A Shot In The Arm For Optical Archiving
A Shot In The Arm For Optical Archiving
June 20th, 2006: U.S. archival appliance vendor PowerFile has pulled back the curtain on its new network attached storage (NAS) system, saying that the DVD-based appliance is a one-of-a-kind long-term storage solution.
Called the Permanent Storage Appliance, PowerFile says its device overcomes the challenges presented by DVD in the enterprise by completely virtualising an array of disks behind a network attached front end.
The system is comprised of a 2U, rack-mountable network attached server and anything up to 18 DVD-based robotic libraries. With a single system supporting up to 12 500Gb SATA disk drives, 6Tb of high-performance cache is available and up to 30.6Tb of usable archive capacity overall.
The company also says that due to the appliance’s DVD-based subsystem, it is a highly scalable, long-term solution to long term storage of active data.
“In the past, users had two choices. They could keep their data online, a costly proposition. Or they could back it up to tape, effectively banishing that data forever from the light of day," says Kirk Dunn, CEO of PowerFile. "Then came disk-to-disk solutions, which are impractical for long-term storage.
“With the Permanent Storage Appliance, we are combining the rapid data retrieval of online access with permanent, non-erasable media, to satisfy the most stringent retention requirements at the greatest cost efficiency.”
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