Message-Id: <199610180853.DAA14749@library.wustl.edu> Date: Fri, 18 Oct 1996 04:11:38 +0000 From: Frank P Dunn <mailto:frank@BRAZEN.DEMON.CO.UK> Subject: Re: image storage To: Multiple recipients of list IMAGELIB
>Hello all,
>
>We currently have approximately 12,000 compressed jpeg images on 3 gig of
>hard drive storage (internal and external). We've got about 60,000 images to
>go still, and I'm wondering about the most effective means of storage. We
>have been avoiding photo cd storage due to concerns about medium longevity
>and speed of access. We are not networked at this point but are currently
>exploring this.
>
>I'd like to find out how others are storing their compressed images. All
>input and suggestions are welcome!
>
We use storage arrays from Sun which have 30 x 2 Gb drives, they can be configured to run various types of RAID. There's a good intro to RAID at http://www.aquanta.com/ and then go to the tech area. The database has about 70,000 images and uses 30 Gb to date - the JPEG size is highly variable as we capture image data from a number of sources including retrospective tranny scans.
Backing up is done to 8 mm Exabyte tapes which have a 7 Gb native capacity, once a month a full back up the database is done with incremental ones daily. We keep 6 months of tape before releasing them for re-use. However as we are about to substantially up the image input the tape system is being upgraded. Just taken delivery of a DLT (Digital Linear Tape) library, DLT takes 20 Gb native and is also faster than the 8 mm format.
Did we consider CD-R? Yes, then we did some worst case scenarios and decided that tape allowed easy and fast recovery with much higher capacity than CD and a clear upgrade path for the DLT format. For much the same reasons we also dropped magentic/optical drives as an option. I'd steer clear of the DAT tape format, its failure rate here has been about 1 in 20 tapes which is bad news. Mind you this is a database that is used 19 hours a day and needs to be on robust, redundant kit - so we tend to use high end ( i.e. expensive hardware).
Frank Dunn,Editorial Services Systems Manager,News International Newspapers Ltd.1 Virginia Street London UK E1 9BD. mailto: frank.dunn@it.newsint.co.uk +44 171 782 6384 +44 171 782 5213 fax http://the-times.newsint.co.uk http://www.brazen.demon.co.uk