The important thing to determine that isn't specified (but implied) in the article is whether or not random access is a hard requirement. If yes then it would p

The important thing to determine that isn't specified (but implied) in the article is whether or not random access is a hard requirement. If yes then it would probably be cheaper to go with a disk-based solution. From the sounds of the article the radio telescope array they mention faces largely archival problems and doesn't necessarily need random access to the data.