Optical media to replace data storage tape drives?

October 13, 2006

Any firm needs to store archived data in a reliable way: from customer's data to server backups, from employee information to fiscal data. One of the most diffuse method is recording all information on tapes, and this method, even if not perfect, is still very diffused and reliable enough.

The main disadvantage of tapes, however, is their slowness. To restore a backup from tapes can require hours, and to find single files on tapes can be even longer. Is there a way to make information available in a faster way?

Hard disk drives (HDD) are faster than tapes, and nowdays hardware is reliable enough to allow a secure storage of all information. The main disadvantage is that building a storage system using HDDs is really costly.

There is another option: using optical media.

One new option is the A3 (Active Archive Appliance) from PowerFile. The A3 uses a virtualized array of WORM-based DVD media. The A3's file management software creates storage volumes that appear on the network as a standard network volume.

PowerFile's approach, says Greg Schulz, founder and senior analyst at the Storage IO Group, 'fits right in the middle of the market, for companies needing the middle ground between disk and tape for longer-term archiving, with the option of media removability.'

...

PowerFile can currently put up to 18 200-DVD libraries--3,600 DVDs--on the network as a single drive, for a total capacity (using today's 8.5GB dual-layer media) of about 30.6TB. According to Jonathan Buckley, vice president of marketing at PowerFile, 'We expect to scale up to about 100TB per instance in a year and are shooting for 1PB [petabyte] (1,000TB) within two years.'

With this system, optical media is used instead of tapes to store information. Optical media has the advantage to allow a faster access to data, and even if not as fast as HDDs, this method anyway is faster than tapes.

This system is certainly very interesting, but is it also reliabile? Here at CDFreaks many people know very well how easy it is to lose data because of a low quality media or a bad batch of media. In the original article here is reported that with this system it's possible to also use dual layer discs, but these media are not as reliable as single layer discs, and using DL media can heavily reduce reliability of this system.

Nowdays probably the better (and reliable) data storage solution is using HDDs, but this A3 system seems interesting enough anway to store fixed data that must not be modified. More information can be found in the original article here.

Source: Processor