EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. - Credit unions that have traded in their old microfiche systems for high tech imaging systems are deservingly basking in their ability to retrieve and provide to members images of their processed shared drafts in a fraction of the time it used to take to search for the microfiche file, copy and fax the information. So much for taking care of that problem. But document imaging applications require a lot of computer storage space. Perhaps Mark Brownstein of Imaging & Document Solutions put it best when he wrote that "capacity requirements now exceed the capabilities of any storage devices by many factors of 10." With demands to keep permanent records of all transactions over the Internet, the necessity for high-density storage is critical. But deciding which type of storage hardware is most appropriate and sufficient can be daunting to a credit union, especially one just getting its feet wet in imaging technology. Here's a sample of the menu of choices: optical media like magneto-optical (MO) and "write once read many" (WORM) have typically been used for large document imaging installations. Recently, other types of optical media such as CD and DVD, have also gained in popularity. At the same time, falling prices of hard disk space have triggered an increase in the number of RAID (redundant array of independent disk) subsystems used in document imaging applications. Mark Anderson of Plasmon Inc.l in Eden Prairie, Minn. offered that when it comes to choosing the most appropriate storage device, "Users are asking the wrong question. They've been asking how long the stored information will last, but what they really want to know is how tough is this stuff? How long will it last it it's used every day." Only a few document imaging users will access files thousands of times a day, but it's nice to know if they wanted to, their storage device could withstand the wear and tear. -
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