Geyser Data's Tape-as-a-Service reaches general availability
Built with Spectra Logic, integrates seamlessly with AWS S3
No egress fees, secure air-gapped tapes, energy-efficient solution
Back in May 2024, cloud archive provider Geyser Data and data storage and management firm Spectra Logic introduced a new Tape-as-a-Service (TaaS) cloud offering combining the durability and cost-efficiency of traditional tape storage with the flexibility of cloud services.
This TaaS solution addresses the growing demand for secure, cost-effective data storage, supporting large volumes while minimizing environmental impact.
Geyser Data claims up to 97% lower CO2 emissions, 87% less power usage, and 85% less e-waste compared to other cloud services. It offers enhanced security with dedicated tapes and full control over encryption keys, along with the freedom of immediate access.
Subscription service
Following a well-received beta phase, the TaaS offering is now generally available.
Nelson Nahum, CEO of Geyser Data, outlined some of the service's key benefits, saying, "New workloads like AI require cold data to be warmer. One of our customers' biggest challenges today is the unpredictable and skyrocketing costs tied to data retrieval and egress fees in other cloud environments. Our service provides a simple and transparent pricing model that eliminates these burdens while giving businesses the storage capacity they need without investing in new hardware."
The 'enterprise-class' tape archiving solution operates on a subscription basis. It integrates with S3 APIs, allowing businesses to manage and store large volumes of data without the variable costs typical of traditional cloud providers, the need for specialized expertise, or reliance on complex on-premises infrastructure.
“By integrating Spectra Logic's Tape Archive Platform-as-a-Service (TAPAS) with Geyser Data's robust cloud software management platform, we've developed a solution that drives significant cost savings while also addressing critical power consumption challenges faced by data-intensive technologies such as AI and machine learning," noted Mitch Seigle, Chief Marketing Officer of Spectra Logic.
"As organizations grapple with the demands of rapidly expanding data volumes, tape storage provides unmatched security, longevity, sustainability, and operational efficiency - making it a pivotal element in modern data infrastructure strategies.”
Geyser Data offers a straightforward pricing model at $28 per tape per month, with each tape capable of storing up to 18TB of uncompressed data. This equates to an effective cost of $1.56 per terabyte. There are no restrictions on the amount of data customers can archive or back up, as the Spectra Cube library is designed to scale to meet demand.
01.ai trained an AI model for $3 million using 2000 unnamed GPUS
“Efficient engineering” allows 01.ai to compete globally, company claims
01.ai reduced inference costs to 10 cents per million tokens
Tech companies in China face a number of challenges due to the American export ban, which restricts access to advanced hardware from US manufacturers.
This includes cutting-edge GPUs from Nvidia, critical for training large-scale AI models, forcing Chinese firms to rely on older or less efficient alternatives, making it difficult to compete globally in the rapidly evolving AI industry.
However, as we’ve seen time and again, these seemingly insurmountable challenges are increasingly being overcome through innovative solutions and Chinese ingenuity. Kai-Fu Lee, founder and CEO of 01.ai, recently revealed that his team successfully trained its high-performing model, Yi-Lightning, with a budget of just $3 million and 2,000 GPUs. In comparison, OpenAI reportedly spent $80-$100 million to train GPT-4 and is rumored to have allocated up to $1 billion for GPT-5.
Making inference fast too
“The thing that shocks my friends in the Silicon Valley is not just our performance, but that we trained the model with only $3 million," Lee said (via @tsarnick).
"We believe in scaling law, but when you do excellent detailed engineering, it is not the case you have to spend a billion dollars to train a great model. As a company in China, first, we have limited access to GPUs due to the US regulations, and secondly, Chinese companies are not valued what the American companies are. So when we have less money and difficulty to get GPUs, I truly believe that necessity is the mother of invention."
Lee explained the company’s innovations include reducing computational bottlenecks, developing multi-layer caching, and designing a specialized inference engine. These advancements, he claims, result in more efficient memory usage and optimized training processes.
“When we only have 2,000 GPUs, the team has to figure out how to use it,” Kai-Fu Lee said, without disclosing the type of GPUs used. “I, as the CEO, have to figure out how to prioritize it, and then not only do we have to make training fast, we have to make inference fast... The bottom line is our inference cost is 10 cents per million tokens.”
For context, that’s about 1/30th of the typical rate charged by comparable models, highlighting the efficiency of 01.ai's approach.
Some people may be skeptical about the claims that you can train an AI model with limited resources and "excellent engineering", but according to UC Berkeley’s LMSIS, Yi-Lightning is ranked sixth globally in performance, suggesting that however it has done it, 01.ai has indeed found a way to be competitive with a minuscule budget and limited GPU access.
Micron 6550 Ion SSD comes in 30.72TB and 61.44TB capacities
PCIe Gen5 G8 TLC NAND improves performance and efficiency
Sequential read write speeds are over 12GBs and 5GBs respectively
Modern data centers require high-capacity, energy-efficient SSD storage solutions to support data-intensive applications like AI and machine learning.
Addressing these needs, Micron has introduced the 6550 Ion SSD, available in 30.72TB and 61.44TB capacities.
The 6550 Ion SSD, which Micron is positioning as the “world’s fastest, most energy-efficient 60TB data center SSD,” is available in various form factors, including E1.L and U.2, but it's the E3.S model which really shines, with its 61.44TB of TLC NAND.
Better performance than expected
Previously, in order to deliver a capacity of 61.44TB, manufacturers needed to use QLC NAND, but by making the switch to Gen5 interface G8 TLC NAND, Micron is able to offer faster write performance, endurance, and the thing that data centers are increasingly craving - energy efficiency.
StorageReview tested the new drive, and came away impressed, as reviewer Brian Beeler notes: “The Micron 6550 Ion offers massive performance and capacity benefits over the 6500 Ion, its predecessor. It adheres to PCIe Gen5 standards and incorporates future-proofing capabilities through OCP 2.5. Micron has prioritized security in the 6550 Ion, ensuring TAA and FIPS 140-3 L2 certifiability and a comprehensive security suite."
In terms of performance, Micron says the 6550 Ion delivers sequential read speeds of 12GB/s and write speeds of 5GB/s while maintaining a maximum power consumption of 20W. StorageReview's test recorded read speeds of 12.7GB/s and writes of 8.2GB/s, better than expected.
The review compared the 6550 Ion against the Solidigm P5336, the only 61.44TB SSD widely shipping today, and while acknowledging it wasn't an even match, said, "We noted many areas where the newer Gen5 interface on the Micron 6550 Ion excelled over the Gen4 interface in the P5336, which is expected. The difference between Gen4 vs. Gen5 drives relates to how much bandwidth each drive can push across the wire. The Gen4 PCIe interface with four lanes of connectivity is capable of around 7GB/s, while the newer Gen5 PCI interface doubles that with 14GB/s. Micron’s use of TLC NAND gives it another design advantage over QLC-based competitors."
Energy efficiency is another key selling point of the 6550 Ion. It uses up to 20% less power than competing SSDs and supports multiple operational power states. For example, Power State 1 (PS1) limits power usage to 20W, compared to the maximum 25W. It also consumes ≤5W when idle.
The 61.44TB capacity of the 6550 Ion is impressive, but it's set to be dwarfed when the PCIe Gen5 Phison Pascari D205V (offered in U.2 and E3.L formats) arrives in Q2 2025. As well as a 61.44TB model, there will also be one with double the capacity, 122.88TB, and it will be interesting to see how that compares in terms of performance.
Western Digital unveils new HDD storage options for businesses
32TB UltraSMR and 26TB ePMR CMR are the world's highest capacity ePMR HDDs
Built for scalability, efficiency, and long lasting with 5 year warranty
Western Digital has unveiled new advancements in hard drive technology which it says align with the burgeoning needs of AI and data-intensive applications.
The company has recently launched the new 32TB UltraSMR HDD and 26TB ePMR CMR HDD.
These new hard drives, equipped with innovative features like OptiNAND and ArmorCache offer scalable, efficient, and cost-effective solutions for hyperscalers, cloud service providers (CSPs), and enterprises.
Cutting-edge 11-disk design for maximum efficiency
The 32TB Ultrastar DC HC690 SMR HDD is the industry’s highest-capacity HDD to date, using cutting-edge UltraSMR technology to support deep content storage at scale. On the other hand, the 26TB Ultrastar DC HC590 CMR HDD offers a drop-in replacement for enterprises looking to grow their data capacity without compromising on performance or reliability.
The 32TB UltraSMR HDD offers up to 257 MiB/s sequential performance and using just 5.5W of power while idle making it ideal for "warm" and "cold" data storage tiers, helping businesses optimize their energy consumption while scaling their storage needs. Meanwhile, the 26TB CMR HDD features a sustained transfer rate of up to 288 MiB/s and consumes just 5.6W in idle mode, making it a reliable option for mission-critical environments.
Their 11-disk design is the first of its kind to be commercially available and increases the storage capacity without increasing the physical size of the drives, making them highly efficient for modern data centers.
Western Digital integrates the new HDDs into the Ultrastar Data60 and Data102 hybrid storage platforms which can accommodate up to 102 drives, offering up to 3.26 petabytes of raw capacity. The company also uses IsoVibe and ArcticFlow to reduce vibration and optimize cooling.
The 26TB WD Gold SATA HDDs offer a decent balance for system integrators and resellers. Drawing from the Ultrastar HDD platform, these drives are tailored for small and medium businesses who require reliable, high-performance storage, and feature up to 2.5 million hours mean time between failure (MTBF) and a five-year warranty.
“Our CMR and UltraSMR technology isn't just breaking records—it’s giving customers the efficiency and TCO benefits they’ve been asking for, and we’re not done yet,” said Ravi Pendekanti, SVP of Product Management, HDD Business Unit, Western Digital.
“By delivering the industry’s highest ePMR capacities available today, we are ensuring that our customers have the storage efficiency, scalability, reliability and unmatched value they need to stay ahead."
VPN usage in Pakistan has never been so high, the government is set to introduce a new policy that could potentially ban the use of "unregistered" services starting today, November 30, 2024.
People in Pakistan have been turning en masse to VPN services throughout 2024 as they look for a way to bypass growing censorship online. WhatsApp is just the latest social media platform currently blocked in the country. The block came two days after authorities restricted Bluesky amid a surge in popularity worldwide. X, Facebook, and Instagram also can't be accessed without a VPN.
I've spoken with some experts to understand what's at stake and discover everything you might need to know to retain internet freedoms in the country.
How to avoid disruption in Pakistan
Set up a manual VPN
Contact VPN support teams
Rotate VPN providers
If you experience some issues downloading or using your VPN app in the next days or weeks, Gytis Malinauskas, Head of Legal at Surfshark suggests setting up a manual VPN connection. You'll likely find the details on how to do this on specific devices on your provider's website such as this step-by-step guide from Surfshark. Remember, you'll still need a VPN account to do this.
If this doesn't work, contact your provider's support team for assistance. "Our team is continuously working to provide our users with privacy and security solutions even in regions with challenging internet landscapes," Malinauskas explains.
Both Malinauskas and Simon Migliano, Head of Research at Top10VPN, also recommend rotating through multiple VPN providers.
Are free VPNs a solution?
Potentially. I suggest checking out our best free VPN page to get all the most secure freebies – PrivadoVPNand Proton VPN are today's top picks.
"It's likely to be a bit of a lottery, at least at first," Migliano told TechRadar. "Based on the recent test runs of Pakistan's new firewall, I'm expecting VPN blocks to be much more widespread from November 30. But as we've seen in countries with a much more mature internet censorship regime, such as China and Iran, it's near-impossible to block all the VPNs, all the time."
It's worth keeping in mind that the legal grounds for using a VPN to bypass restrictions in Pakistan after November 30 aren't yet clear. Commenting on this point, Migliano said: "Using an unregistered VPN in Pakistan after the deadline will be a risky proposition, depending on how strictly the authorities enforce the new rules."
Alternatives to using a VPN in Pakistan
Tor Browser
Proxy Services
SmartDNS service
VPNs may be the most widespread and easy-to-use circumventing tools out there, but certainly aren't the only way to bypass internet blocks, bans, and other geo-restrictions.
Tor Browser is probably the best VPN alternative you could use. Completely free to use, Tor is even considered a more secure option as it reroutes your internet connections (and data in transit) through at least three encrypted layers. This boosted encryption, however, can considerably slow down your connection speed.
It's near-impossible to block all the VPNs, all the time
Simon Migliano, Top10VPN
Proxy services are another effective method of spoofing your IP address to trick your ISP (internet service provider) into thinking you're browsing from a completely different country within a couple of clicks.
The downside here is that, unlike VPNs, proxies don't encrypt your internet connections, making them less secure overall. As Pakistan's firewall is expected to boost online surveillance, too, I recommend keeping this method as a last resort – especially now as it's not clear the risk of bypassing the government's imposed online restrictions.
You can also use a SmartDNS service to bypass geo-restriction online with ease. Again, these services do not offer the same level of protection as VPNs, meaning they don't encrypt your data. Worse still, a SmartDNS doesn't even change your IP but simply reroutes information about your location instead.
Why is Pakistan restricting VPN usage?
The government first shared plans to regulate the use of VPNs back in August to curb VPN misuse. Authorities later deemed unregistered VPNs a "security risk" for Pakistan as they can be used to access "sensitive data."
Under the new policy, using a VPN is still permitted for legitimate purposes such as banking, foreign missions, corporate enterprises, universities, IT companies, call centers, and freelance professionals.
This is why the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has been urging businesses and freelance workers to register their VPN services by the November 30 deadline to avoid disruption.
The debate is still ongoing, however, on whether or not commercial VPN usage should also be blocked. That said, VPNs have often been a target during the year, with residents facing temporary connectivity issues starting in February (when the ex-Twitter was first restricted).
Do you know?
(Image credit: Shutterstock)
The best VPN apps are security software that encrypts your internet connections to prevent snooping. They also spoof your real IP address location to boost anonymity and grant access to otherwise geo-restricted content.
Not only a new stringent policy, VPN censorship is also expected to worsen as the government beefs up its filter technology.
As Al Jazeera reported, Pakistan's government has implemented a China-like firewall, which was first tested in mid-July. This system not only can allow authorities to better monitor online traffic but also control the use of popular apps more efficiently.
Most notably, the new Pakistan firewall "has the ability to block VPNs" – a Ministry of Defence official, familiar with the new deployments, told Al Jazeera.
At the time of writing, it's still early to determine the full impact all this has on people using VPNs to keep accessing the free web. Experts, however, are worried by this surge in internet censorship.
"Attempts to tighten online surveillance always raise concerns about digital privacy and freedom of expression," Gytis Malinauskas, Head of Legal at Surfshark, told TechRadar. "This could also worsen the digital divide and inequalities between those who can access unfiltered information and those who cannot."
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Microsoft introduces Azure Boost DPU to handle data-centric workloads
Specifically for Azure, integrates compute, storage, and networking
Custom hardware-software design boosts efficiency, lowers power needs
Traditional CPUs excel at general-purpose tasks but struggle to manage multiplexed streams from millions of network connections. GPUs, while effective for AI computations, are similarly not well-suited to these specialized workloads. To address this, the Data Processing Unit (DPU) was developed as a new class of silicon to complement CPUs and GPUs in large-scale data centers and efficiently handle high-volume processes.
At its recent Ignite event, Microsoft announced the Azure Boost DPU, a new SoC created in-house specifically for Azure.
The company’s new DPU is designed to tackle challenges in cloud and AI environments, improve security, and efficiently manage large-scale workloads across networks. Its introduction marks a key step toward the disaggregation of the data center, a growing trend that separates compute, storage, and networking functions into specialized hardware to improve efficiency and scalability.
Hardware and software co-design
“As part of our comprehensive approach to optimizing Azure infrastructure, we are working hard to remove infrastructure constraints that stand in the way of delivering customer value - whether from performance bottlenecks or resource limitations,” said Pradeep Sindhu, Corporate VP Silicon at Microsoft.
"We are innovating at every layer of the stack, from silicon to systems to software, to enhance the security, efficiency, performance, agility, and scale of our infrastructure."
Azure Boost DPU integrates high-speed Ethernet, PCIe interfaces, storage engines, and security features into a single, fully programmable SoC. Its custom hardware-software co-design delivers higher performance and lower power consumption, enabling the DPU to handle cloud storage workloads with three times less power and four times the performance of traditional CPUs, according to Microsoft.
By addressing key bottlenecks, Azure Boost DPU can meet the evolving demands of cloud and AI applications, while improving security through its tightly integrated data protection, and cryptography engines.
“Azure Boost DPU is the newest addition to our family of infrastructure enhancements through hardware innovation. As we continue to push the boundaries of what's possible, we remain committed to delivering innovations that make our infrastructure more capable, efficient, and scalable to meet the evolving needs of our customers,” Sindhu said.
You've probably never heard of QCY, but its H3 Pro ANC headphones are being discounted to $53, or 20% off their list price. And we've got a few other Black Friday budget headphone deals for you to check out.
Elon Musk seeks $6 billion for xAI’s Memphis data center
Funding to purchase 100,000 Nvidia chips for AI projects
Data center will power Tesla’s Full Self-Driving capabilities
Elon Musk knows that staying competitive in the AI space requires deep pockets - back in February 2024, the world’s richest man said Tesla would spend "over a billion dollars" on Nvidia's H100 and AMD's Instinct MI300 hardware, adding, “The table stakes for being competitive in AI are at least several billion dollars per year at this point.”
More recently, the controversial billionaire gave us a tour inside the massive AI supercluster, dubbed Cortex, being used by X (formerly Twitter) and followed that up with news that Colossus, a new 100k H100 training cluster for Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI, is now up and running.
According to CNBC’s David Faber, Elon Musk has raised up to $6 billion (at a $50 billion valuation) to purchase 100,000 Nvidia chips for xAI’s Memphis data center, which will - among other things - power Tesla’s full self-driving (FSD) capabilities.
Musk's government role
Sources familiar with Musk’s plans told Faber that the $6 billion funding comes from $5 billion of sovereign funds in the Middle East and $1 billion from other investors who will have the option to increase their investment.
Following Donald Trump’s election victory and the announcement that Elon Musk will lead the new Department of Government Efficiency within the president-elect’s administration, we can expect to see sizable government changes regarding AI regulation.
Musk’s future role, despite potential conflicts of interest, is to "dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies."
However, no one believes for a second that this will be the limit of his involvement in wider policy decisions.
As CNBC reports, “Trump plans to repeal President Joe Biden’s executive order on AI, according to his campaign platform, stating that it 'hinders AI innovation and imposes radical left-wing ideas on the development of this technology,' and that 'in its place, Republicans support AI development rooted in free speech and human flourishing.'”
