Meeting the Challenges of Archival Storage

Your not so Humble Speaker• 25+ years of consulting and

writing for trade press• Columnist/blogger at

NetworkComputing .com• Chief Scientist DeepStorage,

LLC.• Independent test lab and

analysts• @DeepStorageNet on Twitter• Hmarks@DeepStorage.Net

The Data We’re Drowning In is Archival

• Long-Tail data– Richer and richer media• Media and entertainment• Video surveillance• Medical imaging

– New paths to value• Big data analytics• Instrumentation data

The Storage Market Today

• Performance storage– Designed for high IOPS/low latency– High cost/GB

• Storage for backups– Deduplication driven– Cost very data dependent

• Object Storage– Economical at scale– Requires application support

What Do We Mean By “Archival”

• Many sources– Video and other media repositories–Medical imaging– Instrumentation and log files– Email or business archives

• Large file storage repositories– 100MB–Written and read sequentially or even

get/put

• Low access frequency – But sub-second latency

Archives & Most Storage Don’t Fit

• Primary storage is too expensive– Bandwidth more important

that IOPS

• Dedupeing appliances are for backups– Archives already single

instanced – Media files don’t dedupe

• Object storage needs new applications

Archive Storage Requirements

• Affordability– Large quantities * long retention =

many TB– Storage efficiency is key

• Standard interfaces –Many mixed application workflows

• High reliability – RAID-6 at a minimum

• Ensure data Integrity

The Data Integrity

• RAID only insures against drive failures– Drive reliability 1014 to 1015 bits– 8TB disk=6.4x1013

– Error expected rebuilding 12+2 array

• Undetected corruption on about 3% of drives*

– Error rate increases over time

* http://research.cs.wisc.edu/wind/Publications/latent-sigmetrics07.pdf

The Solution

• Calculate a hash with each block written

• Store hash separately from data– Drives sometimes just write the wrong

sector

• Verify via hash on reads– Reconstitute data from parity data on

failure

• Scrub and rebuild all data periodically

nTier Verde – Simply Affordable File Storage

• No previous storage experience required• Half the cost of traditional file storage• Never lose your data

• Effortless Setup– 30 minutes from

box to production!– Dashboard style

management with single screen view

– Manage/monitor Verde remotely with smart phone interface

No Previous Storage Experience Required

• Store More, Spend Less – List price as low as 35¢ per GB– No software fees

• Compression, Snapshots and Replication* included

• Quick Installation– PS dollars focus on solution, not install

• PriceLock Support Pricing– Avoid the support hockey stick – Will not increase LIST price more than

Consumer Price Index

Half The Cost Of Traditional File Storage

* Future Release

• Software Eliminates Data Corruption and Loss– Advanced checksums and multiple parity options– All writes committed instantaneously

• Rock Solid Hardware– Highest quality & capacity SAS drives made

• 4TB ~ (6TB)Future• 7200 RPM• SAS 6Gb/s• 24x7 Duty Cycle

• Few Affordable Arrays Offer This Caliber of Drive

Never Lose Your Data

nTier Verde 2U nTier Verde 4U

Supported Hard Drives 4 TB, 7200 RPM, SAS Hard Drives

Master Node Capacity* 6 to 11 Drives24 TB to 44 TB RAW

10 to 35 Drives40 TB to 140 TB RAW

Expansion Node Support 1 Expansion Node 9 Expansion Nodes

Max Capacity* 220 TB RAW Max 1.7 PB RAW Max

Parity Options Mirroring, Single Parity, Double Parity, Triple Parity

Software Compression, Thin Provisioning, Snapshots

Hot Spares Unlimited

Supported Protocols NFS, CIFS

3 x 1 GigE Data Ports Standard Standard

2 x 10 GigE Data Ports Optional Standard

nTier Verde

Testing the Verde

• nTier Verde 4u– 35x 4TB drives

• 10Gbps CIFS and NFS

• Tested with– Commvault

Simpana– Veeam B&R– IOmeter

Virtual Server Hosts

UPERMICR

S

UPERMICR

S

BPOWER

UID

POWER

UID

A

Veeam/CommVault Server

T540

Supermicro 6016T-NTRF

Brocade 800010Gbps Ethernet Switch

Spectra nTier Verde Tintri T540 (VM Storage)

IOmeter Results

Backup Writer Backup Reader 8K OLTP 2MB Read 2MB Write0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

1000

Miror RAID-5 Z2 Z3 Z3 w/compression

Multiple Stream File Transfers

1 2 4 8 160

10000

20000

30000

40000

50000

60000

70000

80000

Write Read

Wrapping Up

• Spectra’s nTier Verde meets the archival test– High reliability and efficiency via triple

parity RAID– High capacity nearline disks– Hashes to ensure data integrity– Optional compression– Simple web administration– Throughput at near line rate