In-Depth

With New Storage Solution, More is Less

A new solution claims to offer the largest capacity for small and mid-size IT departments, expanding storage by 50 percent and claiming the lowest cost-per-gigabyte on the market.

• By Jason Turcotte
• 07/27/2006

Who says you can’t have your data and store it, too? A newsolution claims to offer the largest capacity for small and mid-size ITdepartments, expanding storage by 50 percent and claiming the lowestcost-per-gigabyte on the market.

Overland Storage, Inc. released the latest of its entry-level tapeautomation solutions with new ARCvault autoloaders and tape librariesthat bring new efficiency to backing-up and archiving data. TheARCvault 12 autoloader and the ARCvault 24 rack-automized library yieldsnearly 20 TB of space at a rate which Overland reps say is up to a 45percent lower cost-per-gigabyte than its competitors.

And IT professionals are taking the bait.

“Initially, we planned to buy a standalone drive for restoringtapes at the DR site if needed,” said Billy Vaughn, IT operationsmanager, San Jacinto College, Harris County, Texas, who sought asolution that would extend the institution’s existing backup andrecovery environment with additional protection. “ARCvault mademuch more sense because it gave us the opportunity to take advantage oftape automation while obtaining 12 times the capacity of a standalonedrive at a similar price point.”

More companies are looking for new data protection options thatinclude both disk and tape solutions but the penny-pinching processoften proves too costly. According to Brian Garrett, analyst forEnterprise Strategy Group, ARCvault’s affordability lets ITmanagement invest in the best of both worlds.

The ARCvault is said to offer easy-to-install functions andmanagement options. Its features include:

• Compact 2u form factor, reducing need for rack space
• Support for LTO-2 and LTO-3 tape drives
• Removable 12-cartridge mags for off-site storage
• Barcode support for media management
• Replaceable components, limiting costs
• Remote management for control, troubleshootingfunctions

ARCvault 12 offers up to 9.6 TB of capacity and ARCvault 24 provides up to 19.2 TB. Both allowusers to upgrade vaults to a higher capacity, next-generation tapedrives, as their data grows. Both solutions start around $5,000 and areavailable now.