The silent hero of Zero Loss: why local storage is essential

When we talk about Zero Loss, it’s often about backup software, cloud platforms or recovery procedures. But what if we talked about the real silent force behind Zero Loss: your storage. Because without the right storage foundation, you can have such a good strategy, but still come up short when it counts.

In this blog, we dive into the crucial, but often underestimated, role of storage in a future-proof Zero Loss approach.

Zero Loss requires more than just “a backup”

Making a backup is no guarantee that your data is safe or can be restored quickly. What matters is where and how that backup is stored. If your storage is slow, vulnerable to tampering or dependent on Internet connections, you run risks that run counter to the Zero Loss principle.

So organizations need more than storage capacity. They need speed, control, immutability and scalability, preferably without sacrificing ease of use or cost.

Why on-premises storage is the backbone of resilience

Cloud storage is attractive: scalable, flexible and often relatively inexpensive. But with critical data, the question is whether you want to outsource full control to external parties. Consider compliance risks, latency issues, vendor lock-in, or simply not being able to recover without an active Internet connection.

On-premise storage does offer direct access, physical control and, if properly set up, lightning-fast recovery. In a hybrid environment, you can take advantage of cloud for less critical workloads, while using on-prem for data classifications that should not be at any risk. Think patient records, governance information or production data.

The benefits of local storage in Zero Loss strategies

• Speed: With local storage, you are not dependent on your Internet connection or bandwidth. This drastically reduces your recovery time objectives (RTO).
• Control: You literally know where your data is and who has physical access to it.
• Immutability: With systems such as the Silent Bricks and Silent Cubes allow you to store data immutably, for example in write-once-read-many (WORM) mode, giving ransomware no chance.
• Integration: Local systems easily interface with common backup software such as Veeam, Commvault or Rubrik.
• Hybrid deployment: On-prem doesn’t have to mean abandoning cloud entirely. Smart organizations combine both.

Sector examples: what does this mean in practice?

• In the healthcare industry, every second of downtime is a potential risk to patients. Local storage ensures instant access to critical data even in the event of an Internet outage.
• In industry, every hour of downtime means lost production. Here, speed of recovery is crucial and not a nice-to-have.
• In the public sector, compliance and transparency play a major role. Here it is important that data is not only available, but also demonstrably untouched.

Storage solutions that meet Zero Loss requirements

At Comex we work with the systems of FAST LTA, such as the Silent Brick system. This system is specifically designed to meet the requirements of modern backup and recovery. With high throughput speeds (up to 6 Gbit/s), a physical air gap thanks to media-eject, support for (hardware) immutability and flexible deployment within hybrid environments

Not for nothing are these systems already being used by institutions such as Het Utrechts Archief, Kempenhaeghe and DMK Doc Kaas. View some other references.

Conclusion

The power of Zero Loss is not just in policies or processes, but rather in the infrastructure underneath. And in that, storage plays a key role. Instead of seeing storage as a passive component, we need to recognize it as the “enabling” factor for digital resilience.

The future is hybrid, but the foundation is local.