Which storage medium is best suited for long-term archiving? In this article, we compare the various media and explain their respective advantages and disadvantages.
Long-term archiving: Which storage medium is the right one?
Long-term archiving: Which storage medium is the right one?
Companies are legally required to retain data for many years. At the same time, requirements for costs, security, scalability, and availability are increasing.
The central question is therefore:
Which storage technology is truly suitable for long-term archiving?
In this article, we compare the most important options and demonstrate when each solution is appropriate.
NAS vs. Public Cloud: The Key Differences
The most important storage solutions for archiving today include:
NAS (Network Attached Storage)
Public Cloud Storage
While NAS systems are operated in your own data center, the public cloud provides storage flexibly via the internet.
Four criteria are particularly decisive for the evaluation:
Maintenance
Scalability
Security
Costs
Maintenance: Self-responsibility vs. Convenience
NAS (On-Premises Archiving)
When operating a NAS system in your own data center, the responsibility lies entirely with the company.
This includes in particular:
The great advantage of this solution lies in the complete control over your own data. At the same time, however, this involves a high level of internal effort. This can be reduced by using Managed Services without giving up data sovereignty.
Public Cloud
In comparison, public cloud storage offers a significantly simpler deployment.
Companies benefit primarily from:
Faster implementation
No own hardware required
Nevertheless, an important part of the responsibility remains.
In particular:
Management of data and access remains within the company
Expertise and internal resources are still required
In summary, the public cloud significantly reduces operational effort, but does not completely replace the responsibility for data management and control.
Scalability:
Predictability vs. Flexibility
How many TB or PB will you need in 3 years? In practice, this can only be planned roughly. Archive data often must be kept for several decades. If the data in the archive grows, storage space quickly runs full.
NAS storage can be easily scaled by connecting additional hard drives or another NAS system. The individual components then form a central storage pool.
In the public cloud, it is even easier. If the storage space is insufficient, a larger storage quota can be ordered with a click. Since you do not need more space in the data center for this, you can easily scale storage capacities up or down.
Scale-up vs. Scale-out briefly explained
Scale-up is the replacement with a more powerful system. Scale-out is the expansion through additional components. NAS systems typically rely on scale-out, which allows for gradual expansion.
Security: Control vs. Outsourcing
When using NAS (on-premises), companies benefit from complete control over their data and its storage location and are not dependent on third-party providers. However, the responsibility for security, compliance, and availability lies entirely internally, which entails increased operational effort.
The decisive aspect here is therefore the tension between maximum control and the associated administrative effort.
In contrast, the public cloud offers a professional security infrastructure, often supplemented by certifications such as ISO 27001, and often operates its data centers within the EU. Nevertheless, risks exist here as well:
There is no absolute guarantee against data loss, and misconfigurations in particular can lead to significant security gaps.
Costs: Investment vs. Ongoing Fees
NAS
- High initial investment (hardware)
- Ongoing costs for operation and personnel
- Long-term stable cost structure
Public Cloud
- Usage-based pricing model
- Costs increase with data volume and access
- Cost trap: Frequent data access
Over several years, NAS can be more economical, depending on the usage scenario
Other storage media for archiving
Tapes (storage tapes)
A proven, cost-effective technology with special properties.
HDDs (Hard Disk Drives)
A classic for large
amounts of data.
amounts of data.
SSDs (Solid State Drives)
Advantages and disadvantages of tapes, HDDs, and SSDs
Tapes
- Immutability of data
- Very cost-effective
- No direct access to individual data
- High operational effort
HDDs
- High storage capacity (TB-PB)
- Inexpensive compared to SSDs
- Direct access to individual data
- Susceptible to external influences
- Always create 2-3 copies of archives on HDDs
Are SSDs suitable for archiving?
SSDs are very high-performance – but also expensive. This is not necessary for archiving. If you have free storage capacity, data can certainly be stored here temporarily. In the long term, however, it is worth setting up a cost-effective system with HDDs, as the amount of data in archive storage is also growing rapidly.
Conclusion: Is there a best storage medium?
There is no single “best” storage medium. The optimal solution depends on: data volume, access frequency, compliance requirements, and budget.
In practice, many companies rely on hybrid archiving strategies:
- Critical data: On-premises
- Long-term archives: Tape
- Dynamically growing data: Cloud
Modern alternative: On-premises with cloud convenience
An increasingly relevant option is on-premises solutions with managed services, e.g., as a scale-out cluster. These are particularly interesting for companies with high requirements for compliance and data sovereignty.
These offer:
- Full data control
- High scalability
- Cloud-like user-friendliness
With our solutions, you achieve flexible, scalable, and compliance-compliant data archiving
iCAS Classic
iCAS Classic is a flexible middleware for retention management & WORM data archiving. The software solution can be optimally integrated into existing IT infrastructures. While you focus on your core business, iCAS Classic reliably protects the integrity and availability of your data in the background.
iCAS FS
iCAS FS is a scale-out storage platform for a wide range of use cases related to long-term data storage. The software-based platform is infinitely scalable and impresses with low total costs, easy handling, and high flexibility. Whether as secure backup storage, audit-proof archive, secondary storage, or cost-efficient object storage – iCAS FS meets your requirements in the long term.
iCAS Capture
With iCAS Capture, you expand your archiving strategy to include the direct capture of data from a wide variety of sources.
The add-on automatically reads relevant information and integrates it seamlessly into the shares of iCAS FS or iCAS Classic. The data is then available in an audit-proof manner and can be safely removed from the production systems, which significantly reduces operational effort, storage requirements, and complexity.
Special Delete Manager
In terms of data protection, companies are expected to handle personal data professionally and respect the “right to erasure.” With the Special Delete Manager for iCAS, you have the option to delete archive data easily and in compliance with GDPR before the retention period expires.