“Stick them on disk”: Plucky UK firm wants humble hard drives to win data war against tape, optical disks and cloud storage — and it plans to do so by getting rid of RAID and slowing down spinning disks to a full stop
Disk Archive Corporation has announced that it boasts more than 350 customers across the broadcast and media industries as it continues its nearly 20-year crusade to promote its unique approach to data storage.
Founded in 2008, the British company believes its ALTO (Alternative to Linear Tape-Open) chassis device is far superior to conventional archiving methods. This system relies on SATA disk drives, which run only 50 hours per year, which extends the usable life of the storage media by at least 15 years, according to Blocks and files.
Crucially, these systems do not have RAID (Rundant Array of Independent Disks) technology, which handles writing data across multiple drives in a system. Eliminating RAID reduces the need to boot drives as often, extending the life of the storage media.
Slow and steady wins the race in the storage wars
Hard drives are no longer as fashionable as they once were best hard drives not nearly as fast as the fastest SSDs in the present time.
As conventional storage methods inevitably encounter hurdles, scientists are also working on the next generation of storage media. This includes Microsoft's Project Silicalike Cerabyte's ceramic-based storage system.
However, these technologies are still a long way from being commercially available, and companies like Disk Archive Corporation are keen to continue promoting their unusual ALTO device, which promotes the use of spun disks.
ATLO comes in a 4RU chassis with 60 drives and a built-in server, with customers able to combine up to ten for a total of 15.8 PB of archive storage. But the system can also be scaled up to 200 PB – and even higher if 26 GB Shingle Magnetic Recording (SMR) drives are added to the device.
The company also focuses specifically on the film production, TV broadcast and legal recording sectors. This is because companies in these sectors need to retain data for decades – and need quick access to this data when necessary.