Coming to DVD: data from your company

PowerFile launches DVD archiving appliance.

PowerFile next week plans to roll out a DVD-based storage appliance designed to make archiving data faster and retrieving it easier.

The Active Archive Appliance (A3) is less expensive than fixed, disk-based archiving products and makes retrieving data easier than retrieval via tape, the company says. The A3 consists of an archive engine - an Intel Xeon processor with as much as 4TB of Serial Advanced Technology Attachment disk cache - and a removable, DVD-based media library that has as much as 30TB of storage capacity.

"Archiving to a higher-capacity medium like DVD strikes a midpoint price and functionality between disk and tape," says Greg Schulz, senior analyst for StorageIO. "The PowerFile approach is for those customers who want some level of removability and permanence of media, yet want the benefit of spinning disk and reduced costs."

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PowerFile next week plans to roll out a DVD-based storage appliance designed to make archiving data faster and retrieving it easier.

The Active Archive Appliance (A3) is less expensive than fixed, disk-based archiving products and makes retrieving data easier than retrieval via tape, the company says. The A3 consists of an archive engine - an Intel Xeon processor with as much as 4TB of Serial Advanced Technology Attachment disk cache - and a removable, DVD-based media library that has as much as 30TB of storage capacity.

"Archiving to a higher-capacity medium like DVD strikes a midpoint price and functionality between disk and tape," says Greg Schulz, senior analyst for StorageIO. "The PowerFile approach is for those customers who want some level of removability and permanence of media, yet want the benefit of spinning disk and reduced costs."

The A3 presents itself to the network as a standard network volume and attaches via dual Gigabit Ethernet connections. The system leaves a copy of frequently accessed data in the primary disk cache for fast retrieval. PowerFile's ArcOS management software lets IT administrators set policies for data retention and provides a search interface for retrieving data. ArcOS supports Microsoft Common Internet File System and the Unix/Linux Network File System, and has management clients that run on Windows or Linux computers. Data retrieval is easier, because ArcOS virtualizes the DVDs in the library into a single file system.

Click to see: Powerfile Active Archive Appliance

In September 2004, $4 million from Sequoia Capital resulted in PowerFile's reorganization as an enterprise storage company. The company since has received $10 million from Sequoia and Silver Peak Ventures.

The PowerFile A3 starts at $15,900 for 3.4TB and scales in 1.7TB increments through the addition of 200-DVD modules that cost $5,900 each.

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