Company

DISC Archiving Systems (DISC) is the leading manufacturer of optical archival storage solutions for the long term retention of digital data.

DISC has been providing innovative solutions for over 20 years with in excess of 22,000 installations worldwide.

With its Blu-ray Disc Optical Library Series, DISC continues to provide scalable and reliable archival storage technology.

DISC´s solutions exceed legal and regulatory compliancy requirements and are extensively deployed in a wide range of verticals such as law enforcement, financial, video and medical applications.

DISC utilizes the latest generation of Blu-ray technology (BDXL) providing 128GB capacity on a CD sized disc. These are housed in a media library which allows 100s of discs to be stored and automatically loads the media into a drive when required.

Optical storage has always been perfect for archiving and with the release of the 128GB Blu-ray media and 50 year media life, Enterprise and SME’s finally have access to a secure technology which allows them to reduce storage costs, simplify administration, lower risks and preserve data for the long-term

Optical Archive

Optical Blu-ray archives configurations are similar to tape. The big difference is in the media itself. Blu- ray technology is designed for wide use within the consumer/video market. Hence it is reliable, robust and like its predecessors CD/DVD, it will be widely available for coming years.

Optical/Blu-ray technology meets the archive requirements as follows:

1) Lower cost than existing primary storage

• Yes, total cost of ownership is lower than primary RAID
• Low energy consumption and cooling costs
• No need for constant backup

2) Long term retention

• Yes, Media designed for up to 50 years
•  Blu-ray is the successor to CD/DVD which has a long history

3) Compliance with regulations

• Yes, BD-R is unalterable, WORM (Write Once Read Many) media

4) Transparent access to archival information

• Yes, provide a link between existing primary RAID and archive
• Optical media is random access, giving fast access to individual files
• Access time to files is slower than nearline RAID but faster than tape

5) Offline management of very old information

• Yes, Removability of media allows for off-lining of information
• Media has a hard coat to protect it
• Magazine, SmartPack, used to handle media outside of library

With the current concern about global warming and the drive to reduce carbon omissions it is also important to compare the power consumption of the 3 options. In combination with all the standard features of optical archiving ( 50+ year media life, low power consumption, random access etc), Blu-ray optical archives are uniquely suited to sustainable long term information archival.

Blu-ray Technology

Optical disk storage, like all forms of digital storage has a very important role in establishing and maintaining the accuracy, reliability and trustworthiness of electronic records. The main reasons for choosing optical blu-ray technology are:

Longevity

The highly reliable inorganic phase change recording layer provides a 50- to 100-year archival life.
Compared to magnetic tape and HDD, it is less likely to be affected by humidity, temperature and light, and resists changes over time.
Unlike magnetic tape and HDDs, there is no contact between the optical pickup (OPU) and the disc, so it maintains excellent durability even after repeated reading and writing. Panasonic Blu-ray™ discs have an archival life of 50 or 100 years, in contrast to an HDD’s 5 to 10-year and magnetic tape’s 15-20-year archival life. This allows data to be stored for longer periods of

Readability

    The Blu-ray Disc™ is the de facto standard for large-capacity optical discs, and is supported by about 170 major corporations, assuring long-term readability.
    A large variety of applicable equipment offers a wide range of reading environments

 Authenticity (BD-r)

Unlike media such as magnetic tape, the WORM (Write Once Read Many) BD-R physically prevents overwriting.    With its long-term storage ability, the BD-R eliminates security risks because data migration is unnecessary. BDs have a serial number and an ID (recorded in the Burst Cutting Area (BCA) ), making it easy to verify the authenticity of the media itself.

Operation costs

As data can be managed offline, the system does not have to be constantly powered, making it environmentally friendly. Air conditioning is not required, so power consumption is reduced and CO2 emission is lowered.Data migration is not required, so large amounts of waste products are not generated by having to replace devices.
Polycarbonate, which is the main disc material, can be recycled.

 Green media

As data can be managed offline, the system does not have to be constantly powered, making it environmentally friendly. Air conditioning is not required, so power     consumption is reduced and CO2 emission is lowered. Data migration is not required, so large amounts of waste products are not generated by having to replace devices.
Polycarbonate, which is the main disc material, can be recycled.

DISC Products

The new DISC ArXtor Series of iSCSI-based automated Blu-ray libraries provides cost-effective and innovative solutions for creating and managing intelligent digital archives. Easy to install, operate and manage, the ArXtor Series provides maximum flexibility in a wide range of storage capacity-based models. Regardless if you are implementing a local LAN, WAN, private or public CLOUD archive strategy, the ArXtor Series is a cost-effective 21st Century green storage technology solution.

ArXtor Series Key Benefits

• Simple Connectivity: iSCSI connectivity simplifies installation, integration and maintenance

• Flexibly Scalable: ArXtor Series offers a range of frame sizes and capacities, available in 12U/23U/35U rack-mount and free-standing pedestal configurations

• Virtual Capacity: SmartPack removable media technology offers infinite off-line media storage

• Touch-Panel Display: Intelligent touch-panel display provides simple yet powerful library configuration management capabilities, both locally and via the network (Java GUI)

• Intuitive Diagnostics: A web-based GUI provides direct access to the ArXtor Series library diagnostic utilities for simple and quick library maintenance

The new ArXtor Series consists of:

• ArXtor Lite Series: A full range of iSCSI Blu-ray libraries that integrate easily into any server and/or network environment.

• ArXtor Appliance Series: A series of scalable Appliances which can be effortlessly configured as Purpose-Built Archive Appliances. Based on KVM open-source Hypervisor utilizing Intel VT-x technology, which can be configured with up to two (2) Virtual environments/machine(s), eliminating the need for additional hardware and providing an unlimited number of integration possibilities.

 
DISC BD Series
With Blu-ray technology at its heart, the DISC BD Series provides BDXL optical storage technology with 50+ year media life, scalable design and true green storage. Capacities start at 5TB scaling to 70TB in a single unit.

DISC DVD Series
To ensure investment protection for our DVD customers we still offer DVD libraries based on our DISC DVD Series .