1. A network storage system comprising: a plurality of drive ports in one or more modular drive bays, each modular drive bay comprising: two or more of the drive ports, each drive port separately addressable; and one or more data cartridge connectors, each data cartridge connector connected to one of the drive ports; and a plurality of removable drives, the removable drives operable to store archival data, each removable drive further operable to be inserted into one of the drive ports, each removable drive comprising: a data cartridge case; a connector configured for connection with one of the data cartridge connectors: and memory operable to store archival data from one or more application servers; wherein the network storage system is partitioned to include one or more application layer partitions, each application layer partition associated with one or more of the drive ports such that one or more of the removable drives inserted into the one or more associated drive ports provide storage for the application layer partition, each application layer partition including only whole removable drives; and wherein each application layer partition stores a set of the archival data that relates to one or more of the application servers, such that the set of archival data stored in each application layer partition has a same set of controls and different sets of the archival data stored in different application layer partitions have different sets of controls, the different sets of controls including different immutability requirements and retention periods for different types of data.