Quantum ActiveScale: Object Storage Ledger 2026 Scorecard

Part of the Object Storage Ledger (edition 2026-10-16). How the scores work: methodology.

Snapshot

Type: product
Owner: Quantum Corporation (Nasdaq: QMCO, USA); Hugues Meyrath became President and CEO on 2025-06-02 after Jamie Lerner stepped down, and the CFO changed the same day (SEC 8-K); Quantum's FY2026 Q4 release (2026-06-24) reports revenue up 27% and says completed transactions eliminated its outstanding debt (vendor); the line descends from Amplidata and Western Digital (deal dates not verified in sources read)
Licence: Commercial; sold with Quantum P200, X200 and Z200 platforms (earlier P100 and X100) or on qualified Supermicro X12 and Cisco S3260 M5 servers; metric and price not public; the 7.2 hardware refresh brought no pricing change
Latest release: ActiveScale 7.3.1 (July 2026, maintenance: X200 chassis replacement, tape space reclamation fix, mitigation for CVE-2026-31431); 7.3.0 (May 2026, downloads page, notes not read); 7.2 (August 2025); 7.1 (February 2025); 7.0 (March 2024)
Support lifecycle: End of support dates not found; 7.3.1 upgrades from 7.1 or higher; no downgrade
Next milestone: none published
Object lock: Chosen at bucket creation, cannot be turned off, requires versioning, optional default retention in days or years; a replication destination must also have Object Lock (View guide); governance or compliance mode and legal hold are not named in the documentation read, so they are unverified; Veeam Ready Object with Immutability (vendor press 2021-02-16), Capacity Target with immutability for 6.5 and 7.0 (Veeam article 970, 2024-05-23, IAM and STS not supported) and Archive Target for 7.3 with Veeam 13 (article 1766, 2025-12-18, immutability tested only with Veeam 12); no Commvault, Rubrik, NetBackup or Cohasset document found
Tier: Appliance or hardware-bound
Archetype: Dependable builder
Evidence grade: B. The ActiveScale 7.0, 7.1, 7.2 and 7.3.1 release notes PDFs, the ActiveScale View bucket guide, two Veeam Ready listings (articles 970 and 1766) and the 2025-06 SEC 8-K were read directly, so the 2024 to 2026 steps are grade A or B. The Amplidata and Western Digital history, the Object Lock start (5.7) and the finances after 2025-06 come from press and search summaries (grade B or C), and all scores before 2023 are grade C.

Scope of the scores: Hardware-bound. ActiveScale is sold on Quantum platforms or qualified Supermicro and Cisco servers; no VM, container or software-only build was found. The scores cover the software; the hardware coupling shows in deployment freedom and lock-in.

Scorecard

Dimension	Score	Direction
Capability today	62.0 / 100	higher is better
Momentum since end of 2022	+11.5 points (2015 to 2022: +13.8)	higher is better
Credibility	14.5 / 25	higher is better
Commercial risk	15.0 / 25	lower is better
Technical lock-in	14.0 / 25	lower is better
Integrator fit	10.0 / 20	higher is better
AI leverage	4.0 / 20	higher is better
Ledger Index	51.6 / 100	balanced weights; see the methodology

Capability by domain, 2015 to today

Scores 0 to 5 against fixed anchors; total is weighted to 100.

Domain (weight)	2015	2019	2022	Today
S3 API fidelity (15)	2	3	3	3.5
Immutability and compliance (12)	0	0	2.5	3
Durability and resilience (12)	3.5	4	4	4
Performance and scale (12)	2.5	3	3	3.5
Deployment freedom (10)	1.5	1.5	1.5	2
Security and multi-tenancy (10)	2	2	2	2.5
Operations (10)	2.5	3	3	3
Protocols beyond S3 (7)	0	0	0	2.5
Lifecycle and tiering (7)	2	3	3	4.5
Ecosystem and openness (5)	1.5	1.5	1.5	1.5
Total / 100	36.7	44.5	50.5	62.0

Year by year: 2015: 36.7 · 2016: 36.7 · 2017: 36.7 · 2018: 36.7 · 2019: 44.5 · 2020: 44.5 · 2021: 50.5 · 2022: 50.5 · 2023: 50.5 · 2024: 61.3 · 2025: 62.0 · 2026: 62.0

What moved the score

Year	Domain	Change	Points	Trigger
2019	Durability and resilience	3.5 → 4	+1.2	ActiveScale: two-dimensional erasure coding with Dynamic Data Placement and Dynamic Data Repair, 3-GEO systems up to 200 ms apart, 2-site replication per bucket (vendor and limits table; year grade C); 7.1 rebuilds only the requested byte range on ranged reads with a node down; rebuild tests not published
2019	Lifecycle and tiering	2 → 3	+1.4	Lifecycle rules with expiration and transition (grade C)
2019	Operations	2.5 → 3	+1.0	ActiveScale View console, REST API and CLI, Cloud Based Analytics (year grade C); 7.1 automated scale-out; no downgrade path; no Prometheus or Terraform found
2019	Performance and scale	2.5 → 3	+1.2	ActiveScale X100 and P100 scale-out systems (grade C)
2019	S3 API fidelity	2 → 3	+3.0	ActiveScale: S3 with versioning, multipart and lifecycle rules (grade C for the year)
2021	Immutability and compliance	0 → 2.5	+6.0	Object Lock (from release 5.7, search summary) with default retention; Veeam Ready Object with Immutability (2021-02-16, vendor press); modes and legal hold not documented
2024	Deployment freedom	1.5 → 2	+1.0	7.0: any node count of three or more; 7.1 qualifies Cisco S3260 M5 and 7.2 Supermicro X12 servers; still no VM, container or software-only build
2024	Immutability and compliance	2.5 → 3	+1.2	Veeam Ready Capacity Target with immutability for 6.5 and 7.0 (2024-05-23); Archive Target for 7.3 (2025-12-18); 7.1 IAM conditions can cap lock duration; still no documented modes, legal hold or independent assessment
2024	Lifecycle and tiering	3 → 4	+1.4	ActiveScale Cold Storage: S3 Glacier class on LTO tape libraries with restore, qualified as a Veeam Archive Tier (2024-10); SAS tape connector in 7.0; introducing year of Cold Storage not found
2024	Performance and scale	3 → 3.5	+1.2	7.0: Z200 NVMe all-flash nodes, linear scale-out with any count of three or more nodes; up to 100 billion objects on three Z200 nodes and 30 billion on a 3-GEO X200 system (limits table); no independent benchmark
2024	Protocols beyond S3	0 → 2.5	+3.5	NFS volumes (UDA volumes, up to 65,535 exports) documented with 7.0, not yet on scale-out nodes; introducing release not found; no SMB, Swift or HDFS
2024	S3 API fidelity	3 → 3.5	+1.5	7.0: IAM-compatible access control; 7.1 (2025): IAM policy conditions and variables, ranged restore from the Glacier class; multipart up to 10,000 parts of 5 MB to 5 GB; STS not supported (Veeam); SSE and event notifications not verified
2024	Security and multi-tenancy	2 → 2.5	+1.0	7.0: IAM users, groups and policies; 7.2 (2025) adds TOTP MFA for administrators; no SAML, OIDC, LDAP, KMIP or FIPS statement found; STS not supported
2025	Lifecycle and tiering	4 → 4.5	+0.7	7.1: ranged restore from the Glacier class; 7.2: faster tape restores; tag-based policies and chargeback reporting not verified

Direction, 2023 to 2026

Each release item carries one theme and one driver (V vision, C customer need, M market window, U upstream, P portfolio).

Date	Item	Theme	Driver
2024-03	7.0: Z200 all-flash NVMe platform	Performance	C
2024-03	7.0: IAM-compatible access control	Security	C
2024-03	7.0: linear scale-out with any node count of three or more, SAS tape connector, 22 TB drives	Deployment	C
2024-05	Veeam Ready Capacity Target listing for ActiveScale 6.5 and 7.0 with immutability	Immutability	M
2024-10	Veeam partnership update: ActiveScale Cold Storage as a Veeam Archive Tier	Lifecycle	M
2025-02	7.1: IAM policy conditions and variables, ranged restore from the Glacier class, automated scale-out	Lifecycle	C
2025-08	7.2: TOTP MFA for administrators, Ubuntu 20.04 base, X12 hardware refresh, faster tape restores	Security	C
2025-08	ASI Solutions launches the InfiniStor cloud service on ActiveScale	Ecosystem	M
2025-11	Ranged restore for Glacier-class archives promoted with a 5x small object restore claim	Lifecycle	M
2025-12	Veeam Ready Archive Target listing for ActiveScale 7.3 with Veeam 13	Immutability	M
2026-01	Telestream DIVA certified with ActiveScale and ActiveScale Cold Storage	Ecosystem	M
2026-07	7.3.1: X200 chassis replacement flexibility, tape space reclamation fix, CVE-2026-31431 mitigation	Security	C

Centre of gravity: Security (3), Lifecycle (3), Immutability (2)
Blind spots (no items): S3 API, Durability, Operations, Protocols, Packaging, Licensing, AI
Driver mix: Vision 0%, Customer need 50%, Market window 50%, Upstream 0%, Portfolio 0%
Idea-to-need index: 0.00 (0 = demand-pulled, 1 = thesis-pushed)

Credibility: 14.5 / 25

Criterion	Score	Basis
Cadence	3.5	7.0 (2024-03), 7.1 (2025-02), 7.2 (2025-08), 7.3.0 (2026-05) and 7.3.1 (2026-07), each with a dated public PDF
Roadmap transparency	2	Public release notes and limits; no roadmap
Say-do	3.5	Every dated item found shipped (Z200, IAM, ranged restore, admin MFA, Veeam 13 listing); few forward promises exist to test
Velocity	3	Z200, IAM, MFA and ranged restore across 24 months; 7.3.x is maintenance
Lifecycle stability	2.5	Upgrades only from recent releases and no downgrade; Ubuntu 20.04 base in 2025; company management turnover

Commercial risk: 15.0 / 25 (lower is better)

Criterion	Score	Basis
Price and licence volatility	2.5	No public prices, so changes cannot be seen; the 7.2 refresh kept pricing
Purchase constraints	3.5	Three or four node appliance minimum on qualified hardware; quote only
Channel and access	2.5	Public release notes and documentation; downloads and support through MyQuantum
Owner stability	3.5	CEO and CFO changes in 2025, a debt buyout and losses, then reported revenue growth and debt elimination in 2026 (vendor)
Cost of staying supported	3	End of support dates not found; hardware generations P100 and X100 replaced by P200 and X200

Technical lock-in: 14.0 / 25 (lower is better)

Criterion	Score	Basis
Formats	3	Proprietary two-dimensional erasure coding layout; data leaves through S3 or NFS
Export path	1.5	S3 and NFS reads, bucket replication; no export tooling found
Stack coupling	3	Own software stack on every node
Hardware / cloud coupling	3.5	Quantum platforms or qualified Supermicro and Cisco servers only; tape tier on LTO libraries
Skills and tooling coupling	3	Quantum-specific console and tooling; small skills pool

Integrator fit: 10.0 / 20

Criterion	Score	Basis
Partner programme openness	2.5	Service providers such as ASI Solutions and media partners are named; programme terms not found
Multi-tenancy and self-service	3	Up to 5 million accounts and users and 5 million buckets, IAM domains and groups, CSV import of accounts (limits table)
API and infrastructure-as-code	2.5	REST API and CLI; no Terraform or Ansible found
Skills and certification	2	No ActiveScale certification found

AI leverage: 4.0 / 20

How the product uses AI, scored per year like capability. Only GA counts.

Criterion	2019	2022	Today	Latest step
AI workload support	1	1	1.5	2024: 7.0: Z200 NVMe all-flash nodes; no GPUDirect or S3 over RDMA found
AI platform stack	0	0	0	2015: None
AI-assisted operations	1	1	1	2019: Cloud Based Analytics for monitoring, rule based (introducing year grade C)
Agent openness	1.5	1.5	1.5	2015: S3 and REST management APIs and CLI; no MCP server found

Year by year: 2015: 2.5 · 2016: 2.5 · 2017: 2.5 · 2018: 2.5 · 2019: 3.5 · 2020: 3.5 · 2021: 3.5 · 2022: 3.5 · 2023: 3.5 · 2024: 4 · 2025: 4 · 2026: 4

AI say-do, 2023 to 2026: 0 AI items announced; 0 GA, 0 still preview, 0 pending, 0 dropped. No AI feature was announced for ActiveScale from 2023 to 2026; AI appears only in positioning and in the CEO's comments on demand.

ActiveScale treats AI as a reason to keep more data: an all-flash tier and a tape-backed cold tier for training sets. There is no GPU data path, no AI in operations beyond rule-based analytics and no agent interface beyond the APIs.

Reading

ActiveScale's strongest domain is lifecycle, built on a Glacier storage class on tape with ranged restore. Its release notes are public and dated, so the 2024 to 2026 steps rest on primary text: Z200 all-flash and IAM in 7.0, IAM conditions and ranged restore in 7.1, admin MFA in 7.2. Security and deployment stay low, with no federation, external KMS or software-only build found. Commercial risk is among the highest in this Ledger because of Quantum's 2025 management and debt changes, even after the reported debt elimination in 2026. A buyer should ask Quantum which Object Lock mode ActiveScale applies and whether legal hold is supported, and read the FY2026 annual report before signing a multi-year contract.

Open questions and items to re-score

Governance versus compliance mode and legal hold; the View guide names neither.
Whether Veeam 13 immutability has been tested (the 2025-12 listing says v12 only).
7.3.0 release notes and exact date; end of support dates per release.
Dates of the Amplidata and Western Digital transactions and the release that introduced Object Lock (5.7, search summary).
Introducing release and year of ActiveScale Cold Storage and of NFS volumes.
Any going concern language in the FY2026 10-K; price; whether a software-only build exists.

	’19	’21	’24	’25
S3 API fidelity	1		3
Immutability and compliance		1
Durability and resilience	3
Performance and scale
Deployment freedom
Security and multi-tenancy
Operations
Protocols beyond S3			1
Lifecycle and tiering	2		2	1
Ecosystem and openness