A flexible storage architecture for large PACS

PACS and electronic patient records require large storage capacity in order to be fully exploited. A medium size cardiovascular hospital (500 beds) needs around 20 TB for a period of 10 years. The proposed solution combines online, nearline and offline modes, a database and management software in a cost-effective architecture without compromising fast recovery, scalability and safety. The data flow from one medium to another, storing the oldest block of exams to less costly media. Furthermore, the online subsystem is easily scaled, since in order to expand online visibility, it is enough to insert another storage sub-system in the network, and update the configuration file. The described architecture has been operational at the Heart Institute since April 2000, with two RAID5 subsystems (200 GB and 500 GB) and a 3.5 TB DLT jukebox with 52 slots as nearline. Currently, more than 2.5 TB of DICOM images have been archived.