Western Digital Joins Active Archive Alliance

Western Digital Corporation (WDC), with its HGST Active Archive System, has joined the Active Archive Alliance, a non-profit industry association dedicated to expanding awareness about evolving technologies that enable reliable and efficient online access to archived data.

As a member of the alliance, Western Digital will collaborate with companies like FujiFilm Corporation and HP to provide its expertise in enterprise archive storage systems and solutions that enable users to derive greater value from data than traditional archive storage.

“Organizations today need rapid access to increasing amounts of data across multiple locations and platforms, and they require real-time, easy access to data archives,” said Barbara Murphy, VP marketing for the cloud infrastructure business unit, HGST. “To address this, active archives need to be highly reliable and cost effective while supporting new and legacy requirements. With the HGST Active Archive System, we own the entire stack from the drive to the object store, so we bring a unique perspective about cloud-scale architecture to the Active Archive Alliance team.“

The HGST Active Archive System is a self-contained object storage system that enables customers to add storage as easily as rolling another rack into place and connecting it to the network, all with industry power efficiency and a TCO that beats white box economics. WDC’s collaboration with the Active Archive Alliance will help drive deeper insights into the evolving landscape of data archiving and the need to instantly access data over longer periods of time.

“We are pleased to welcome Western Digital Corporation to the Active Archive Alliance,” said Peter Faulhaber, CEO, Fujifilm Recording Media USA, Inc., and chairman of the Active Archive Alliance board of directors. “As the complexity of long-term storage increases, end users are seeking to optimize their IT infrastructure. Western Digital clearly understands this need and is bringing another dimension to the types of active archive solutions available with their innovative centralized management platform.“