Cloud and backup storage provider IDrive has launched an all-flash version of its e2 object storage service, with fast access to files stored as objects.
Up until now, all-flash object storage has been a largely on-premises phenomenon with companies like Cloudian and Scality providing it for fast object IO use cases. The public cloud has been used for bulk capacity object storage, with Amazon S3 as the prime example, followed by Azure’s Blob. Fast file access has been provided in the cloud, but, crucially, or so says IDrive – not fast object storage.
IDrive claims to be one of the most affordable object cloud storage services available, with the service costing 80 percent less than AWS S3, with no ingress/egress fees.
We asked an IDrive spokesperson how the e2 service speed compared to an on-premises all-flash object storage system and they claimed: “If a user wanted a local device it would be faster, as it would cut the latency to zero.” (Well, near-zero.)
IDrive says its SSD-based e2 service is a good fit for hosting applications, media workflow, gaming assets, ecommerce resources, and other large volumes of data. Files can be stored as objects on e2, preserving versioning.
Features and use cases include:
- Ransomware protection – via file lock, versioning, and data retention
- Object lock – restricts the modification or deletion of an object
- Bucket versioning – every modification made to the objects in the bucket will be automatically saved as a new copy or version of the object allowing users to restore older versions of an object
- Gaming – lowers game loading times, reduces latency, and provides faster data access than disk
- Media and streaming – SSD is ideal for media, real-time data access, and server data storage due to faster read and write speeds and lower latency than disk, plus high durability
- Analytics and SaaS files – businesses that have programming or analytics-based data can speed processing and retrieval via SSD
IDrive has eight US locations plus points of presence in Montreal, Ireland, London, Frankfurt, Madrid and Paris. The e2 SSD-based object storage is currently available its Virginia region and the service will be rolled out to all its other locations.
Users will read and write data at the edge center closest to them for faster access across a network link, using a two-level key structure – access key ID and secret access key. They can access data directly from the IDrive e2 web console or via third-party tools like MSP360, Veeam, Cyberduck, Cloudflare, Fastly, Iconik, Arq, QNAP, Synology, Reclone.org, Arcserve, Duplicati, WinSCP, and S3 Browser. The web console is used to secure data, manage users, control account settings, and other management tasks.
IDrive’s all-flash e2 service starts at $0.01/GB/month. This compares with its main object storage service priced at $0.04/GB/month with no egress fees. It says Amazon’s equivalent Frequent Access S3 service tier is $.021/GB/month for >500TB, and charges egress fees, making e2 all-flash cheaper than AWS S3 Frequent Access on disk.
Comment
Having both faster and cheaper object storage services than market leader AWS is great differentiation. IDrive competitors like Wasabi may follow suit, although Backblaze has said it has no plans to offer SSD-based storage services.
