Scalar i6000 advancements offer ideal solution to growing demands of enterprise archive environments

Quantum has introduced significant new enhancements to the Scalar i6000 tape library, doubling drive density to provide the most compact LTO storage footprint in the enterprise market, adding unique RESTful web services management capabilities and offering 80 PLUS® certified power supplies for the most efficient power usage available. These enhancements are the latest in a long line of innovations since the library’s introduction, resulting in the most feature-rich and technically advanced enterprise tape library available for today’s most demanding tiered storage workflows.

Highest LTO storage density available

The new Scalar i6000 design doubles the number of full-height LTO drives that fit into a 19-inch rack footprint, for twice the performance or data access within the same footprint. This complements the library’s high density expansion modules, resulting in systems with the best overall LTO storage density in the market. In addition, the Scalar i6000’s unique modular architecture provides high density without sacrificing performance. Users seeking extreme performance in a small footprint — such as those backing up large databases in a small window — can configure the Scalar i6000 to maximise the number of drives.

Quantum plans to expand Scalar i6000 capacity further in 2016, scaling to more than 15,000 slots, or more than 225PB, in a single system. Customers and partners that invest in the library today will benefit from this increased capacity as their archive data grows.

Comprehensive RESTful web services and most efficient energy usage

The addition of RESTful web services enables Scalar i6000 users to automate configuration and administrative tasks, thereby saving time and money. With this enhancement, the Scalar i6000 now offers the most comprehensive suite of web services available for an LTO tape library — anything that can be done from the graphical user interface can now be done via web services. The unique user interface has also been dramatically simplified with a new streamlined layout designed to reduce clicks and display information more efficiently and concisely.

As the only tape library with 80 PLUS certified power supplies, the Scalar i6000 provides the most energy-efficient usage and reinforces tape’s position as the lowest cost, lowest power storage technology.

Optimised for modern workflows

The Scalar i6000 has the most comprehensive feature set available and is optimised for a wide spectrum of use cases and environments:

· Media and entertainment: Active archives of rich media content demand high capacity and high performance to maximise the monetisation of content. With the highest LTO storage density available, the Scalar i6000 (and the StorNext AEL6000) is designed to meet these demands while ensuring system availability and integrity, so archived content is readily accessible as needed. Unique features such as Extended Data Life Management (EDLM) for data availability and active vault for value are particularly important in media workflows.

· Video surveillance: As the number of high-definition cameras and video retention times increase, a tape archive that scales in a minimal footprint with low operational costs while guarding the integrity of stored video content is essential. The Scalar i6000 delivers best-in-class capabilities for all these requirements. For large video archives, the new drive expansion module design can be used in conjunction with the high density storage module to create a high performance, highly available active archive.

· Data center archive: As the amount and value of unstructured content in data centers continues to grow, IT organisations are leveraging tiered storage with tape archives to regain budget control while maintaining access to archived data. The Scalar i6000’s superior density, management and efficiency provide low capital and operational costs for the archive tier.

· High performance computing: For high-duty cycle uses such as archiving parallel file system data, geospatial data and other HPC applications, the new Scalar i6000 modular design and unique approach to dual robotics enables systems to be configured for optimised performance.