Ultera’s Mirage Data Recorder is designed for real-time data acquisition in mission-critical operations. (Photo courtesy of Ultera Systems)
Ultera Systems has introduced the Mirage Data Recorder (MDR), designed for real-time data acquisition in mission-critical operations such as seismic where repeating the test is either impossible or cost-prohibitive. The device was field-tested by a major oilfield service company before being released for general industry use.

With traditional tape solutions, dirt and grime in the field can disrupt tape drives, and environmental conditions can corrupt the tape medium. As a result, the data itself may be corrupted or not even recorded.

The MDR eliminates these problems by replacing tape drives and cartridges with two high-performance disk drives in removable canisters. The RAID 1 configuration provides built-in redundancy to ensure recording continues if one of the drives fails. Once data is acquired, automatic write protection prevents accidental data erasure. For extra protection, the identical tape volumes stored on transportable hard drives allow one to be taken to the base camp for processing or archiving to conventional tape cartridges and the other to be kept as a backup.

The high-volume disks also permit companies to store more data on a single volume: a single MDR disk is equivalent to up to 70 tape cartridges. Each drive can be configured to accept 10 to 70 IBM 3590 tapes, or up to 7 LTO-format tape cartridges.

The MDR is available in a four-bay tower or 2U rack mount. Each includes an MDR controller, one archive port and two disk modules with 146GB/300GB/750GB removable disks.

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