Huawei claims it is developing a storage solution that could potentially allow companies to move away from using tape-based storage.
Speaking at the company’s annual Innovative Data Infrastructure forum in Berlin, Peter Zhou, president of the data storage product line, said tape storage is a “terrible technology” as it is inefficient and presents a number of challenges as it needs to be stored in temperature and humidity-controlled spaces.
“When I talk to data center engineers, they all hate it,” he said.
Zhou said that innovation needs to happen so “we can forget about tape,” before adding that Huawei will hopefully have the answer to that question in the form of a new product expected at the start of next year.
First used for storing computer data in 1951, tape storage suffers from long access times and slow data transfer rates but is often considered to be a cost-efficient way to store information.
Earlier in the day, Zhou used his keynote speech to announce the latest addition to Huawei’s data storage product portfolio.
The new OceanStor A800 is an AI-specific storage product that forms part of the company’s OceanStor family of data storage solutions. Zhou also announced a new high-capacity solid-state drive and an AI-specific update to the company’s data management engine.
