Unfamiliar with RDX?  What is Removable Disk Storage?

RDX Removable Disk Storage is an innovative technology that may well deserve a place in your data center. It’s essentially a removable hard disk drive that’s close to the size of an LTO cartridge. The drives are ruggedized, made to be handled like a tape cartridge and can facilitate off-site data movement for backup and DR. Being a true random-access device, they also offer a way to extend an archive by storing cartridges on the shelf but can support much faster searching and file recovery than can linear tape. The other advantage they have in an archive use case is longevity. The dock essentially provides only power and connectivity — the disk drive is in the cartridge — so old RDX storage “media” doesn’t require users to keep older-generation docks around to replay them.

RDX was invented by ProStor, a Boulder, Colo., company that licenses the technology to a number of OEMs, including Imation, Tandberg, IBM, HP and Quantum. ProStor markets a line of NAS devices called InfiniVault, which incorporate RDX with spinning disk drives to create a tiered storage device for archiving fixed-content, digital assets. Last week ProStor sold the RDX storage technology to backup manufacturer Tandberg Data and will focus on its InfiniVault business as an OEM partner for RDX.

Tandberg won a Bronze award from Storage magazine for Products of the Year in 2010 for its AccuVault RDX. This solution is focused at the backup market, with embedded AccuGuard software, which offers backup and source-side deduplication to increase effective backup capacity and reduce LAN bandwidth requirements. With the off-site portability of RDX storage cartridges, this system is an all-in-one data protection and DR solution for SMB/SME customers.

RDX is a truly unique technology. Initially, RDX was used as a simple backup target for companies that required data be taken off-site or in archive applications that had a compliance requirement (RDX shelf life meets the retention time periods and can be used as WORM to replace optical storage). AccuVault greatly enhances the first use case as a complete backup solution in an appliance form factor, enabling users to safely carry backups off-site, as many have been doing with tapes or USB drives.  Contact your RDXworks account rep today for a quote.