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Disc Storage Choices for Archives

Earlier in our ongoing saga, I spelled out all but one of the attributes I'd like to see on the storage system that holds my archival data so later generations can read this blog and bask in my insight and brilliance. OK more like so LucasFilm can access all the outtakes from "Indiana Jones and the Geriatric Crusades" for the 30th anniversary limited edition, director's cut ultraviolet-Ray disk. Now let's look at how these features fit the architectures vendors have presented IT managers as solu
Howard Marks
June 04, 2009

While a NetApp filer checks the integrity of each block with
hashes as it's read, it doesn't do it in the background and can't call up a
copy of a locally corrupted block from a remote copy when it finds a problem. Scalability and long term
expansion are also issues as adding drive trays and migrating data every 5-7
years when your vendor will no longer support it aren't great solutions.

The other major player for disk based archiving is Content
Addressable Storage, which uses the hash of each stored object (file, email
message Etc.) as the primary identifier for that object rather than the file's
location as NAS systems do. Contrary to popular belief, CAS systems don't use
full text indexes as their addressing scheme -- just object hashes. In fact, most CAS systems, including EMC's
Centera, Nexsan's Assurion and Caringo's CAStor, don't index their
contents.

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