Home Enterprise HGST Unveils Active Archive Object Storage System

HGST Unveils Active Archive Object Storage System

by Adam Armstrong

Today HGST (a Western Digital company) announced its new object storage system, Active Archive. The Active Archive System is designed to address the need for rapid access to massive data stores. The type of data the system predominately stores is data that is past its create and modify phase of its life, moving into its long term retention phase but still requires fast access.


 

Today HGST (a Western Digital company) announced its new object storage system, Active Archive. The Active Archive System is designed to address the need for rapid access to massive data stores. The type of data the system predominately stores is data that is past its create and modify phase of its life, moving into its long term retention phase but still requires fast access.

The Active Archive System is ready out of the box and delivers 4.7PB (3.5PB usable) in a single rack. It is simple to scale-out with a plug-and-play, all it needs is a power source and a network connection. This is part of HGST’s “Simplicity at Scale” foundation, enabling organizations a simple and cost-effective way to scale-out so they can focus on their primary business not on their storage infrastructure. It also allows for limitless scaling without the costly need of replication.

Aside from being easy to scale, Active Archive’s total cost of ownership beats the white box economics of traditional cloud infrastructure. The new system utilizes HGST’s second generation 8TB HelioSeal hard Drives and tuned chassis designed 100% in house. Not only does this combination give the system its density it also gives it a very low foot print at about 1W/TB. This gives the Active Archive System 3 to 5 times the density and power efficiency compared to other scale-out solutions at 50-70% lower than white box storage system TCO economics.

With its recent acquisition of Amplidata with its advanced object storage software, HGST has the foundation for a resilient object storage system. HGST is also partnering with Avere Systems for integration with their NAS-to-object storage gateway. With a S3 compliant object storage interface, the system supports for NFS/SMB applications. And its open interface supports ease of integration and flexibility as needs evolve.

The Active Archive System aids organizations in evolving from siloed data storage to cloud-scale, enable businesses to quickly access their massive data and finding insights and value in it. The system is simple to use, scale-out, and is cost-effective.

Availability and pricing 

HGST’s Active Archive is available now and starts at $849,000.

HGST Active Archive

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