Cybrain - Fotolia
Quantum refreshes Scalar tape library family with i3, i6 and AEL6
Quantum’s StorNext universe boosted by new tape libraries – the i3, i6 and AEL6 – with increased data density on the back of denser storage and improved robotics
Quantum has launched three more Scalar Tape libraries, with new hardware that boosts data densities to petabyte scale.
The Scalar i3, i6 and AEL6 are aimed at customers that want archive storage for unstructured data available via Quantum’s StorNext file system or the “tape NAS” linear tape file system (LTFS).
The Scalar i3 and i6 tape libraries come as minimum 3U and 6U base units that scale to 12U and 48U respectively, giving a capacity up to 1.2PB and 4.8PB (200 and 800 tape slots respectively).
These tape libraries are for access via customers’ third party storage or Quantum StorNext products. StorNext is Quantum’s proprietary file system that allows access to block storage from Windows, Linux, AIX Unix and Apple workstations. StorNext tape can act as a tier of storage to which users have access.
The AEL6 is an integrated StorNext controller with on-board tape capacity.
The new Scalar hardware products form the tape storage component of Quantum’s StorNext universe of storage products. These also include Xcellis primary storage, storage area network (SAN) and network-attached storage (NAS), arrays and metadata heads, Lattus object storage, Artico NAS archives and the Q-Cloud Archive cloud gateway.
Read more about tape systems
- Have cloud archiving services reached a tipping point that makes them cheaper and easier to manage than in-house tape archives?
- LTFS tape NAS: linear tape file systems offer the potential to build nearline storage at the cost of tape with NAS-like file access. Sounds great, but when will it catch on?
The key development behind the product refresh, said product marketing manager Eric Bassier, was “dramatically increased storage density”.
“Compared to the i500, we have all library and robotics hardware designs with greatly increased density,” he added.
Customers can choose to access the i3 and i6 via LTFS, so-called tape NAS, which provides access to data as if it were on disk.
The Linear Tape File System is open, enables drag-and-drop compatibility with desktop file systems and applications, and works with standard linear tape-open (LTO) tape drives.
LTFS removes the need for off-tape catalogues that record the location of files, which tape they are on and where on the tape they are to be found. The LTFS specification defines the format and layout of the tape. The LTFS catalogue, or index, is written in extensible markup language (XML) and stored along the length of the media.
