Data Backup Digest

Specializing in the manufacture of storage area network (SAN) arrays, the team with Dot Hill is certainly familiar with the niche of data management. Solidifying their expertise even further comes int he form of a recent announcement, which unveils the company's latest patent for a brand new means of protecting and safeguarding system metadata. The method is already garnering a great deal of attention from industry professionals and users of the RealStor operating system.

What is Metadata?

To put it in its most simplest of terms, your system’s metadata contains information that is crucial to the operation and efficiency of its storage hardware. Likened to a card catalog within a library or a table of contents in an individual book, metadata is critical to ensuring long-term data integrity, accessibility and system efficiency.

Dot Hill’s newest innovation safeguards and protects metadata by tracking information such as hard drive serial numbers, cyclic redundancy check (CRC) results and file index numbers. As previous methods used a very rudimentary means of verifying and tracking metadata, Dot Hill’s brand new method allocates specific drive space for the storage of metadata. The results include an overall increase in available hard drive capacity as well as increased system performance across the board.

Ken Day, chief technology officer with Dot Hill, spoke about his company’s innovative reputation and their continued efforts to push the boundaries of technology. He was quoted as saying: “Building on our AssuredSAN product line's hallmark 99.999 percent data availability, Dot Hill continues to invent new ways to deliver superior data integrity that enhance our base software platform. This latest addition to our 100-plus patent portfolio provides IT customers with triple-level data checking and verification to protect against data corruption and loss. Organizations can depend on Dot Hill's unique RealStor storage operating system to safely deliver the data they need when they need it because real time matters.”

Availability

The new technology introduced by Dot Hill is only available through their proprietary AssuredSAN hybrid arrays that are used through Dot Hill’s own RealStor operating system. Offering a platform that is much more intuitive and user friendly while offering the same amount of computing power as their competitors, the RealStor operating system is currently in use around the globe.

Version 2.0 of Dot Hill’s RealStor operating system is available now. Apart from their new metadata protection functionality, the operating system also features a plethora of fully automated services, including drive caching, data snapshots, RAID architecture, resource pooling, tiered storage and more.

About Dot Hill

Originally founded in 1997 in Carlsbad, California, Dot Hill is currently headquartered out of Longmont, Colorado, where they are a leading provider of both hardware and software solutions to customers around the world. With an established presence within the United States, Asia and Europe, Dot Hill’s products and services have already been tested in industries including popular media, digital imaging, accounting, healthcare, video streaming services and more. To find out more information regarding the myriad of IT solutions offered by Dot Hill, please visit their website at www.dothill.com.