Top 5 Reasons Why Offsite and Offline Data Tape Vaults are Still Thriving
I recently had the opportunity to visit a very unique data tape vault run by Vital Records, Inc. The location I visited is in Roxbury New Jersey, about an hour drive from New York City. What makes this tape vault known as VRI
Roxbury, so unique is that it is 125,000 square feet of vault space situated between 30 and 50 feet underground. It was originally built by AT&T as a hardened command center bunker in the 1960’s. The facility is an intriguing blast from the past with relics of AT&T’s occupancy tastefully preserved. It was built to withstand natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, wildfires or dare I say, a nearby nuclear blast. In such an event, AT&T could continue to support the telecommunications needs of its clients, including the U.S. Military. So no expense was spared in building what is truly an engineering marvel below ground.
Vital Records purchased the facility in 1995 upon its decommissioning by AT&T and repurposed the space for protection and preservation of valuable enterprise data, most often in the form of millions of removable/portable data and video tapes. To say that the facility is fascinating would be an understatement. It is however, non-descript, at least upon arrival. VRI Roxbury is discreetly perched in the middle of desolate woods, atop a slight rise in the landscape, some 1,100+ feet above sea level, with nothing but a nameless security gate, a freshly painted parking lot, and a small anonymous structure housing an elevator entrance to accommodate pre-screened visitors and authorized employees at any time of day, 24/7.
Truth be told, this was not my first visit to VRI Roxbury. I had toured the facility some 20 years earlier while working for another data tape manufacturer. And while the facility has kept up with modern innovations such as security protocols including iris scans, temperature and humidity monitoring, hi-def video surveillance, new and improved inventory management techniques, it still essentially provides the same services today that it did 20 years ago. However, given several critical market dynamics, these services are more relevant today than ever before.
As both an active archive and tape evangelist, I’m excited to share how 
Big data, artificial intelligence, machine learning, video surveillance, and social media are among some of the biggest trends in the technology industry driving the creation of massive data sets that need to be managed and retained.
In response to this challenge, the tape ecosystem has significantly expanded its capabilities in recent years. LTO tape capacity continues to increase as new magnetic particles like Barium Ferrite and Strontium Ferrite will help to scale tape areal density for decades to come and current roadmaps signal that the trend of steady tape innovation will continue well into the future. It’s time to rethink existing data storage practices and take advantage of advanced magnetic tape for delivering the most sustainable, cost effective, highly scalable, and reliable mass storage systems.
Having lived most of my life in the Northeast, and having endured many cold and snowy winters, I was always jealous of the nice weather in California. Then to add to my jealousy, California was frequently referred to in the press as a “bellwether” state, particularly in politics. The term often applies to a geographic region where political tendencies might predict the eventual results for the entire country. In economics, a bellwether is a leading indicator of an economic trend. When it comes to the data tape industry, I think it’s safe to say that the 50 TB tape system recently announced by Fujifilm and IBM is a bellwether for tape technology. 
The 17th annual edition of the Flash Memory Summit (
At least for now, climate change is getting worse. We actually had the hottest days on Earth this July with a record global average of 62.92 degrees Fahrenheit. That does not sound that hot but it’s an average including summer in the northern hemisphere and winter in the southern hemisphere. These were the hottest days since 1979 at least, and broke records previously set in 2016 of 62.46 degrees F.
There are a plethora of studies and reports on cyber security and ransomware out in the marketplace, but I always enjoy reading and respect the findings of Jason Buffington, VP of Market Strategy at Veeam and his team. Their recently released 2023 Global Report on Ransomware Trends details lessons learned from 1,200 ransomware victims in 2022. You will want to download the full report