Storage Infrastructure
Enterprise Backup Storage Infrastructure
ShadowCradle uses a purpose-built enterprise storage engine trusted by Fortune 500 companies and major cloud providers. Data integrity, automatic healing, efficient replication, and deduplication all built in.
70%
Typical dedup savings
30–50%
Compression savings
15 Min
Min. snapshot interval
Auto
Corruption healing
Why Purpose-Built Storage?
Our enterprise storage engine was purpose-built for data integrity and high-performance backup. It's trusted by Oracle, Netflix, NASA, and hundreds of cloud providers because it eliminates silent data corruption - the biggest threat to backup integrity.
Other backup solutions layer their own file system on top of commodity storage. ShadowCradle's storage layer is built from the ground up - meaning every feature (replication, snapshots, deduplication) is built on a foundation designed for exactly this purpose.
Data Integrity Checksums
Every block verified with checksums. Corruption detected and automatically healed. Silent data corruption is eliminated.
Atomic Snapshots
Consistent point-in-time backups every hour or more. Snapshots are instant - no performance impact during backup.
Built-In Replication
Native replication powers ShadowCradle's multi-site sync. Only changed blocks replicate - no full copy needed.
Automatic Healing
Self-healing storage automatically detects and repairs corruption as it finds it. Single or multiple drive failures handled automatically.
Thin Provisioning
Only allocate storage as data fills. 100TB of thin-provisioned space costs far less than 100TB physical allocation.
Deduplication & Compression
Identical blocks stored once (70% typical savings). LZ4 compression reduces storage by 30–50% with minimal CPU impact.
How the Storage Engine Works
Every backup write passes through a purpose-built pipeline optimized for integrity and efficiency.
Incoming Backup Data
Block-level changes arrive from agents across all protected machines
Deduplication
Identical blocks across all jobs and machines are identified and stored only once
~70% savings
LZ4 Compression
Unique blocks compressed with minimal CPU overhead before writing
30–50% additional
Integrity Checksum
Cryptographic checksum recorded per block - corruption detected and auto-healed on every read
Auto-healing
AES-256 Encryption
Data encrypted at rest before any write to physical storage
Redundant RAID Pool
Written across Mirror, Single Parity, or Double Parity drives - survives 1–2 simultaneous failures
Atomic Point-in-Time Snapshot
Consistent recovery point captured and indexed for instant file, database, or VM restore
15-min minimum
RAID Resilience
RAID-1 (Mirror)
Two drives hold identical data. Single drive failure - automatic recovery. Simplest, highest performance.
Advanced RAID (Single Parity)
Advanced parity RAID without the write-hole vulnerability. Single drive failure protected. Efficient storage.
Advanced RAID (Double Parity)
Two simultaneous drive failures protected. Enterprise reliability for the most critical data.
The Setup Wizard Knows Your Drives
On first boot the appliance scans every installed drive, identifies its type and speed, and tells you exactly how to use it for peak performance. No guessing, no documentation hunting.
Data Pool
HDD or SSD
Your core protected storage. Drives form a redundant pool with your chosen parity level. The wizard recommends the best pool layout for the drives it detects.
Mix drive sizes - usable capacity is based on your smallest drives
Write Acceleration Journal
Fast SSD recommended
A dedicated fast drive that absorbs all synchronous writes instantly, then flushes to the data pool in the background. Eliminates write latency spikes under heavy load.
Only 16–32 GB needed - perfect use for a small NVMe or leftover SSD
Intelligent Read Cache
SSD recommended
A dedicated SSD layer that automatically caches your most-accessed data. Hot reads are served from SSD without ever touching spinning disks.
Aim for 5–10% of your data pool size for best cache hit ratio
Metadata Accelerator
NVMe recommended
Small-block and metadata I/O is redirected to your fastest drive. Critical for environments with many small files or mixed-size workloads.
Even a small NVMe (64–128 GB) dramatically improves small file performance
Parity Advisor
As you add drives to the wizard, it instantly updates its recommendation. You see protection level, usable capacity estimate, and failure tolerance before you commit.
2 drives
Mirror
50% usable1 drive failure
Simplest and fastest - both drives hold identical data
3 – 5 drives
Single Parity
67 – 80% usable1 drive failure
Good balance of protection and capacity
6 – 11 drives
Double Parity
67 – 83% usable2 simultaneous failures
Enterprise-grade: survives full rebuild plus another failure
12+ drives
Double Parity (split pools)
83 – 92% usable2 failures per pool
Wizard suggests splitting into multiple pools for rebuild speed
What the wizard actually tells you
When you install drives and open the setup wizard, you see something like: "We detected 1x 256 GB NVMe and 4x 4 TB HDD. We recommend using the NVMe as your Write Acceleration Journal and Read Cache, and the 4 HDDs in Double Parity mode giving you 8 TB of protected storage. This protects against any single drive failure." You can override any recommendation.
Storage Performance Estimator
Configure your drives and see estimated capacity and performance. Toggle acceleration options to see their impact.
Drive Configuration
4
216
Acceleration Options
Write Acceleration Journal
Dedicated fast drive for sync writes
Hot Spare Drives
Idle drives for automatic rebuild
Intelligent Read Cache
SSD layer for hot data reads
Capacity
Usable Protected
12.0 TB
Total Raw
16.0 TB
Failure Tolerance
Up to 1 drive
Parity Mode
Single
vdev Stripe Width Not Optimal
Your current 4-drive RAIDZ1 has a data stripe width of 3 - not a power of 2. ZFS performs best when the data portion of a vdev is 2, 4, 8, or 16 drives, as stripe segments align cleanly with storage blocks.
Pool Resilver After One Drive Failure
~25.0 hrs
to rebuild the failed drive
Reads 3 surviving drives × 4.0 TB at ~100 MB/s (throttled). Assumes 75% pool fill.
Moderate window. Avoid scrubs during resilver. Monitor SMART data closely and replace the failed drive immediately.
Hot Spare Drives
Without a hot spare, a drive failure leaves the pool in a degraded state until you physically source a replacement drive, insert it, and trigger a rebuild - typically 4–48+ hours depending on your procurement process. During that window, any additional drive failure risks data loss.
Enable hot spare drives to have 1 standby drive immediately available for automatic failover.
Enable hot spare drives to have 1 standby drive immediately available for automatic failover.
Estimated Performance
Sequential Read720 MB/s
Sequential Write470 MB/s
Random Read IOPS600 IOPS
Sync Write Latency
Without journal
8 ms
* Estimates based on typical drive specs. Actual performance varies by workload and hardware.