sayFUSE Backup & Recovery
Cyber-Resilient Data Protection

The sayFUSE Backup solution delivers exceptional high-speed data protection, supporting up to 12 TB per hour for live backups and up to 18 TB per hour for migration backups. With sayFUSE S3 Object Storage, read and write speeds of up to 150 GB per second can be achieved.

sayFUSE Backup provides data protection, recovery, media management and offsite storage within an integrated backup and recovery platform. The focus is not simply on creating backups, but on ensuring that data and systems can be reliably restored even after technical failures, human errors or cyberattacks.

The multi-layered backup strategy begins with data protection on centralized backup and deduplication storage. Backup versions are then automatically migrated to separate backup media within the appliance. Daily, weekly and monthly backups can be organized into complete backup generations and prepared for physical offsite storage.

Air Gapping and Physical Separation

A fundamental architectural principle is the separation of backup layers. Backup media are activated before a backup job, then disconnected after completion or physically removed from the production environment and stored in a secure location or a separate fire compartment.

This creates an additional layer of protection against tampering, malware and the simultaneous loss of production and backup data.

Security

With sayFUSE and sayTRUST UZE, you are well equipped for both data security and compliance with regulatory requirements. Our unique security architecture has earned the trust of customers across retail, industry and the public sector.

Cost efficient

sayFUSE consolidates much of a conventional IT infrastructure while requiring significantly less space and energy. Traditional solutions often need considerably more equipment to achieve comparable performance. In addition, sayFUSE is designed with hot-swappable fans and power supplies, helping reduce downtime and costly IT maintenance.

Speed

The all-in-one architecture delivers high transfer rates without the performance bottlenecks typically found in conventional solutions. Fast backup and recovery processes help minimize downtime and enable business operations to resume quickly after a system failure.

Scalability

With modular capacity expansion, sayFUSE adapts to the growing demands of your business. This protects your investment and enables quick, straightforward performance upgrades.

The Difference Between sayFUSE Backup and Traditional Backup Solutions

The difference between sayFUSE Backup, a solution developed by sayTEC, and traditional backup systems goes beyond the underlying technology. It lies primarily in the overall approach, level of integration and scope of functionality provided.

Traditional Backup Solutions

Traditional backup environments often consist of multiple separate components:

Storage Media: These may include tape drives, external hard drives, NAS (Network Attached Storage) or SAN (Storage Area Network) systems.

Backup Server: A dedicated server that hosts the backup software and writes data to the designated storage media.

Media Management: Manual or software-controlled management of physical storage media, such as moving backup tapes to an offsite location.

Backup Software: Software responsible for managing backup jobs, deduplicating, compressing and encrypting data.

Dependence on External Hardware: Traditional solutions often rely on separate hardware components that must be purchased, installed and maintained.

Installation and Configuration Complexity: Deployment and maintenance can be time-consuming and may require specialized IT personnel.

Manual Intervention: Many traditional solutions require manual tasks, such as changing backup tapes or reviewing backup logs.

Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO): These can vary depending on the architecture and configuration. Tape-based backup systems, for example, often involve longer recovery times.

Scalability: Expanding storage capacity often requires purchasing and integrating additional hardware.

Security Risks: Depending on the implementation, physical backup media may be lost or stolen. Protecting data at rest and in transit is essential and may require additional manual configuration.

Primary Focus: The primary focus of traditional backup solutions is often data backup and recovery. Disaster Recovery (DR) and Business Continuity (BC) may be treated as separate disciplines requiring additional systems, infrastructure or software solutions.

sayFUSE Backup (by sayTEC)

sayFUSE Backup is part of the broader sayFUSE platform, designed as an all-in-one solution for IT infrastructure. Its approach is highly integrated, with a strong focus on efficiency and security.

All-in-One Platform (Hyperconverged Infrastructure – HCI): sayFUSE is more than a backup solution — it is a complete IT infrastructure platform. Backup capabilities are integrated into both hardware and software, combining server, storage and backup functions within a single system.

Integrated Components: Instead of relying on separate software, servers and storage devices, sayFUSE brings these components together in one system. Backup hardware, backup servers, backup software and media management are integrated into a unified platform.

High-Speed Backup and Recovery: sayFUSE is designed for high data transfer rates and rapid recovery. Its optimized internal architecture reduces the need for intermediate components that can create performance bottlenecks.

Combining the Benefits of Disk and Tape: sayFUSE uses hard drives as backup media, delivering the speed of disk-based backups while providing media handling similar to tape library systems. Removable backup drives allow straightforward offsite storage for audit, compliance and long-term retention purposes.

Audit-Compliant Archiving: Beyond conventional backup, sayFUSE can provide archiving capabilities designed to support auditability, regulatory compliance and long-term data retention requirements.

Reduced Complexity and Hardware Requirements: The all-in-one architecture can replace multiple standalone devices, including servers, storage systems and tape libraries. This reduces rack space, energy consumption and administrative overhead.

Automation: The solution is designed for extensive automation, reducing the risk of manual errors and simplifying day-to-day operations.

Scalability: sayFUSE systems feature a modular architecture that allows storage capacity and system resources to expand as data volumes and operational requirements grow.

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BC/DR): As an integrated infrastructure platform, sayFUSE can also incorporate virtualization capabilities, including sayFUSE VM Backup. This supports a broader business continuity strategy by enabling not only data protection but also the rapid recovery of entire virtual machines and server systems.

Patented Security Architecture: sayTEC emphasizes a distinctive, patented security concept that goes beyond conventional encryption to protect data integrity and security across multiple layers. One example is sayFUSE FIREsafe, designed for highly available, fire- and water-resistant data replication.

Model Variants, Capacity and Performance

sayFUSE Backup is available in models that can be configured to meet specific requirements. Combined systems provide six physical backup drives in addition to backup and deduplication storage. Dedicated backup systems feature twelve backup drives. An expansion module adds another twelve drives, enabling configurations with 6, 12, 18 or 24 backup drives, depending on the base system.

Physical offsite storage capacity depends on the number of drives and the capacity of the sayFUSE-approved SATA media used. With 40 TB media, six drives provide up to 240 TB, twelve drives up to 480 TB, eighteen drives up to 720 TB and twenty-four drives up to 960 TB of raw capacity per fully populated media set.

As SATA drive capacities increase, the potential offsite storage capacity can grow accordingly without changing the underlying library architecture.

Depending on the model, configuration, storage media, network connectivity and performance of the source and target systems, backup throughput of up to 60 TB per hour and offsite data transfer rates of up to 18 TB per hour are achievable.

The integrated backup and deduplication storage can be scaled into the petabyte range, depending on the system configuration.

From SATA Hard Drive to Managed Backup Media

Commercially available SATA hard drives approved for the respective system are initialized by sayFUSE during their first use and converted into managed backup media.

During this process, the system records information including the media serial number, the associated slot or backup drive, and the management data required for backup operations.

This ensures that every storage medium and backup drive can be uniquely identified and tracked.

Backup generations can be assigned to specific media, multiple backup jobs can run in parallel across different slots, and media for daily, weekly, monthly or annual backups can be managed in a controlled and traceable manner.

Job-Controlled Power-Off and Physical Offsite Storage

Before a backup job begins, only the required backup drive is powered on. Once the backup is completed, the drive is automatically shut down and completely powered off.

The backup medium can then be physically removed from the appliance and stored at a separate location or in a different fire compartment.

The combination of powered-off media, physical removal and geographical separation creates a true air gap. This reduces exposure to malware and provides an additional layer of protection against the simultaneous compromise of production data, online backups and offsite backup media.

Automatische Ersatzlaufwerke

For critical backup operations, additional drives and storage media can be designated as spare resources.

If sayFUSE detects a failure in a designated backup medium or backup drive, the backup job is automatically redirected to an available spare drive with its assigned replacement medium.

This allows the backup process to continue or restart automatically without manual intervention.

The faulty drive or medium can then be replaced or repaired under controlled conditions and returned to regular operation after successful verification.

The spare drive subsequently becomes available again as a reserve. This helps ensure that the failure of a single component does not necessarily disrupt the scheduled backup window.

More Than a Traditional Backup Storage System

sayFUSE provides more than scalable storage for backup data.

The platform integrates backup and deduplication storage, backup and recovery, a physical backup library, parallel media handling, automatic spare drive management, powered-off backup media, air-gapped protection and controlled offsite storage within a single system.

This reduces the need for additional systems, interfaces and manual processes.

Organizations benefit from an integrated platform that supports both the protection of backup data and the reliability and traceability of backup operations.

Reliable Data Recovery and Reduced Complexity

By integrating multiple backup capabilities into a single platform, sayFUSE reduces the number of interdependent systems and simplifies the overall backup infrastructure.

This approach goes beyond data protection by maintaining recoverability across multiple physically and logically separated backup layers.

sayFUSE Backup & Recovery Cyber-Resilient Data Protection