EMC offers new DL for archiving needs
Disk library emulates tape drives but offers faster backup and recovery
EMC is hoping to boost its presence in the archive storage market with a disk library that emulates tape drives but offers disk backup and recovery speeds.
The EMC Clariion DL300 has a capacity of 12.5TB or 37.5TB compressed, and the DL700 offers 58 or 174TB. Both make use of low-cost ATA drive technology to bring prices within striking distance of tape.
"This is a new category of storage," said Chuck Hollis, vice president of storage platforms marketing at EMC.
"At the top end there is disk-to-disk backup, which is fast but expensive. And there are concerns about tape backup and recovery. This sits between them. It's easy to do, which most people like."
The new offering boasts 30 to 60 per cent faster backup than tape, while recovery typically will be 90 per cent quicker, Hollis claimed.
Easier management, high reliability and scalability mean total cost of ownership (TCO) is competitive with tape, he added.
The library has a Fibre Channel connection and appears to the system as a tape library, emulating the leading tape formats.
"It's a great move because tape has a fairly high TCO," said Tony Ruane, sales and marketing manager at VAR Redstor. "Users can keep their investment in tape while not having to chase backup and recovery issues."
But he added that the library is not for SMEs, except for those with exceptional archive needs.
The DL300 and DL700 emulate digital linear tape (DLT), SuperDLT, Linear Tape Open (LTO), LTO-2 and StorageTek STK 9840 and 9940 formats.
Single-stream performance is up to 80Mbps, with an aggregate 425Mbps throughput possible when running multiple backups.