Archive Facility – Adula

Named after Mount Adula in Ticino, elevation 3402 m
 
    100 TB Disk for file caching
    1 STK 9310 Silo for up to 5500 Slots
    1 SUN SL8500 Silo with up to 6600 tape slots
    6 9940B Drives (200 GB/tape)
    6 T10k Drives (500 GB/tape)
    4 LTO IV Drives (800 GB/tape)
 
The CSCS data Archive facility is based on the Sam-FS Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM) software running on a SUN Fire X4600, which controls data movement between the fast Engenio 6998 and two high-capacity StorageTek "Powderhorn" tape silos with mixed SCSI / FC tape drive technology; redundant Brocade switches ensure a fully-switched FiberChannel archive environment. A major upgrade of hardware and software components allowed users to benefit from higher archive access performance and increased service availability, while still ensuring seamless growth of the archive capacity.
In 2003 new STK9940B tape drives were introduced. This new tape technology increased the overall capacity by a factor of 10. In 2007 new Titanium Drives (T10k) were integrated into the existing installation. The introduction of a new SL8500 during 2008 opened the possibility to use LTO technology.
As the computer power of CSCS increases so does the quantity of produced data. In 2008 CSCS reached 1.6 Petabyte of data and 7000 tapes. Estimates for the future growth foresee an annual increase of 50-70%.