By Andrew Mullen, Sr. VP of Sales & Alliances
Summary: CAEVES debunks the myth that archives can’t be searched at scale, showing how deep storage turns decades of inaccessible data into a fast, actionable resource for modern enterprises.
Welcome back to Storage Mythbusters, the CAEVES series where we expose the half-truths and myths holding enterprise data strategy back. I’m Andrew Mullen, and today we’re taking on another whopper of a myth:
Spoiler alert: Yes, you absolutely can—and if you can’t, your archive might not be an archive. It might just be a data swamp.
For years, the word “archive” was synonymous with “inaccessible.” It meant slow access, proprietary file formats, and metadata that hadn’t seen the light of day since Y2K. If you had massive archives gathering dust, that was normal. Setting up your archives to be accessible or even usable was unheard of.
So, it’s no surprise that many IT teams still assume petabyte-scale archive search is impossible. I mean, to do that you would need to first restore everything or crack open expensive, rigid data warehouses just to take a peek inside those petabytes gathering dust in the attic. And, to be fair, that assumption used to be valid.
Used to be.
Deep storage is the next evolution of archiving, representing a layer of infrastructure built to store vast amounts of data at low cost while keeping it fully searchable and ready to use. It’s not just about holding data; it’s about transforming that data into a living, queryable asset. At CAEVES, we designed deep storage from the ground up with a search-first mindset, meaning information isn’t just “kept,” it’s continuously indexed, connected, and optimized for retrieval.
We don’t do archives the old way. We built deep storage to be search-first, not “store-and-forget.”
Here’s what we mean:
Think of it this way: traditional archives are like dusty record rooms where files go to disappear. CAEVES deep storage is more like a searchable digital brain, where every historical document, log, and dataset is ready to fuel decisions, analytics, and innovation.
By turning old data into an always-accessible, AI-ready asset, deep storage doesn’t just preserve the past, it unlocks the future of what your data can do.
The problem with traditional archiving systems isn’t just that they hide your data, it’s that they collapse under their own weight when you try to use them. Slow queries, clunky hardware, and endless manual effort turn archives into a burden rather than a resource.
At CAEVES, we approached this challenge from a clean slate. Instead of retrofitting decades-old storage models, we built a cloud-native deep storage platform designed to balance speed, scalability, and cost control from day one.
Our “secret sauce” comes from four core innovations working in harmony:
You can search billions of files, emails, PDFs, logs, and legacy backups in seconds, even at the scale of a Fortune 100 enterprise, without constant babysitting or performance trade-offs.
CAEVES doesn’t just preserve your historical data. It turns it into a living, breathing knowledge system, one that stays fast, affordable, and future-ready as your business and compliance needs evolve.
If your organization is still relying on legacy archive systems, you’re likely facing three costly problems:
Modern businesses don’t just need storage, they need actionable data memory.
CAEVES transforms archives into a strategic advantage, enabling your teams to search, analyze, and act on historical data at the speed of business.
If you can’t search it, connect it to your analytics, or feed it into AI models, it’s not deep storage. It’s just shelfware for compliance, and it’s holding your organization back.
Coming Up Next in Storage Mythbusters:
“Old data has no value.”
Spoiler: That couldn’t be further from the truth.