Disk-based backup and archiving specialist Copan Systems has upgraded its Revolution 220A File Archiver product by increasing the system’s scalability and adding new software features for storing, retaining, and searching archived data. The systems are based on Massive Array of Idle Disks (MAID) technology.
The 2.0 release of the Revolution 220A File Archiver scales to 448TB of raw storage capacity.
On the software side, Copan’s Millennia Archive Software gives users the ability to set archive policies and view and search and retrieve files, as well as dynamically update their data archives.
The Millennia Archive software also makes use of Copan’s Disk Aerobics software to check disks in the archive for stability at least once every thirty days, ensuring data integrity for long periods of time. In addition, the company claims a 10-year deployment life and provides a four-year warranty.
The Revolution 220A offers file indexing and searches based on user-defined fields, policy-based data archiving, and dynamic views of the archive data. The platform also provides file protection against deletion or modification, addressing the requirements of data immutability, and verification-upon-retrieval functionality.
“The 220A File Archiver opens up markets for us that we previously were not able to address, including compliance, governance, and long-term archiving,” says Mark Henderson, Copan’s product manager.
Henderson says MAID technology is ideally suited to address the long-term data storage requirements of write-once, read-occasionally (WORO) data. MAID technology operates on the principle that when long-term data is stored on disk, all disks don’t need to spin all of the time. Instead, only those disks that contain data that is requested by a specific application are powered on, and then they are powered off when they are not needed. With the MAID platform, only a maximum of 25% of the drives are powered on at any time, which extends the life of the disks and reduces power and cooling expenses.
