HotBackup is ‘live host’ back-up for mission critical legacy computer systems
Telecommunications, semiconductor manufacturing, industrial process control, mil-aero and engineering and manufacturing industries can reduce risk and avoid downtime with the HotBackup solid state backup system from Solid State Disks (SSD).
It uses twin CompactFlash cards and is presented to the host system as a single logical drive. Its operation is transparent to the host and conducted as a background task within the device itself. HotBackup enables the primary host addressable media to be backed up in background without interrupting the host connection or requiring the host system to be taken offline.
HotBackup’s firmware constantly monitors for updates to the primary drive and mirrors these to the secondary drive on-the-fly. The secondary CF card can be removed from device and a new card inserted and synchronised without interrupting the host system, explains SSD.
HotBackup can be operated either using SSD’s Recovery Manager software to control functionality from a remote location via a LAN connection or through a single pushbutton on the front of the device. This is particularly suitable for deployments where a LAN connection is either not possible or not allowed. HotBackup needs to be synchronised every time a new CF card is inserted into the secondary drive, by performing a block-by-block copy of the entire contents of the primary drive. The secondary drive CF card can be removed without interrupting the host connection or requiring the host to be taken offline. This provides several benefits/possibilities including the storage of back-ups in a safe location, the ability to clone other systems and the creation of multiple point-in-time back-ups, says SSD.
HotBackup is available with either twin SSD SCSIFlash2 or PATAFlash2 drives in 50-, 68- and 80-pin variants supporting 2.5-, 3.5- or 5.25-inch form factors. It operates with CF cards of up to 256Gbyte capacity.
In addition to a live host backup capability, HotBackup can extend the operational life of computer systems that rely on legacy storage devices. It provides a solid state, drop-in replacement for ageing and failing legacy electro-mechanical storage systems on crucial computer systems that might otherwise have plenty of life left in them.
