An opinion piece by Tameca Brooks, Director of eDiscovery

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A law firm managed a litigation case that remained active for five years before being stayed. At the time of the stay, the firm requested an ARM archive (Archive – Restore – Move) from its eDiscovery vendor. The vendor exported the archive, stored it on an encrypted HDD, and shipped it to the firm.

The HDD remained in the firm’s possession for several years while the case was dormant. However, as often happens, the litigation was unexpectedly reactivated, requiring the firm to locate the HDD and restore the ARM archive to an active Relativity workspace. This process, however, was fraught with challenges:

1. Missing password for the encrypted HDD.
2. Vendor no longer existed, having been acquired during the dormant years.
3. Vendor’s project management team had departed, leaving no clear point of contact.
4. Changes in the legal case team, leading to gaps in institutional knowledge.
5. HDD failure, further complicating data restoration.

These obstacles underscored the complexities of long-term eDiscovery data management and the risks of inactive litigation ARM archives.

The Costly Path of Restoring ARM Archives

Restoring the case data proved to be both complex and expensive. The law firm engaged a vendor to jailbreak the encrypted HDD in an attempt to regain access to the ARM archive environment for restoration and hosting by S2|DATA (“S2”). However, the read failure and missing password severely hindered what could have been a seamless reactivation.

As a result, the firm had to locate historical correspondence and client data to help S2 reconstruct the workspace. The burden extended beyond the law firm – it impacted the end client as well, turning what should have been a simple restoration into a resource-intensive and time-consuming process.

Under normal circumstances, restoring an ARM archive would have required only minimal costs – a few hours of project management and technical time to restore, validate, and release the data. However, due to these unexpected challenges, the firm incurred:

• Additional processing costs to re-ingest client data.
• Significant project management hours spent searching for correspondence to rebuild the workspace.
• Loss of attorney work product stored within the ARM archive, forcing the case team to spend additional time reacclimating to the litigation.

A Simple Solution for ARM Archives: Tape Storage

One often-overlooked strategy that could have prevented these challenges? Storing eDiscovery data on tape.

Unlike HDDs, which are prone to hardware failure, data corruption, and software incompatibilities, tape storage offers a reliable, cost-effective, and compliant long-term data management solution.

Why Tape Storage is the Ideal Solution

• Long-term data integrity – tape storage preserves data for extended periods without risk of degradation.
• Cost-effective – tape reduces storage costs compared to HDDs, which require ongoing maintenance.
• Regulatory compliance – tape meets legal retention requirements, ensuring firms remain compliant.
• Cybersecurity protection – with air-gapped storage and secure encryption, tape protects against ransomware attacks and hacking.
• Physical protection – unlike HDDs, tape is resistant to physical damage and system failures, ensuring data remains retrievable.

Lessons Learned & Moving Forward

This case illustrates the risks of relying on HDDs for long-term inactive storage. HDDs are simply not designed for extended dormancy, making them an unreliable option for preserving critical legal data.

By transitioning dormant case data to tape, law firms can reduce costs, enhance security, and ensure long-term accessibility. To proactively prevent future data challenges, legal teams should collaborate with IT teams to implement a hybrid storage strategy, using HDDs for active cases and tape for archived cases.

The Key Takeaway

Storing Relativity ARM archives on tape provides a cost-effective, secure, and long-term storage solution that meets compliance needs while protecting against data loss and minimizing the risk of unauthorized access.

ROT Data Redefined: Risky is the New Redundant  

Why the term ROT should be redefined as “Risky, Obsolete & Trivial” 

An opinion piece by Brendan Sullivan, CEO

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Within the realm of Information Governance, the term ROT data is generally accepted as an acronym for “Redundant Obsolete & Trivial” data. Records managers would seek to remediate such ROT data, presumably as a cost saving in storage or the management of such data.  

Redundant is the operative word in this acronym because there are duplicate versions of the same data. Horrifying, right? Well, not really.  

A lot has changed over the past 15 years in the data storage world, so much so that we’d argue the word redundant doesn’t justify any action. Back in the day, backups might have been daily, weekly, or monthly. Full backups would quickly create hundreds of instances of the same data in a matter of just a few years. Differential, incremental, or synthetic full backups dropped the redundancy significantly, followed by the use of single instance “on-the-fly” de-duplication applications and appliances for email archives. 

Further down the road came big data storage. I don’t mean the cloud; I mean tape – which I strongly suspect many of the big clouds back up to. The latest LTO-9 stores 30 TB and costs roughly $100 meaning that for a dollar you are storing 300 GB! Does anybody care about redundant data at these cost levels for storage?  

Then there’s the cloud of course, great for archiving no doubt, but backup or disaster recovery, not so much. Would anybody seriously entertain the project of eliminating redundant data on a mass scale with bandwidth limiting throughput and not so lovely egress charges that would be higher than the value of the redundant data itself, I think not.  

And now the final nail in the coffin for redundant data….AI. I wondered a long time ago while attending ARMA, (“Association of Records Management and Administrators”) and RIM, (“Records Information Management”) meetings whether we were doing it the wrong way around with records management. by trying to organize data in such a way that you can understand and find it at some stage in the future. Index the lot and you find what you are looking for. I get the cost of power, cooling, GPU’s, search engines etc. but I don’t think we are catching and organizing this water halfway down the waterfall either. So, to me, the word “Redundant” in ROT is already both trivial and obsolete, and it needs to be changed – because deletion is still a good thing. The world’s data centers need to be constantly clearing the attic out, but the term ROT data kind of fits. What about replacing “Redundant” with “Risky.” It’s risky because “legal” doesn’t want it because it’s a growing data danger concern. Yes, that fits. We suggest that ROT be redefined to mean “Risky, Obsolete & Trivial” and therefore still worth defensibly deleting. Come to think about it, we might not need to worry about the O or T either! (But we are absolutely worrying about the R!) 

How does your organization currently assess the ‘risk’ in its ROT data, and are you confident that your approach aligns with evolving legal, privacy, and security challenges? 

In today’s data-driven world, many organisations have adopted what seems like a safe approach to data retention: “Keep everything, just in case.” Whilst this strategy might feel prudent, it’s creating unprecedented challenges and costs that far exceed simple storage expenses. Let’s examine the true impact of this approach and explore how modern solutions can help organisations regain control of their legacy data.

The Hidden Costs of Keeping Everything

The most obvious cost of a “keep everything” strategy is storage, but this represents just the tip of the iceberg. Consider these often-overlooked expenses:

1. Legacy Software Licensing
Many organisations maintain expensive backup software licences solely to be able to access to historical data. These annual licensing fees can run into hundreds of thousands of dollars – not for active backup operations, but merely for the ability to read old backups if needed.

2. Hardware Maintenance
Legacy backup systems often require specific hardware configurations. Maintaining and replacing aging hardware components adds significant costs and complexity to your IT infrastructure.

3. Specialized Staff
Someone needs to understand these legacy systems. Whether it’s full-time employees or consultants, maintaining expertise in obsolete systems is expensive and becoming increasingly difficult as skilled professionals retire.

4. Legal and Compliance Risk
Keeping unnecessary data isn’t just expensive – it’s risky. During litigation or regulatory investigations, organisations must search through, review, and potentially produce relevant data. The more unnecessary data you retain, the more expensive and time-consuming this process becomes.

5. Opportunity Cost
When your IT department spends time maintaining legacy systems and searching through obsolete data, they’re not focusing on initiatives that drive business value. This opportunity cost, whilst hard to quantify, represents a significant drain on organisational resources.

The Search Problem

Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of “keep everything” strategies is that they often fail at their primary objective: having data available when needed. We regularly encounter organisations that have maintained expensive backup infrastructure for years, only to discover they can’t efficiently locate specific information when required.

A recent client maintained over 100,000 backup tapes and spent nearly £800,000 annually on legacy system maintenance. Yet when faced with a time-sensitive legal request, they still needed weeks to locate and restore relevant data. The irony? After analysis, we discovered that less than 20% of their stored data had any business or legal value.

A Better Approach

The solution isn’t to simply delete everything – it’s to transform how you manage and access legacy data. This is where S2|DATA’s innovative approach comes in.

Step 1: Understand What You Have

Using our proprietary TRACS platform, we can scan your backup tapes and other legacy storage media, creating a searchable catalog of your data assets. This metadata repository, which we call Invenire, allows you to:
– Quickly identify what data you have
– Determine where specific information is located
– Understand data ages and types
– Make informed decisions about what to keep – and what to delete

Step 2: Enable Efficient Access

Through our TRACS (Tape Restoration and Cataloging System) technology, we eliminate the need for legacy backup software whilst maintaining complete access to your data. This means:
– No more expensive legacy software licences
– No specialised hardware requirements
– Rapid access to specific files when needed
– Significant reduction in maintenance costs

Step 3: Optimise Your Storage

With clear visibility into your data assets, you can make informed decisions about:
– What to retain and what to defensibly delete
– How to consolidate storage media
– Which systems can be retired
– How to reduce ongoing maintenance costs

Real Results

One global financial institution recently used this approach to:
– Reduce their tape storage footprint by 95%
– Eliminate £650,000 in annual software licensing fees
– Improve data access time from weeks to hours
– Significantly reduce their compliance risk profile

Making the Transition

Moving from a “keep everything” strategy to an intelligent data management approach doesn’t happen overnight, but it doesn’t have to be disruptive either. The key is starting with a clear understanding of your data assets and implementing tools that make that data accessible and manageable.

Ready to transform how your organisation manages legacy data? Contact S2|DATA to learn how we can help you reduce costs, minimize risk, and improve data accessibility without maintaining expensive legacy systems.

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The status quo isn’t just expensive – it’s unsustainable. Isn’t it time to stop paying premium rates for a digital safety blanket and start managing your legacy data intelligently?

As “Mr Backup,” I’ve spent decades helping companies protect their data. One thing I worry about is that too many organisations are using their backup systems as makeshift archives. This practice isn’t just inefficient – it’s a ticking time bomb of legal liability. First I’ll explain why this is the case, and then I’ll explain what you can do about it. The answer is easier than you think.

First, let’s get one thing straight: backup and archiving are not the same thing. Backups are designed for operational and disaster recovery – to help you get back up and running quickly after data loss. Archives, on the other hand, are for long-term data retention and retrieval. Using one for the other is like trying to use a fire extinguisher as a water fountain. Sure, you might get a drink, but it’s messy, inefficient, and not what it’s designed for.

The Perils of Misusing Your Backup System

When you use your backup system as an archive, you’re setting yourself up for a world of hurt. Here’s why:

• Needle in a Haystack Syndrome: Backup systems are great at ingesting data, but they’re terrible at finding specific pieces of information. Try finding a particular email from five years ago in your backup system. I’ll wait. (Spoiler alert: You’ll be waiting a long time.)
• Retention Nightmares: Backup systems typically overwrite data on a regular schedule. This means you might be deleting data that you’re legally required to keep, or keeping data that you should have deleted ages ago. Both scenarios spell legal trouble.
• Performance Issues: Backup systems are designed for bulk data movement, not frequent, granular access. Using them for archival purposes can slow down your entire backup process, putting your disaster recovery capabilities at risk.
• Cost Overruns: Storing unnecessary data in your backup system means you’re paying for storage you don’t need. It’s like renting a warehouse to store empty boxes—a waste of money and resources.
• Compliance Headaches: Many regulations require you to produce specific data within a set timeframe. Good luck doing that with a backup system not designed for quick, targeted retrieval.

The eDiscovery Dilemma

Now, let’s talk about the elephant in the room: eDiscovery. When legal comes knocking (and trust me, they will), they don’t want all your data – they want specific pieces of information, and they want them now.

Backup systems are notoriously ill-equipped for this task. They’re designed to restore entire systems or large data sets, not to search for and extract individual files or emails. Trying to use a backup system for eDiscovery is like trying to perform surgery with a sledgehammer—messy, imprecise, and likely to cause more harm than good.

I once worked with a company that learned this lesson the hard way. They were hit with an eDiscovery request and confidently turned to their backup tapes. Three months, countless overtime hours, and hundreds of thousands of pounds later, they were still searching. The court was not amused, and the results were… let’s just say, unpleasant.

The Solution: Unlock Your Backup’s Potential

So, what’s the answer? It’s not as simple as “don’t use your backup as an archive.” The reality is, many companies have years of valuable data locked away in their backup systems. The key is finding a way to access and utilise this data effectively, without compromising your backup processes or breaking the bank.

This is where S2|DATA’s innovative TRACS (Tape Restoration and Cataloging System) comes into play. TRACS is a game-changer in the world of data management, offering a bridge between your backup systems and your archiving needs.

Here’s how TRACS transforms your backup system into a powerful, accessible archive:

• Non-Native File Restoration: TRACS can restore data from over 20 backup software applications and hundreds of versions without requiring the original backup software.
• Granular Data Extraction: Unlike traditional backup systems, TRACS allows you to extract specific files or email messages, making it ideal for eDiscovery and compliance needs.
• Metadata Cataloguing: TRACS creates a comprehensive catalogue of your backup data, making it searchable and accessible, via our online portal Invenire.
• Cost-Effective: By leveraging your existing backup data, TRACS eliminates the need for a separate, expensive archiving system.
• Compliance-Friendly: With its ability to quickly locate and extract specific data, TRACS helps you meet regulatory requirements for data retention and retrieval.

I’ve seen companies transform their approach to data management with TRACS. One large mortgage company saved over £800,000 annually in software licensing costs by using TRACS to selectively restore and migrate email data from their legacy system.

Remember, in the world of data management, it’s not about abandoning your backup systems – it’s about unlocking their full potential. With the right tools and expertise, your backup system can serve as a rich, accessible archive.

Don’t wait for a legal disaster to strike before you act. Audit your data management practices today, and consider how a solution like TRACS could help you take control of your legacy data. Your future self (and your legal team) will thank you.

In the complex world of electronic discovery, the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) serves as a crucial roadmap for legal professionals and organisations alike. At S2|DATA, we’ve made it our mission to not just understand the EDRM, but to excel in its implementation, providing our clients with unparalleled command over their legacy data. Let’s dive into what the EDRM is and how S2|DATA’s expertise aligns with this essential framework.

Understanding the EDRM

The EDRM is a comprehensive guide that outlines the various stages of the eDiscovery process. It provides a structured approach to managing electronically stored information (ESI) from its initial identification through to its presentation in legal proceedings. The model consists of nine distinct stages:

1. Information Governance
2. Identification
3. Preservation
4. Collection
5. Processing
6. Review
7. Analysis
8. Production
9. Presentation

Each stage plays a vital role in ensuring a thorough, efficient, and defensible eDiscovery process. However, navigating these stages can be challenging without the right expertise and tools.

S2|DATA’s EDRM Specialties

At S2|DATA, we’ve developed cutting-edge solutions that address all stages of the EDRM, with a particular focus on the early stages where our unique capabilities truly shine. Let’s explore how our services align with and enhance the EDRM process:

1. Information Governance

Whilst many organisations struggle with establishing effective information governance policies, S2|DATA provides the tools and expertise to help you take control. Our Intelligent Tape Archive solution goes beyond traditional offsite data vaults, adding a layer of intelligence to your legacy data. This empowers you to make informed decisions about data retention, deletion, and management, setting the stage for more efficient eDiscovery processes down the line.

2. Identification

Identifying relevant electronically stored information (ESI) can be like finding a needle in a digital haystack. That’s where our proprietary Invenire platform comes into play. As the world’s most advanced metadata review tool, Invenire provides instant insight into key file information, allowing you to quickly identify potentially relevant data across your entire data landscape, including backup tapes and legacy systems.

3. Preservation

Once relevant data is identified, it must be preserved to maintain its integrity. S2|DATA’s expertise in data restoration and forensic data recovery ensures that your critical information is preserved accurately and defensibly. Our ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certified processes guarantee the highest levels of data security throughout the preservation process.

4. Collection

S2|DATA truly shines in the collection phase. Our advanced data restoration services can access and collect data from virtually any storage medium, including backup tapes, legacy systems, and even voice logging tapes. Our proprietary TRACS (Tape Restoration and Cataloguing System) technology allows us to restore data from a wide array of backup formats without needing the original backup software.

5. Processing

Once data is collected, it needs to be processed into a format suitable for review. S2|DATA’s processing capabilities are robust and flexible. We can handle large volumes of data efficiently, thanks to our scalable infrastructure and proprietary technologies. Our processing services include deduplication, filtering, and advanced searching capabilities, all designed to streamline the next stages of the EDRM.

6. Review

S2|DATA understands that the review stage can be one of the most time-consuming and costly parts of the eDiscovery process. That’s why we offer advanced review platforms that leverage cutting-edge technologies to streamline this critical phase. Our solutions include:

• Customisable review workflows to match your specific case needs
• Advanced analytics to prioritise relevant documents
• Collaborative tools for multi-user review teams
• Quality control measures to ensure review accuracy

7. Analysis

Our analysis tools go beyond simple keyword searches. S2|DATA’s analytical capabilities include:

• Data visualisation tools to help identify patterns and relationships
• Email threading to streamline communication review

These powerful analytical tools help legal teams uncover key insights and build stronger cases more efficiently.

8. Production

When it’s time to produce relevant documents, S2|DATA ensures a smooth, defensible process. Our production services include:

• Flexible output formats to meet various production requirements
• Customisable redaction tools to protect sensitive information
• Detailed production logs for complete transparency
• Quality assurance checks to prevent production errors

9. Presentation

The final stage of the EDRM is where all the previous work comes together. S2|DATA supports the presentation stage by:

• Providing easy-to-use tools for creating trial exhibits
• Offering secure, cloud-based repositories for case documents
• Supplying expert witnesses who can testify about data collection and processing methods
• Delivering clear, concise reports that summarise the eDiscovery process for courts and opposing counsel

Empowering Your EDRM Journey

By partnering with S2|DATA, you’re not just getting a service provider – you’re gaining a strategic ally in your eDiscovery efforts. Our solutions are designed to give you command over your data at every stage of the EDRM:

• Faster Time-to-Data: Our advanced technologies allow for rapid identification and collection of relevant data.
• Greater Data Insight: Tools like Invenire provide deep visibility into your data landscape.
• Risk Reduction: Our secure processes and expert handling minimise the risks associated with data management and eDiscovery.
• Cost Efficiency: By streamlining all stages of the EDRM, we help reduce the overall costs of the eDiscovery process.

In today’s data-driven legal landscape, mastering the EDRM is no longer optional – it’s essential. S2|DATA’s innovative solutions and deep expertise empower you to navigate the complexities of the EDRM with confidence, turning potential challenges into opportunities for more efficient, effective eDiscovery.

Ready to take command of your eDiscovery process? Contact S2|DATA today to learn how we can enhance your EDRM journey and transform your approach to legacy data management.