Quantum Scalar i7 RAPTOR

Quantum Corporation today announced the availability of the Scalar i7 RAPTOR, the latest advancement in tape storage technology tailored to support growing AI and cloud use cases. Originally announced in March of this year, the Scalar i7 RAPTOR is designed for hyperscale customers, managed service providers (MSPs), and large enterprises and offers a dense, scalable tape solution. As organizations look to retain more data than ever for AI, analysis, and business insights, this new offering gives customers an ultra-low-cost, green, and secure solution for data lakes, data protection, and private and hybrid cloud deployments.

“IDC expects the surging demand for AI workloads will lead to a significant increase in datacenter capacity, energy consumption, and carbon emissions, with AI datacenter capacity projected to have a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40.5% through 2027,” said Greg Macatee, research manager, Infrastructure Systems, Platforms, and Technologies Group at IDC. “With this increase of energy consumption, enterprises require new and innovative infrastructure to improve power and datacenter efficiency.”

Features and Benefits of the Scalar i7 RAPTOR:

High Storage Density, Lower Costs

The Scalar i7 RAPTOR is a significant advancement in storage density. The Scalar i7 RAPTOR has 2,008 usable data slots in a single tape library cabinet or frame that delivers over 36 PB of storage using LTO-9 (native 18 TB/cartridge). This density advantage provides customers with significant cost savings, reducing customer library acquisition costs, support costs, floorspace costs, power/cooling costs, and colocation costs.

Enhanced Serviceability, Minimal Downtime

The Scalar i7 RAPTOR design greatly simplifies service with all components being customer serviceable and replaceable in less than five minutes. In addition, all replaceable components are hardened to minimize damage from handling, also enabling customer replacements. This service simplification reduces downtime and improves customer service level agreements (SLA). In addition, all tape hardware is installed in the factory, simplifying onsite installation and allowing customers to self-install if desired.

Maximum Sustainability

The Scalar i7 RAPTOR leads the industry in sustainability with the highest 80 PLUS Platinum power supply efficiency rating. This power efficiency, combined with its storage density, makes the Scalar i7 RAPTOR a power-efficient tape library, helping customers achieve their sustainability goals while cutting operational costs.

Security and Immutability

The Scalar i7 RAPTOR offers many security features only offered with Quantum tape libraries, including advanced, patented ransomware recovery features like Active Vault and Logical Tape Blocking. Quantum libraries have unique features that protect libraries from unauthorized access, ensuring data integrity and providing enhanced air gap protection beyond the normal protection of other libraries.

Seamless Integration

The Scalar i7 RAPTOR offers seamless integration with other Quantum solutions like the StorNext file system and ActiveScale scalable S3 object storage, and with all major tape management software like Veeam and Commvault. The Scalar i7 RAPTOR also fully supports AI workflows and environments that store files or objects.

ActiveScale and the Scalar i7 RAPTOR together deliver cost-effective, S3 Glacier-compatible cold storage services. By deploying multiple Scalar i7 RAPTORs in a Redundant Array of Independent Libraries (RAIL) architecture, ActiveScale manages and optimizes data placement across the libraries for availability, performance, and storage efficiency. The turnkey solution provides durability, enhances data accessibility compared to hyperscale cloud storage and S3-to-object gateway solutions, and allows organizations to simply deploy low-cost, high-density, self-service data lakes, storage clouds, and large-scale archives.

Additionally, the Scalar i7 RAPTOR integrates with StorNext data services such as FlexTier to deliver full data lifecycle management from data creation to long-term retention and recall. As data moves across storage media, from Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) or solid-state drive (SSD) to hard disk drive (HDD), tape, or cloud, StorNext provides continuous access. Data requiring preservation over time can be copied or moved manually or by policy to the Scalar i7 RAPTOR for the lowest cost long-term retention.

Scalar i7 RAPTOR Technical Highlights: