The key thing with medical images is that you have to keep them for a long, long time. A mammography scan taken on a 40 year old woman today will have to be retained for about 40 years, maybe fifty or sixty- for the life of the patient. The average life expectancy of data media is five years - disk or tape. Even if you archived on optical media, like a WORM, that can keep data for 50 years, there is no guarantee reading devices will still be around in 50 years (has anyone seen a 5 1/4 inch floppy disk drive lately?). This is just to say that data migration of large amounts of data is not a trivial, yet essential design element for medical image archive solutions.
Read Jonathan Batchelor's article in HealthImaging, and it will become clear
why our SAM-FS technology is such a big deal. Dr. Cecil describes it very simple and correct: just add new media, and it'll fill up. The file handle never changes, from media to media, so a data recall after 20 years will access data that has moved four or five times, maybe more often, its physical location.
RSNA is around the corner. Come see us at booth 5155 in McKCormick Place South Building, Hall A. We will demonstrate a few cute things and we'll be happy to discuss our archiving technology with you. Also, we have an exhibit of our new content addressable storage system, the Sun Storagetek 5800 (also known to many under the code name Honeycomb). We'll be happy to discuss with you how content addressable storage will change the way we can drive science and medical practice alike to new efficiencies, while maintaining the cost leadership and reliability you can expect from a Sun StorageTek product.
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