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ArchiverFS – File Archiving Solution for Servers & Storage Systems

This is a file archiving system that allows you to use your device as 2nd tier storage. It features full support for cloud, DFS, de-duplication, replication, compression and unlike other software for archiving it allows you to use any SAN, NAS or cloud platform as storage for old files that are unstructured. The user will be able to share to any network having a UNC pathway and formatting it with NTFS, then user can use it as 2ndtier storage. There is no point that this software uses a database for storing of files, any meta data or pointers to files. It uses only NTFS from beginning to end. 

ArchiverFS was released first in 2002 and is now being use by a wide range of organizations around the world; many are household names. 

ArchiverFS is exclusive among file archiving programs for network file storage; Windows file services, or SMB. Unlike these other solutions for archiving, MLtek build this archiving program using normal NTFS files and folders from beginning to end. MLtek did not try to be the same pseudo-document manages system (Check here to know more about ArchiverFS). This company stayed to what they are best at, and that a highly efficient and lightweight solution handling the problems of out of date or old unstructured files in network shares.

This unique approach makes ArchiverFS extremely scalable as well as being hugely cost effective. It offers users the most cost-effective method of archiving old files possible, being able to migrate huge quantities of files over the network to 2nd tier storage such as SAN or NAS while requiring only a small footprint on the system host. It enables you to move, store and then end of life old unstructured files from current storage system to a cost effective as well as a controlled manner, helping you track the most challenges such as GDPR and Data Protection compliance. 

Additionally, this unique approach to file archiving software, has functionality that is already included as native in the Windows operating system. ArchiverFS does not need the installation of any agents at your workstations or services, which makes deployment simply a breeze. 

Hardware agnostic

Archiver FS allows the user to migrate old files from any UNC pathway to any UNC pathway over the network using a wide range of criteria such as:

  • Age
  • Size
  • Type

The target you use to move old files to can be a CIFE share, NAS device, or iSCSI volume, VM or storage cloud such as Amazon AWS, Google Cloud or Azure. As long as the source as well as the target are both formatted with NTFS and are shared to the network using SMB then any content is able to be managed and moved between them. 

No Proprietary Storage – It’s NTFS from Beginning to End

There is no point where this archiving solution tries to store files (or information about files) in a database or exclusive storage mechanism. This is important to note as it offers huge scalability making ArchiverFS so amazingly efficient. The biggest file system handled currently by ArchiverFS is 3.4 petabytes unstructured data, done using only 1 Datacenter edition license that is mounted on a small VM with 4 vCPUs and 6GB of Ram. 

‘Direct Access’ is used to give users instant access to content

When a user clicks a link that was left behind in place of an archived file all the IO goes directly from the user’s workstation to the file. There are no assistants or other parts in the way which means that the users do not have to stand around waiting for any file to be returned to the live system prior to having access to it. Any items needing to be returned to the live system are done by the daily maintenance program that runs out of hours. All information regarding where each file has been archived too remains in the file system itself using directory structures and properties. 

Multiple link types

There are several kinds of stubs that can be used to choose from to leave behind in place of files when they are moved, including totally seamless links behaving exactly like the original file or item. Both files and folders level shortcuts handle more like traditional Windows shortcuts and are able to be used, presenting the benefit of improved compatibility and can even be regained by Apple Macs using an add-in such ‘Win Shortcutter’.

Unique 3 tier storage structure

This includes live, graveyard and archived stages. This exclusive feature lets ArchiverFS build a real ‘Hierarchical Storage Management’ system as well as allowing it to move old content for just a fraction of the expense of any traditional file archiving program. 

Additionally, to the key features mention above, user will also get:

  • Installation supported on all versions of Windows from 2008 server on, including Windows Storage Server and Server 2019.
  • Seamless compatibility with Windows compression, Windows Service De-duplication, DFS (Distributed file system), Microsoft search server, SAN based replication as SDS.
  • ArchiverFS is being used by a wide range of organisations from multi-billion-dollar global companies to military contractors, government institutions, law enforcement departments, universities and everything that falls in between in over 40 countries. 
  • Permissions and attributes are always 100% preserved due to the use of pure NTFS for 2nd line storage. 
  • Unique daily maintenance job returning recently used files back to live system and exactly replicating each item permissions from the live system to the 2nd line storage. 
  • Full Unicode support for most of the file system character sets in the world including English, Chinese, Hindu, Arabic and many more. 

Click here for any further information. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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