Spectra Logic Unveils ArcticBlue

by Adam Armstrong October 16, 2015

written by Adam Armstrong October 16, 2015

This year at the Spectra Summit in beautiful Boulder, Colorado, Spectra Logic unveiled its latest disk-based product, the ArcticBlue. ArcticBlue leverages both Spectra’s BlackPearl deep storage gateway system and SMR technology to deliver the first nearline object storage that responds like disk storage with the longevity of tape. The Artic Blue can deliver up to 6.1PB raw capacity in 32U for as little as $0.10/GB.

Not only is data advancing rapidly by humans, the Internet of Things (IoT) is also generating data from every smart device from tablets to toasters. IDC is projected that the total amount of data that is generated by 2020 with be 40 zettabytes (ZB), generated not stored. For a bit of perspective, in 2013 the Internet was at 4ZB so in five more years 10 times that amount of data will be generated. Spectra is estimating that by 2030 150ZB-200ZB will need to be stored. Society is not just generating this data, it is being used for everything from marketing (placement of products in any retail store) to monitor and fight disease. This digital universe that is being created not only records our past, it holds keys to our future. And there is currently no permanent storage medium; even carved stones wear down with time.

Genetic diversity is the key to survival of data just as it is the key to survival of a species. With data, the diversity comes from storing it on various mediums (cloud, flash, spinning disks, and tape) in various locations. With BlackPearl’s advanced bucket management (ABM) and ArcticBlue, customers have even more diversity when storage less frequently accessed data. BlackPearl is S3 enabled and uses its ABM to fully automate all aspects of deep storage. Administrators can easily have BlackPearl send multiple copies of data to tape libraries or to ArcticBlue, giving them management and control over how and where their data is stored and unlimited retrieval of data for as low as pennies per Gigabyte.

Spectra Logic took their 36 years of deep storage and tape knowledge to reap the full potential of SMR technology in ArcticBlue. Spectra uses power down technology to more than double the life of the disks (users start with two bands of disks and only powers on one at a time, single bands can be added as needed). Spectra states that the ArcticBlue is a 7-year disk product, with powering down the disks can last up to 7 years. The ArcticBlue is ideal for the private cloud, media and entertainment, HPC, surveillance, and life sciences. ArcticBlue gives uses ZFS to bring new life and accessibility to deep storage.

ArcticBlue features include:

BlackPearl Enabled: Industry standard S3 object storage interface
Drive Lifecycle Management: Power down technology extends the life of drives
SMR: Leveraging this technology to its fullest by using sequential data writes from physical high speed cache to increase performance, similar to writing to tape
Spectra’s ZFS Implementation and Local Erasure Coding: Unleashing the power of ZFS while eliminating the complexity
Global Spare: Built in hot spare drives to ensure reliability
Intelligent Rebuilds: ZFS architecture allows rebuilds based only on used capacity
Triple Parity: Statistically eliminates data loss through redundancy and automatic rebuilds when properly monitored and maintained
Continuous Data Checksum: Statistically eliminates bit-rot and undetected bit error rate through continuous data checking while in storage
End-to-End Checksum: Host can send and require end-to-end checksum, where BlackPearl verifies and maintains the checksum for data integrity
Very Wide Bands: Maximizes system performance while providing maximum protection

Availability and pricing

ArcticBlue is expected to be available in December 2015 with a 48-drive system beginning at $49,920.

Spectra Logic’s ArcticBlue

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