Digital Asset Management

15 Mass storage

Introduction

Magnetic disks are not the only way to store digital media assets. There are many reasons why disk may not be appropriate. First, there may be far too many assets to store on disk arrays. This is highly likely if you are managing video assets. Second, it is astute to keep offline backups of the assets, for security against system failure or to cope with disasters like fire, earthquake, or theft. The third reason is that a permanent archive may be required for business reasons or because legislation requires it. Many industries are obliged to keep permanent records of all files.

Although the price of disk storage is ever falling, there are limits to the size of a disk array. The main alternatives for backup and archives ...