Systems and methods for reading data are provided herein using a data archive architecture controlled by a head server. The head server can read data in a contiguous manner across multiple storage devices for data that has been partitioned into multiple portions and spread across the multiple storage devices. Portions of a first object can be transmitted and read from a first subset of storage devices and portions of a second object can be transmitted and read from a second subset of storage devices. The head server can increment a read pointer based on a length of the portions of the first object to a determine a read location of different portions of the first object or the second object. The head server can identify different read location to read sub sequent of different portions of multiple objects using one or more lengths of the objects or portions of the object.