Data Compliant Storage Technologies

Storage Technology Pro's and Con's

Whilst the driving force behind the need to be compliant with rules and regulations is a necessity. The storage technologies behind these rules and regulations are not so clear. The choice of a compliant long term archive medium is only down to five technologies, these being:

a. Optical DVD-R - Digital Versatile Disc Recordable
b. Optical WORM - Write Once Read Many
c. Optical UDO - Ultra Density Optical
d. Optical Blu-ray - Blu-ray optical
e. Tape DLT-S4 - Digital Linear Tape

We have discounted CD-R as the capacity is too limiting with the storage volumes involved today.

A compliant storage technology needs to meet the following criteria:

a. Have a clearly defined media life.
b. Be a True WORM technology, so that in the event of a legal challenge, the media can be shown not to have been tampered with.
c. Meets the guidelines laid down by the ruling authorities for data archiving.

Which is the best technology for my organisation?

It would depend on your requirement for example:

1. The company is a mortgage organisation and needs to hold records for 20 years. From time to time mortgage policy holders call the organisation to renew their existing mortgage or change information. This information needs to have a fast access time and long storage life. The choice of technology in this example should be Blu-ray, UDO or WORM.

If the company chose DLT-S4 instead of the others based on cost. To retrieve a file on tape could take 2 minutes. We have 500 call centre operators dealing with customer inquiries online, we would loose 2000 minutes per enquiry and therefore a loss of productivity.

2. The company is involved in architectural design and needs to hold records for 15 years. These diagrams are typically stored digitally and are about 1GB in size. This information needs to be available online and have a reasonable archive life. The choice of technology in this example should be DLT-S4.

If the company chose UDO instead of DLT-S4 because of the performance. To retrieve a file on UDO would take 10 seconds. We have 20,000 digital images to store, based on UDO the cost would be £45,000.00, compared to DLT-S4 which would have cost £10,000.00. Also note that with the DLT-S4 library you would still have 25TB's of spare capacity.

Is a hard disk based archive acceptable?

Whilst hard disks by nature are read/write devices. Companies today employ encryption methods to make their disk based archive compliant. Could you really say these systems are reliable? Probably not, the reason is hard disks are constantly spinning 7x24 mechanical devices and as such wear out within about 3 years. A hard disk based solution might from the outset seem cost effective, but over time these costs start to mount up considerably as they:

a. Consume large amounts of power
b. Need to be housed in secure locations as the disks cannot be removed and stored
c. Typically sold in pairs for DR contingency planning
d. Cost a huge amount of money in annual maintenance charges

Storage Technology Comparison

To archive 20TB of data how many pieces of media would be needed?

How much would the hardware cost to store 20TB of data?

* All systems have two drives

To populate the library with media and drives, what would be the cost per Gigabyte?

* All systems have two drives and are fully populated with media.

Summary

If you require assistance when choosing a suitable Data Compliance solution we can help with consultancy, deployment, recommendations, maintenance and support by making the right choice of software and hardware based on your organisational requirements.

If you require pricing or information please complete our information form

Tel: +44 (0)1256 782030 : 08704 286186