How Much Longer Can Your Primary Storage Last?
Most of the data sitting on your highest performance, most expensive storage has not been touched in years. Move it to tape and you can reclaim that capacity. Use the sliders below to see how much you get back, and how long before you have to buy more primary storage.
Your Results
Time Gained Before You Reach Your Capacity Threshold*
Opens your browser's print dialog. Choose Save as PDF.Time to Capacity Threshold Today
With a One-Time Offload
With Automated Archiving
Capacity Reclaimed
Primary Storage Used Over Time
How This Is Calculated
Inputs
- Data in use = usable capacity × percentage in use.
- Capacity threshold = usable capacity × the percentage at which you plan to expand.
- Inactive data = data in use × the inactive share. Archiving moves it to tape and returns that capacity to primary storage.
- Units are decimal: 1,000 TB = 1 PB.
Two Archiving Scenarios
One-time offload. Inactive data moves once. After that, all new data lands on primary storage at your full growth rate. Time to threshold: ln(1 + (threshold − data remaining) ÷ data in use) ÷ ln(1 + growth).
Automated archiving. A policy keeps moving data to tape as it ages, so the same inactive share stays off primary storage as your data grows. This is the job of a policy-based archive tool such as Spectra StorCycle. Time to threshold: ln(threshold ÷ data remaining) ÷ ln(1 + growth).
Without archiving. ln(threshold ÷ data in use) ÷ ln(1 + growth). Additional time is the difference between the scenario you select and this baseline.
Assumptions & Limits
- Growth compounds annually at the rate you enter and stays constant.
- Usable capacity does not change, and there is no change to retention policy, compression, or deduplication on primary storage.
- Snapshots, replicas, and stub files are not modeled. They can reduce the capacity actually returned.
- The 70%, 60%, and 50% inactive shares for the 1, 2, and 3 year options are illustrative starting points, not measurements of your environment.
- Results beyond 20 years are shown as “more than 20 years.” The model is a planning estimate, not a hardware-life forecast.
This is an estimate based on the numbers you enter. A Spectra storage assessment analyzes your file systems and reports what is actually there.
Spectra Storage Analyzer
Replace This Estimate with a Detailed Storage Analysis
The Spectra Storage Analyzer measures your NAS shares directly. It pinpoints what's consuming your primary storage — and how much you can reclaim.
* NOTE: This calculator provides estimates for planning purposes only, based on the information entered and underlying assumptions. Actual storage requirements, costs and savings may vary. Results do not constitute a quote or guarantee. Contact Spectra Logic for a personalized assessment.
