As data volumes explode, most organizations face a simple reality
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The cold data challenge
As data volumes explode, most organizations face a simple reality: up to 60% of stored data is cold—rarely accessed, but too valuable to delete. Quantum ActiveScale™ Cold Storage is purpose-built to solve this challenge, delivering hyperscale, highly durable and cost-efficient storage that preserves data for years while keeping it accessible when needed.
Designed for modern hybrid cloud environments, ActiveScale enables organizations to retain and reuse massive datasets without the operational complexity and unpredictable costs associated with traditional archive solutions.
Turn cold data into a strategic asset
ActiveScale Cold Storage enables you to move beyond traditional archiving. Instead of locking data away, you can retain, access and extract value from massive datasets without unpredictable cloud fees or operational complexity.
- Reduce cold storage costs by up to 80%
- Access archived data in minutes, not days
- Scale seamlessly from terabytes to exabytes
- Eliminate cloud egress and restore penalties
- Preserve data for future analytics, AI, and research initiatives
Whether you are managing scientific data, media archives, AI datasets or long-term compliance records, ActiveScale helps transform cold storage into a long-term business asset.
Why ActiveScale Cold Storage?
Massive scalability without complexity
ActiveScale uses a true scale-out object storage architecture that grows non-disruptively—no rebalancing, no downtime. Organizations can expand to billions of objects and exabytes of capacity while maintaining consistent performance and operational simplicity.
Extreme durability and data protection
With up to 19 nines of durability, your data is protected for decades. Advanced erasure coding and geo-distributed design ensure resilience across hardware failures and entire site outages. Integrated self-healing capabilities continuously monitor, verify, repair and optimize data integrity automatically.
Industry-leading cost efficiency
Built on Quantum’s tape-based RAIL architecture, ActiveScale Cold Storage delivers one of the industry’s lowest total cost of ownership models while maintaining enterprise-grade performance and reliability.
Fast, predictable access
Unlike public cloud cold tiers, ActiveScale provides:
- No egress or restore fees
- Restores in minutes at streaming speeds
- Full control over access and retrieval strategies
- Predictable long-term economics
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Escape unpredictable cloud archive costs
Many organizations are discovering that public cloud archive tiers introduce hidden long-term costs through:
- Egress fees
- Restore charges
- API transaction costs
- Unpredictable retrieval pricing
ActiveScale Cold Storage delivers cloud-scale economics with on-premises control—eliminating surprise fees while maintaining rapid access to archived data.
With no cloud egress or restore penalties, organizations can preserve and reuse massive datasets without compromising accessibility or budget predictability.
A unified platform for active and cold data
Unlike fragmented archive solutions, ActiveScale delivers a unified architecture for both active and cold data management. Using integrated lifecycle management, organizations can automatically transition data between high-performance storage and ultra-low-cost cold tiers—without changing applications or disrupting workflows.
- Active Storage: High-performance access for frequently used data
- Cold Storage: Ultra-low-cost archive for infrequently accessed data
- Single namespace architecture for simplified management
- Policy-based automation for seamless tiering
This integrated approach enables organizations to optimize storage costs without sacrificing accessibility or operational efficiency.
Simplify data movement and archiving
ActiveScale Cold Storage integrates seamlessly into modern workflows using S3-compatible APIs, lifecycle policies and automated tiering.
Organizations can:
- Automatically move data from active to cold storage
- Eliminate manual archive processes
- Preserve existing application workflows
- Simplify archive management through automation
- Restore archived content quickly when needed
With policy-based automation, archived data remains easy to manage, discover and restore—without workflow disruption.
Designed for hybrid cloud and modern workloads
ActiveScale integrates easily with existing ecosystems:
- S3 and S3 Glacier-compatible APIs for cloud-native workflows
- Hybrid cloud support with replication to public cloud environments
- Active/active access across sites
- Single global namespace for unified data access
- Support for AI, analytics and object-based backup repositories
This allows organizations to build private cloud storage with hyperscaler economics—on their own terms.
Built for long-term data preservation
ActiveScale Cold Storage is engineered for longevity:
- Two-dimensional erasure coding (2D EC) for maximum efficiency and durability
- Self-healing data architecture with continuous monitoring and repair
- Immutable object locking for ransomware protection and compliance
- Geo-distributed resiliency for disaster protection
- Tape-based architecture optimized for decades-long retention
This ensures data remains secure, intact and accessible for years to come.
Sustainable long-term storage
Built on Quantum’s tape-based architecture, ActiveScale Cold Storage significantly reduces power consumption compared with traditional always-on storage infrastructure.
Tape provides:
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Ultra-low energy usage
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Long media lifespan
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Reduced carbon emissions
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Lower environmental impact at hyperscale
This enables organizations to support both rapid data growth and sustainability objectives simultaneously.
Proven at petabyte and exabyte scale
Organizations managing the world’s most valuable data trust ActiveScale. For example, Genomics England uses ActiveScale to store and protect hundreds of petabytes of genomic data while scaling seamlessly, improving resiliency and reducing storage costs.
ActiveScale enables organizations to confidently support:
- Massive AI and analytics datasets
- Scientific and research repositories
- Long-term media preservation
- High-scale backup and archive environments
Built for data-intensive industries
ActiveScale Cold Storage is ideal for organizations managing massive volumes of unstructured data across:
Whether preserving scientific datasets, production media or machine-generated data, ActiveScale enables organizations to retain data for years while keeping it economically accessible.
When ActiveScale Cold Storage is the right fit
ActiveScale Cold Storage is especially valuable when:
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Data retention requirements exceed 5 years
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Data growth exceeds 25% annually
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Archive costs are becoming difficult to control
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NAS environments exceed 1 PB
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Organizations require data sovereignty and on-premises control
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Archived data is rarely accessed but must remain available
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AI and analytics initiatives require long-term dataset retention
As a rule of thumb: if data is rarely accessed but too valuable to delete, ActiveScale Cold Storage belongs in the architecture.
Flexible deployment options
Deploy ActiveScale Cold Storage wherever it fits your strategy:
- On-premises
- Colocation facilities
- Hybrid cloud environments
- As-a-Service with pay-as-you-grow pricing
This flexibility allows organizations to align infrastructure deployment with operational, compliance and budget requirements.
End-to-end active and archive workflows
For organizations managing high-performance content pipelines, Quantum combines:
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StorNext® for high-speed shared workflows
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ActiveScale® for scalable object storage
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Scalar® Tape for ultra-low-cost long-term retention
Together, they create a seamless architecture spanning ingest, collaboration, archive and preservation under a unified data management strategy.
