* PowerFile announces Hybrid Storage Appliance for long-term archiving of fixed content
PowerFile this week rolled out a new appliance for long-term archiving of fixed content, which is estimated to be 80% of all network data. The Hybrid Storage Appliance (HSA) uses a distributed performance architecture that allows petabyte scalability and virtualization. It is based on quad-core processing and disk-based caching. The HSA can ingest more than 32TB per day and handle 30,000 file requests per hour.
It supports 500TB of capacity in a standard 42U rack and consumes only 5 watts per TB. The HSA consists of an HSA System controller, an HSA Cache Array and an HSA Library, which is a 4U enclosure with 25TB of removable Blu-ray drives. The System Controller uses quad-core processors to drive the HybridOS. The HSA Cache is a 12TB to 48TB array that provides data ingestion to the HSA, and the HSA Library stores content on 12 Blu-ray drives. The HSA Library can be expanded by an additional 24 modules for a total capacity of 1.2 petabytes. Each component is linked with a switched Ethernet backbone with gigabit and 10Gbit options.
The appliance includes file-level WORM, thin provisioning, retention management, volume replication and automated monitoring and has a variety of optional management modules including WAN replication, data reduction and a policy-based discovery, classification and migration tools.
PowerFile uses Blu-ray disk media for bulk loading and the ability to track data in a similar fashion to tape-based cartridge media. The system uses flash memory on each cartridge to internally track the data stored on disc, and bar coding.
