In order to satisfy the recent requirements of growing space to store data of scientific experiments and of a better data rate, CNAF acquired a new tape library. It is an IBM TS4500, equipped with 19 last generation enterprise tape drives, namely TS1160, each of them can reach a data rate of 400 MB/s both for reading and writing, to reach a total data rate of 7.6 GB/s, added to the 4 GB/s available on the other installed tape library, an Oracle StorageTek SL8500, so that the overall data rate capacity is 11.6 GB/s to and from tape.

The new library has a modular structure and at the moment it can host up to 6200 tape cartridges of 20 TB each, for a total potential capacity of 124 PB, which are added to the 84 PB available on the SL8500, to reach a total potential capacity of more than 200 PB.

In this way CNAF is getting ready in time for the next phase (RUN 3) of LHC accelerator, which will start during 2021, and for the requirements of growing space and data rate of the other scientific experiments hosted.

After a first test phase, the new tape library strated working in production by this week.