In the ever-changing world of data center management, IT managers must constantly be aware of a host of issues. Central to those issues is how to store the company’s precious data. And while some prefer tapes or disk arrays, a viable alternative may be removable hard drives. Not only are they relatively easy to store and offer very few environmental detriments, removable hard drives have proven to be one of the most stable and reliable forms of long-term storage.
According to Jon Johnson, executive director of marketing for CRU-DataPort (www.cru-dataport.com), a company specializing in small to midsized enterprise hard drive solutions, “Removable hard drive use is ideal due to the lower cost, higher capacity, greater durability, and high speed of using hard disks or disk arrays. Removable hard drives can be used to back up the primary drive in any PC or workstation while disk arrays running RAID for backing up larger amounts use removable hard drives to easily replace failed drives. Removable hard drives are also an easy way to add storage or upgrade any system. Hard disks can easily be swapped for archiving and later use.”
Businesses of all sizes have realized that removable hard drives may be a viable alternative. And although tapes have traditionally been used as the most effective solution for storage, as Steve Georgis, CEO and president of ProStor Systems (www.prostorsystems.com), points out, tape issues may cause “users to switch to disk-based alternatives, [which] allows users to maintain the operational procedures they are accustomed to with tape but get all the benefits of disk performance.”
Benefits Of Using Removable Hard Drives
The first advantage managers should consider when deciding on a long-term storage solution for a business is the low cost associated with removable hard drives. For as little as $20, a data center manager can purchase a removable hard drive and begin backing up and storing data in a matter of minutes. That said, lower-cost alternatives would obviously offer less capacity, which could mean that data center managers need to be constantly aware of storage needs and plan accordingly.
Perhaps the most advantageous solution of removable hard drives is their scalability. Whether an enterprise consists of 50 or 10,000 employees, removable hard drives are easily applied to any size company. By their very nature, removable hard drives are available for any need an enterprise may have. Smaller businesses may use removable hard drives to store invoices and other pertinent client information, while larger businesses may use them to store sensitive data, client information, and even employee documents.
Another advantage of using removable hard drives is the speed with which a data center manager can write data. Georgis says ProStor has developed a new product called RDX that takes the same benefits of tape and lumps them into a removable hard drive solution. He notes, “A big advantage for SMBs is speed. RDX operates at least 10 times faster than whatever tape or optical media backup they are using today. This translates into very fast backups—minutes instead of hours. Also, with the random access of disk, file restores are instantaneous (under 0.1-second access time to any file, compared to minutes or hours for tape).”
The most obvious benefit of using a removable hard drive is its portability. After files are loaded onto the hard drive, and the data center manager is ready to file it away, she needs to simply swap it out and put it wherever she would like. This not only makes things easier for storage purposes, but this process could be used for many different solutions. If a removable hard drive contains information that is pertinent to a current business deal, data center managers can take it wherever it needs to go without any issues.
Drawbacks Of Using Removable Hard Drives
While portability is a benefit, it is also a drawback due to the possibility of misplacing it. Because the hard drives are portable and can be used anywhere, data center managers must always be aware of the location of the hard drive and who (if anyone) has possession of it.
But perhaps the most obvious issue with removable hard drives is their finite capacity. Tapes, still the more popular solution in businesses, have a relatively infinite capacity due to their cartridge approach. For instance, if a small to midsized enterprise needs to copy more than 1TB of data, it can expect to buy two to four hard drives to replicate the information. On the other hand, tapes make it much easier to replicate the data with a fraction of the headaches.
One other major drawback to using removable hard drives is the possibility of damaged data. Because most hard drives on the market today feature moving, mechanical parts, the possibility of a hard drive failing can be quite high. In response to this issue, some companies have created hard drives that have no moving parts, but the vast majority of drives still do.
CRU-DataPort is keenly aware that reliability comes first for most data center managers. According to the company, its solutions have provided significant reliability for data center managers. According to Johnson, “We rate our products for longer than the effective life of most of the systems they’re installed in. We use high-quality gold-din plated connectors to ensure the integrity of data transmissions after many thousands of removals.
For instance, our reliability testing has approved many of our products to withstand 25,000-plus cycles (insertion and ejection) without failure or degradation of signal quality. Depending on the product, a combination of plastic, aluminum alloy, or steel can be used to provide a removable that fits the cost-to-weight ratio desired.” Because removable hard drives are designed to hold up for more than 10 years, they may be hanging around the office for quite a while. ProStor understands that a removable hard drive could be the centerpiece of any long-term storage solution and has created the enterprise-ready RDX drive that has no moving parts, which should reduce the likelihood of drive failure. Long-term storage solutions are a constant concern for data center managers. Whether managers are looking for long-term reliability, ease of storage, or cost effectiveness, the removable hard drive can help make their lives a little easier. But while it’s understandable that data center managers would be enticed by the benefits removable hard drives can provide, there are issues with misplacement, capacity, and damage that they should not overlook when deciding on the next long-term storage solution. >>>www.processor.com
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