19 New Storage Solutions For Power Users

Video And The Cutting Edge Of Storage Performance And Archiving

Broadcasting and content streaming, especially with the adoption of 4K high-definition video, can tax the capabilities of the best-performing storage solutions. And that's why the National Association of Broadcasters conference is the annual event for showcasing the latest in storage technologies.

This year's NAB saw vendors rolling out new storage solutions focused on high bandwidth, portability or flexible archiving for use in broadcast and media content development.

To get a look at the cutting edge of storage performance, turn the page.

Akitio: Thunder2Quad Mini Portable 12-TB Thunderbolt 2 SSD Storage

Brea, Calif.-based Akitio said it has started shipping its new 12-TB Thunder2Quad Mini Thunderbolt 2 portable storage solution. The 12-TB Thunder2Quad Mini can store up to 22 hours of 4K video, and comes with two Thunderbolt 2 ports for both storage and display for speeds of up to 1,375 MBs per second.

The Thunder2Quad Mini features the free Akitio Data Multiplier software to let users copy the contents of one drive onto three other drives simultaneously for quick sharing of files.

It is priced starting at $349 with no drives. It can be configured with up to 12 TBs of capacity featuring Fixstars Solutions' SSD-3000M 3-TB SATA SSDs. With 12 TBs of capacity, list price is $12,999.

Avere: Partnering With Google For Cloud Data Processing and Storage

Avere Systems, a Pittsburg-based developer of enterprise storage for hybrid clouds, is now working with Google to let customers move compute-intensive workloads and large data sets to Google Cloud Platform. Avere used NAB to show how its Avere FXT Edge filers could move data between NAS storage systems and the Google Cloud Platform to provide what it called "low latency and high-performance" for big data processing and storage in the cloud.

With the solution, customers can use both on-premises storage and Google cloud storage as needed to process data using the Google Compute Engine.

Cloudian, QStar: Partners For Media Archive Solutions

Foster City, Calif.-based hybrid cloud storage developer Cloudian and Navarre, Fla.-based developer of enterprise data management and archiving solutions QStar Technologies are partnering to provide enterprises with a new broadcast and media archive solution targeting high-value digital assets.

The solution includes two parts. The first is Cloudian's HyperStore fault-tolerant storage solution, which allows storage objects to be optionally tiered to Amazon S3, Glacier or any other S3 cloud. The second is the QStar Archive Manager software, which provides a NAS-style archive gateway to the Cloudian HyperStore. Together, according to the vendors, they provide an archiving solution featuring easy access to data, long-term security and unlimited scalability.

Coho Data: High-speed Media Workflows With Flash Storage

Coho Data, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based developer of scale-out storage for private clouds, used the NAB conference to unveil an integrated media production workflow solution that delivers in-line transcoding via a Docker-deployed micro service on its high-performance, Web-scale storage.

The solution, which combines the processing and storage of creative data into a single system, was demonstrated by ingesting content into a two-node Coho DataStream 1000h cluster and using a rule-based policy to automatically begin the transcoding service. The service is run in a Docker container on the DataStream along with core storage services and other micro services. The company also demonstrated its use with multiple 4K playback streams.

Crossroads Integrates Its Strongbox With DDN For Multi-Tier Storage

Austin, Texas-based Crossroads Systems showed how its Strongbox LTFS tape-based NAS archiving solution can become an integrated tier within the new MediaScaler high-performance media archive solution from Santa Clara, Calif.-based DDN Storage.

The integration gives MediaScaler customers an LTFS tape solution for storing and protecting long-term and disaster recovery data with a solution that provides seamless data movement between the MediaScaler and the archive.

DDN: New Solutions For High-Performance File Storage, Hybrid Storage

Santa Clara, Calif.-based DDN Storage has started shipping two new solutions targeting high-performance media and entertainment workflows.

The first, the DDN MediaScaler, is a high-performance file-based solution for providing 10,000 or more global users with concurrent access to content both on-premises or in the cloud with a single hostname and namespace. DDN said the MediaScaler provides sustained performance at over 90-percent system utilization while protecting content with replication, snapshots, and online capacity expansion.

The second, the DDN GridScaler 3.0, builds on the company's GridScaler high-performance storage solution for clustered file storage, big data analytics and cloud services with expanded data encryption for security and compliance, high-performance mixed IO and a Hadoop connector for data analytics.

G-Technology: Portable Solutions For Streamline Workflows

G-Technology, a Culver City, Calif.-based subsidiary of HGST focused on storage for audio/video production, photography and professional content creation, unveiled several new solutions for portable video streaming.

The company used the NAB conference to show a new family of ruggedized portable hard drives, its Evolution series of flexible transfer and edit solutions, new RAID solutions, and a new RAID solution featuring both Thunderbolt and USB connectivity.

HGST Aims Multi-Petabyte Rack Solutions At Object Storage Archiving

HGST, best-known for its production of hard drives and SSDs, entered the object storage system market with the introduction of its Active Archive System, which archives up to 4.7 petabytes of data in a single rack with a list price of $849,000, or less than $200 per raw terabyte.

The relatively low cost and the high-density springs in large part to HGST's development of its own line of hard drives, including its new 10-TB helium-filled drives. The use of helium instead of oxygen allows higher-density storage while significantly reducing power consumption as helium allows the disks inside the drive to spin faster than if they were spinning in oxygen, HGST said.

The company also used technology from a string of acquisitions, especially from Amplidata, a developer of object storage software for public and private cloud data centers.

Imation Unveils Hybrid Caching Technology For Secure Workflows

Imation, of Oakdale, Minn., has started shipping its new Nexsan NST2000 hybrid storage appliance, an entry-level version of its NST family of hybrid flash and hard drive arrays.

There are two models of the NST2000. One model features an IOPS-intensive focus for high-performance applications including virtual desktop infrastructure and online transaction processing, with a starting capacity of 13 TB. The other is capacity-optimized to scale from 28 TBs to 168 TBs of raw capacity for higher-capacity applications.

Both versions support Fibre Channel, 10-Gbit Ethernet, iSCSI, NFS, CIFS and FTP operations.

Infortrend Unveils EonStor DS 4000 Series For 4K Workloads

Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Infortrend used NAB to unveil a new midrange storage solution, the EonStor DS 4000. The EonStor DS 4000 features 11,000-MBs-per-second read performance and 4,200-MBs-per-second write performance, allowing it to simultaneously support up to eight 4K streams, the company said.

To illustrate the performance, Infortrend showed 4K workflow solutions based on the new array, including one that includes ATTO's Celerity 16-Gbit-per-second Fibre Channel HBAs, MultiPath Director, FibreConnect switches and Thunderbolt 2 technology.

Mangstor and EchoStreams Partner On All-Flash Storage For Video Applications

Mangstor, an Austin, Texas-based developer of intelligent storage solutions for Web-scale and large enterprise data centers, and EchoStreams, a City of Industry, Calif.-based custom system builder, are working together to a new NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) shared storage solution.

That solution, the Mangstor NMX-Series all-flash arrays, offers over 10 GBs-per-second bandwidth with support for InfiniBand and RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE), giving users what Mangstor characterized as latencies comparable to local server-based NVMe devices. The NMX-Series appliances are targeted at video editing and shared game development applications, which need high read and write bandwidth combined with low latency to shared flash storage in cluster server configurations, Mangstor said.

NetApp Unveils New Object Storage Appliance

NetApp, Sunnyvale, Calif., use NAB to show off its new StorageGrid Webscale 10.1, the latest version of NetApp’s scalable, software-defined object storage solution. StorageGrid Webscale 10.1 is the first version of that appliance line to fully leverage AWS S3 to provide a cost-effective cloud-based archiving solution. It includes geo-distributed erasure coding to help reduce on-premises cost and increase security. It is available in both hardware-appliance and software-delivered versions.

The company also showed its EF family of all-flash storage arrays, its E-series disk arrays, and its clustered Data ONTAP operating system running on its new FAS8000 series.

Promise And Partners Showcase Live Broadcast and Video Workflow Demos

Milpitas, Calif.-based Promise Technology worked with several industry partners to demonstrate live broadcast and video workflows targeting real-time ingestion and editing of videos for playback, content delivery and backup/archive.

They included an ingest and playback station with Promise's VTrak A-Class rich media appliance with clustered NAS gateways and its new SANLink2 Thunderbolt 2 Fibre Channel and Ethernet bridge along with Miami-based Primestream's FORK Production Suite for Asset Management and Automation. The company also showed its Pegasus2 Thunderbolt 2 RAID storage series and its Vess R2600 Pro audio/video optimized entry level NAS for compressed workflows using Adobe Premiere Pro CC and Apple Final Cut Pro X.

Quantum Expands Archiving Solutions, Intros New Dot Hill Relationship

Quantum unveiled an expanded range of data archiving solutions and introduced a new tiered storage relationship with Dot Hill.

Quantum unveiled its new Artico intelligent NAS appliance, which takes advantage of the company's StorNext intelligent tiering storage technology, to offer NAS storage for archiving purposes. Quantum also gave its DXi disk-based backup appliance line archiving capabilities, and introducing a new storage node for its high-end Lattus archiving solution.

Quantum also unveiled a new, global go-to-market partnership under which it is integrating the full line of enterprise-class disk storage systems from Longmont, Colo.-based Dot Hill to its scale-out storage and data protection portfolio as a way to expand its solutions for managing data across its entire lifecycle.

Qumulo Intros High-Density Scale-Out NAS Appliance

Seattle-based Qumulo introduced the second hardware product in its Q Series of scale-out NAS appliances. That new appliance, the Qumulo QC208, is a 4U commodity hardware appliance that provides 208 TBs of raw hard drive capacity and 2.6 TBs of raw SSD capacity per node. A minimum four-node cluster offers 832 TBs of raw capacity, while additional capacity can be added additional QC208 nodes.

The appliance is based on Qumulo Core, a software-based storage solution designed to run on commodity hardware to provided such capabilities as real-time analytics, hybrid flash and spinning disk capabilities, and pay-as-you-go growth.

The Qumulo QC208 hybrid storage appliance is slated to ship in the second quarter.

Sony Optical Disc Archive Solution

Sony is now shipping a solution combining the Sony Optical Disk Archive appliances with Irvine, Calif.-based StorageDNA's DNA Evolution software as a turnkey near-line and archive storage solution for digital camera master content.

Unlike LTO tape-based solutions, the Sony Optical Disc Archive technology with the DNA Evolution software allows users to access file-based digital camera master archives without first restoring them. Sony said the solution is significantly faster than tape while costing significantly less than online disk-based solutions.

Spectra Logic Offers New Private Cloud Tier for NetApp StorageGrid

Boulder, Colo.-based Spectra Logic unveiled the proof-of-concept integration of its new BlackPearl Deep Storage Gateway with the NetApp StorageGrid Webscale storage solution as a way to seamlessly provide content management capabilities across multiple sites, tiers and clouds.

Users of NetApp's StorageGrid Webscale’s S3 end-point connector can now add Spectra Logic’s BlackPearl Deep Storage Gateway as an archive location for files that are stored in StorageGrid as objects. StorageGrid Webscale stores content via user-defined policies to BlackPearl, which can move object storage directly to tape as part of a private cloud infrastructure. StorageGrid Webscale also supports on-premises disk and flash storage as well as S3-compatible cloud storage.

Sphere 3D Demos Tandberg Data RDX Backup Solutions

San Jose, Calif.-based Sphere 3D, which last year merged with Overland Storage, showed off its portable RDX QuikStor, a USB3-powered removable disk backup and archive appliance designed for data portability and encrypted data security. RDX QuikStor provides transfer rates of up to 936 GBs per hour and capacities of up to 2 TBs per cartridge. It is a ruggedized solution, and powered through the USB3 connector.

Sphere 3D will previewed its new RDX QuickStation 4, an RDX+ software powered network-attached removable disk array with four RDX drives for automated data protection, offsite disaster recovery and archiving.

Supermicro Intros New High-Performance SuperStorage JBOD Platform

Super Micro Computer, San Jose, Calif., used NAB to introduce its latest SuperStorage platform. The new SC946ED-R3KJBOD platform features a 4U JBOD (just a bunch of disks) storage chassis which supports up to 90 3.5-inch, 8-TB hard drive, or up to 720 TBs of high-performance, 12-Gbit-per-second SAS performance. The appliance also features a top-load hot-swap architecture.

Supermicro said the SC946ED-R3KJBOD supports current 4K, 60p broadcast capabilities, and is ready for future broadcast performance advances.

Supermicro also unveiled its new SSG-K1048-RT, a 1U appliance featuring Seagate's new Kinetic drives. The Seagate Kinetic drives provide scale-out storage by connecting directly to Ethernet networks without an intermediate controller.