Power saving archive system

Abstract

A power saving archive system includes a front storage system accessible by clients and one or more back storage systems connected to the front storage system. A client file received by the front storage system is written to one of the back storage systems, while the front storage system stores a reference to the file and deletes the file from the front storage system after a certain time period. Each back storage system enters an inactive state (e.g. a powered off state) after a period of unuse, and can become active again in response to a wakeup command (e.g. a Wake-on-LAN signal) from the front storage system. Upon receiving a file read request from a client, the front storage system wakes up the appropriate back storage system, restores the file from the back storage system, and provides the file to the client.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.