Plasmon and Pegasus have released their findings of an archival storage analysis they prepared in conjunction with a large global financial services organisation.
"The purpose of the analysis was to provide a balanced assessment of the costs involved in the implementation of different electronic archival technologies and systems so that organisations are able to compare the results with those generated by appraisals of their own archival storage requirements. The report quantifies the primary costs to establish and maintain a data archive over an extended period of time and seeks to provide a ranking for each selected configuration," comments Alan Leader, Director of Inside Information Systems.
The analysis compares a range of technologies applied to long-term record retention. The technologies examined were magnetic tape, Sony (AIT-3), magnetic disk, EMC Centera and three Plasmon optical storage formats: DVD, MO and UDO (Ultra Density Optical).
The TCO report, based upon a 12TB archive measured over a three-year period, revealed that AIT-3 tape, DVD and Plasmon`s new Ultra Density Optical storage all offer a significantly lower TCO proposition when compared with Plasmon`s older Magneto Optical (MO) system and a dramatically lower TCO than EMC`s Centera. The ongoing operating cost of a Centera solution also proved to be much higher than any of the other alternatives.
AIT-3 tape, DVD and UDO all demonstrate similar profiles demonstrated with a 12TB archive TCO over three years ranging from $10.8/TB to $12.8/GB. The older MO Optical storage has a significantly higher cost at $36.3/GB. The Centera magnetic disk configurations are the most expensive of all the options at $41.5/GB and $62.9/GB. Subsequently, the Centera Mirrored configuration is almost six times the cost of the least expensive configuration.
"We are extremely pleased with how well Plasmon`s UDO technology has fared in this report. This TCO analysis demonstrates that UDO is very cost-effective especially when compared with other storage alternatives. Organisations expecting to pay a premium for the unmatched data longevity, regulatory compliance, legal admissibility and the security advantages of the True Write-Once media format provided by optical storage are due for a pleasant surprise. The low TCO of Plasmon UDO Optical Storage enables it to emerge as an excellent choice for professional archive environments," concluded Leader. The full analysis is available at http://www.iis.co.za/WPapers_form.htm.
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