For archiving, there are various solution approaches across markets, but many manufacturers try to create these primarily with their own product lines. Thus one finds usually here SoftWorm constructs, in which data on rewritable and actually changeable data media are quasi encrypted via a driver in an own WORM file system and thus set "read only", so that further processing is prevented.
What obviously seems to be a good idea, however, has some decisive disadvantages, because if, for example, the key or driver is lost, the data can be processed or, in the worst case, the archive can no longer be read. Although it would be possible to restore data from a backup, this alone contradicts the requirements for an archive, because the original source file has been lost. Even with many small files, a SoftWorm very quickly reaches its limits, because encrypting and decrypting the files requires a computing capacity that should not be underestimated, which can quickly become a bottleneck and paralyze the system under full load.
The danger with all pure SoftWORM constructs lies however mainly in the propriety, because here each manufacturer brews its own soup and there are no standards at all, whereby a very high dependence on the respective supplier and manufacturer is stirred up.
With the StorEasy® WormAppliance INCOM has been pursuing a hybrid approach for many years, consisting of a SoftWORM on hard disks, which is mirrored on an optical trueWORM storage medium. Hard disks and the optical end archive are mirrored once more, so that a data loss is almost impossible. Both hard disks and the Blu-ray media come from different manufacturers, so that even a batch problem during production cannot lead to data loss.
While many manufacturers with pure hard disk solutions have to buy two systems at the same time in order to achieve an actual mirroring of the data, Dell follows with the Dell EMC WormAppliance a similar way as INCOM's StorEasy® WormAppliance, only that the mirroring and/or swapping of the data is done on tape and not on Blu-ray media. Unlike the tamper-proof trueWORM Blu-ray media, hard disks as well as tape media can be removed from the system and formatted externally or even manipulated. Also the raid controller can overwrite a SoftWORM without any problems, so that the archive is irretrievably lost afterwards. Malware can also manipulate the system, so that real security can only be guaranteed in a closed system, without changes to the RAID/controller hardware and without failing storage media, such as HDD failures.
With the StorEasy WormAppliance INCOM offers the most secure form of archiving in an integrated overall system. INCOM gladly provides test systems of the highly scalable solution and supports the implementation up to the data migration from the old system.