What Are Some Good File Archiving Solutions for Large Shared Drives?

For your specific needs, check out products like QStar Network Migrator. These types of solutions are designed to stub individual files rather than folder-level archiving, which seems to fit your requirements perfectly. Various companies in the LTO tape space might also offer similar options, so it’s worth exploring those.

You might look into tiered storage solutions. Companies like Commvault offer systems that automatically move files to cheaper storage after a set period while replacing them with placeholders. This way, users don’t notice any significant changes in access, even if there’s a slight delay in retrieving older files.

You might want to look into using PowerShell for this. Start by ensuring you can restore backups easily. Then, you could set up a Windows Server, perhaps a newer engine like 2025. Create a ReFS volume, or stick with NTFS if you prefer. Schedule a task to move files that haven't been accessed for a while—let’s say five years. You can use commands to generate a list of these files and move them, creating shortcuts if necessary. Just keep in mind that shortcuts can complicate things a bit, especially if you need to manage them later on. Make sure to test everything before fully executing it!

It might not even be necessary to automate the process continually. A one-time manual archiving pass could clear a lot of space, and then you could leave it be for quite some time, maybe even a decade.

Komprise is another product you might want to investigate. It could help with your archiving needs effectively!

Nassuni and Commvault are both good options to look into. They provide enterprise-level file archiving and can work with stub files, making it easy for users to keep accessing what they need without noticing the backend changes.