A Practical Methodology for Archiving, Retrieving, and Managing Large Quantities of Data

Abstract

With the ever-increasing volume of data generated by today's telemetry processing systems, contemporary data archive technologies are proving inadequate for permanent data storage requirements. Typically after data have been acquired and recorded, specialized engineers will analyze and compare the current data with data archived during past operations. As the quantity of archived data increases, the data's accessibility becomes increasingly difficult to manage efficiently. A new archiving concept has been designed and implemented which provides efficient automated access to over three terabytes of data. The nominal retrieval time for a fifty megabyte file is less than two minutes. The system's storage media is standard VHS high-energy cassettes with a storage capacity of 5.2 gigabytes per cassette.