This week SGI introduced ArcFiniti, an integrated disk-based solution designed to make it easier to archive unstructured file-based data.
ArcFiniti is designed not only to house archived data, but also to protect it for long-term retention. Employing innovative software to proactively monitor the health of the hardware and the integrity of the data, ArcFiniti ensures that archived data remains valid and accessible many years later. If ArcFiniti detects mechanical problems, it proactively migrates data and verifies data integrity while alerting administrators to replace the faulty part. This dramatically reduces the need to take the system offline for costly RAID rebuilds due to disk errors.
Overall cost (including power, cooling, etc.) vs. tape? Maybe I’m just old fashioned, but I think modern tape technology pretty handily beats ArcFiniti (but I’m willing to be proven wrong).