes, said the problem is becoming more common. "We have seen this phenomenon for many years, however, we are now starting to see it progress at an alarming rate.

"The problem is not just related to storage conditions or age of the media. We also see a strong correlation between media susceptible to this form of degradation and the manufacturer who made the tape media. Without question, cheaper tape media brands are far more susceptible to this problem, but at the end of the day, tapes we thought would last 30 or 40 years, simply don’t last."

Spectrum has aimed to turn this problem into an opportunity with a service to offer tape migration to the AWS cloud.

The Perth company, which began partnering with AWS in 2013, provides both the cloud vendor's S3 storage, which Spectrum brands as the Virtual Tape Library, or Glacier deep storage, marketed by as the Virtual Tape Shelf.

"Those that choose the Virtual Tape Shelf will experience a delay inherent with Glacier storage. Those who would like instant access to date can select data stored in the Virtual Tape Library Option, which is sitting in S3," said a spokesperson.

Inserting tape data into the cloud is free, then Spectrum charges a mark-up on the AWS storage rate card, depending on volume.

The company promises to cut the turnaround time to restore data currently stored on tape from 120 hours to four hours.