Introduction
The conversion of audio/visual multimedia resources from analog to digital format
significantly reduces the amount of physical storage space required for archival
of digital video, especially with the application of compression techniques. However,
huge amounts of memory are still needed to store the binary information. An hour
of video encoded using MPEG-1 at the rate of 2 Mbit/s, requires about one Gigabyte
of storage memory, and archival of uncompressed video for reference purposes would
require about 60 Gigabyte per hour. Meeting the demands of storage intensive application
with cost effective solutions requires ways of managing large volumes of data that
include hierarchical storage management and backup. With such high market demands,
many companies are offering different solutions for data.
Some important considerations include reliability, technical and financial feasibility
and the system’s capacity to expand.