24 Hot Storage Products Targeting Video Creation, Collaboration And Streaming

Storage Looking For A Slice Of The Video Data Pie

When it comes to video production, two key points stand out: Video files are huge, and video creation and streaming require a lot of bandwidth.

It's no surprise that storage vendors have a big stake in video production, collaboration, and streaming. Those videos, which can range from internal training films to full-length Hollywood blockbusters, require the highest performance storage, usually coupled to massive capacities. And storage vendors are responding!

CRN has collected information on 24 storage products for your enjoyment. These products, including both hardware and software, all were present at last month's National Association of Broadcasters, or NAB, conference, and released or updated within the last six months.

Akitio Node Lite Thunderbolt 3 PCIe Box

Akitio, Brea, Calif., last month unveiled the Node Lite, a new Thunderbolt 3 PCIe storage appliance. The Node Lite features PCIe Gen 3 connectivity to take advantage of high-performance video capture cards, RAID cards, NVMe SSD storage, and 10-Gbit and 40-Gbit network cards. The Node Lite is compatible with both macOS and Windows computers. It features a compact, tool-less design in a space-gray outer case. Inside are Thunderbolt 3 ports and a DisplayPort version 1.2 port which can be used to connect an additional 4K@60Hz monitor. It lists for $270.

ATTO Technology ThunderLink Devices Connect Thunderbolt 3 To Fibre Channel

Amherst, N.Y.-based storage and network connectivity technology developer ATTO Technology last month launched its new ThunderLink devices for connecting Thunderbolt 3 devices to both 16-Gbit and 32-Gbit Fibre Channel. ATTO said the model 3322 Thunderbolt 3 to 32-Gbit Fibre Channel and 3162 Thunderbolt 3 to 16-Gbit Fibre Channel devices provide smooth data streaming along with failover and load balancing while letting users take advantage of 4K workflows and the latest generation of Fibre Channel connectivity.

Cisco Storage Solution for Media

At NAB 2017, San Jose, Calif-based Cisco showcased an integrated offering for managing content in a cloud. The Cisco Storage Solution for Media combines the Cisco UCS S3260 Storage Server with San Francisco-based SwiftStack’s storage cloud technology. The Cisco UCS S3260 Storage Server includes a modular dual-node x86 server, 60 drive slots, and two 40-Gbit ports per server node for up to 600 TBs of capacity per node. It can scale to the petabyte range. The offering is supported on a cloud architecture with built-in disaster recovery and multi-site support, and is compatible with public cloud storage from AWS and Google Cloud Platform.

Cloudian HyperStore 4000

The HyperStore 4000 from Cloudian is a high-density storage platform that the San Mateo, Calif.-based vendor claims manages massive unstructured data sets for about $0.005 per GB per month, or about the cost of traditional cloud storage alone. It provides AWS S3 API-compatible petabyte-scalable storage with the performance and data locality of an on-premises solution for use in data protection, media and entertainment, video surveillance, research, and data archiving. A built-in hybrid cloud tiering lets customers combine on-premises Cloudian storage and public cloud storage. Three appliances provide eight nines, or 99.999999 percent, data resiliency.

DataDirect Networks Web Object Scaler (WOS)

DataDirect Networks, or DDN, used NAB to showcase its WOS (Web Object Scaler) and MEDIAScaler solutions. The Chatsworth, Calif.-based storage developer's WOS was last month given S3 multi-site capabilities for collaboration, disaster recovery, and content distribution in multi-site environments, as well as fast, error-free data transfers. The new release also includes enhanced data protection via the WOS Extended ObjectAssure which the company said provides extremely low overhead to bring the cost of object storage in line with tape storage alternatives while providing fast rebuild times to lower the risk of data loss during a rebuild and limit performance impacts from drive failures.

Dell EMC Isilon All-flash Storage Platform

Dell EMC, Hopkinton, Mass., used NAB show how its Isilon all-flash storage works with next-generation media applications and workloads that require extreme NAS performance, including higher frame rates and resolutions, high dynamic range (HDR), and wide color gamut (WCG). Isilon accelerates content creation, management. and delivery in creation, broadcast, and delivery environments, and scales to up to 924 TB of capacity in a single chassis. It features multi-protocol access with support for NFS, SMB, HDFS, object, NDMP, FTP, and more, and provides automated storage tiering and a full range of data security capabilities.

HGST ActiveScale X100

The new ActiveScale system from San Jose, Calif.-based HGST, which is owned by Western Digital, is a fully self-contained, scale-up and scale-out object storage system that delivers 840 TBs of raw data storage in a single rack and scales out to 52 petabytes of raw storage. The ActiveScale system's object storage software ensures content and valuable data are well protected and always available with up to 17 nines of data durability. This out-of-the-box offering helps data centers evolve from siloed data storage to cloud-scale active archiving. It also offers native support for Amazon S3.

IBM Elastic Storage Server (ESS) 5.1

IBM Elastic Storage Server (ESS) is Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM's family of a high-performance and scalable storage servers built with the leading software-defined-storage solution, IBM Spectrum Scale. It supports a variety of data intensive workloads such as big data analytics, high performance computing, high-throughput environments such as simulation and design. It is targeted at mid-sized to large-sized organizations starting new analytics, storage consolidation or cloud deployment projects. The latest IBM ESS increases density and performance for content creation, video libraries, and media streaming.

JMR Lightening Thunderbolt Quad Tower/Rackmount

The new Thunderbolt-based LTNG-XQ storage appliance from Chatsworth, Calif.-based JMR Electronics is available with or without internal RAID storage and in both tower and 4U rackmount configurations. The RAID-ready models include an internal hardware RAID controller, and all models include a mounting provision for the user’s MacPRO with front or rear panel breakout box for all I/O ports. The appliance's all-aluminum construction fits well in machine rooms, offices, editing suites, or mobile carts. The LTNG-XQ feature internal support for powerful GPUs, Avid HDX’s, 10-Gbit Ethernet and Fibre Channel connectivity. JMR claims installation, modification, and service can be done in seconds.

Kingston Technology Data Center PCIe 1000 SSD

Fountain Valley, Calif.-based Kingston used NAB to introduce to broadcast professionals and digital artists its DCP1000 SSD, a PCIe-based NVME Gen. 3.0 SSD that that aggregates four 8-channel controllers together to deliver up to 1.25 million IOPS. The DCP1000 is available in 800-GB, 1.6-TB, and 3.2-TB capacity points. It provides up to 7 GBs per second throughput, and is optimized for high sequential performance for industries that push out large amounts of streaming data. The DCP1000 SSD features hardware-based pFail, ECC data protection, advanced error correction, and advanced device monitoring.

LaCie 2big Dock

The LaCie 2big Dock from Tigard, Ore.-based Lacie is a docking station that provides ports for connecting other devices, such as a laptop, SD Cards, Compact Flash Cards and other devices. It features Thunderbolt 3 technology and 20 TBs of capacity and is targeted at the complex data storage needs of creative professionals, including, photographers, video prosumers and graphics designers; LaCie said the device is ideal for in-the-field workflow and post production editing.

Nexsan Unity 2.0

Visitors to NAB got a sneak look at Campbell, Calif.-based Nexsan's Unity 2.0, a high-performance unified storage solution that offers multi-site synchronization, file sync and share, and enhanced collaboration to allow large media files be transferred quickly and easily to the geographically dispersed locations. It combines enterprise NAS and high performance block storage capabilities. Enhancements to Unity, which was originally introduced last year, include a new blend of solid-state memory and SSDs to optimize block and file operations into a fault-tolerant architecture. Additionally, the latest version now supports all-flash drives, and has a new user interface to simplify operations.

Open-E JovianDSS

The JovianDSS from Marietta, Ga.-based Open-E is a ZFS- and Linux-based data storage software designed for enterprise-sized software defined storage environments. The software allows the architecting of high-availability storage environments with SMB/CIFS, NFS, and iSCSI protocols, and can be deployed either as a single node, a virtualized high-availability setup, or a big data cluster environment. Open-E JovianDSS High Availability Clusters with Ethernet, SAS or Fibre Channel connections provide redundancy by eliminating single points of failure. Also included are built-in off-site data protection and consistent snapshots of chosen resources that can be asynchronously replicated to remote or local destinations.

Panasas ActiveStor with DirectFlow for Mac

ActiveStor with DirectFlow for Mac, available since March from Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Panasas, combines scale-out NAS with a parallel data protocol for the Apple Mac platform and the macOS operating system. It provides fast ingest, process, and delivery of HD and 4K UHD resolution projects by allowing compute clients to access the entire Panasas ActiveStor directly and in parallel. It unifies all Macs on simple, high-speed Ethernet under a single global namespace to simplify system management, reduce total cost of ownership, and increase productivity, the company said.

Promise Technology Pegasus3 M4

The Pegasus3 M4 is Hsinchu, Taiwan-based Promise’s third generation Pegasus models, and lets users take advantage of Thunderbolt 3 performance. Introduced at NAB, the Pegasus3 M4 is compatible with both MacOS and Windows, and supports the maximum throughput allowed by the Thunderbolt 3 interface. Full RAID protection ensures safe backup for massive amounts of data. It is available with eight M.2 SATA flash modules or four 2.5’ SATA SSDs or HDDs, and allows daisy chaining of up to six Thunderbolt 3 devices.

QNAP TVS-1282T3

The TVS-1282T3 is Pomona, Calif.-based QNAP Systems’ latest Thunderbolt NAS. Introduced at NAB, it includes Thunderbolt 3 connectivity as well as 1-Gbit and 40-Gbit Ethernet HD video content creators. It has eight 3.5’ SATA drive slots, four 2.5’ SSD drive slots, and two slots for M.2 SSDs for caching. The TVS-1282T3 features 4K-capable HDMI outputs for connecting external displays and several legacy ports to connect additional storage, keyboards, mice, and so on. It is powered by an Intel Corei5 or i7 processor with 16 GBs to 64 GBs of RAM, and features a no-cost private cloud.

Quantum StorNext 6

StorNext 6, the latest release of San Jose, Calif.-based Quantum’s StorNext file system, brings new data management features to the streaming performance of the company’s scale-out tiered storage solutions portfolio, which includes flash, disk, tape and public and private cloud storage offerings. With this latest release, Quantum continues to extend its StorNext in media and entertainment as well as data-intensive environments such as genomics, academic research, video surveillance, oil and gas, and government security.

Qumulo Core

Qumulo Core from Seattle, Wash.-based Qumulo is a scale-out storage system designed to handle multi-petabyte data scale on premises and in the cloud. Qumulo Core stores tens of billions of files with high performance, and provides full data management and real-time visibility into storage use at petabyte scale. Storage administrators can see usage, activity, and throughput history at any level of the unified directory structure, no matter how many files in the file system, allowing them to pinpoint problems and manage how storage is used. Qumulo Core's flash-first design uses commodity SSDs and hard drives.

Scality RING 6.4 Scale-Out File System

The Scality RING software from San Francisco-based Scality deploys on any industry-standard x86 server to deliver object and cloud storage with native support for directory integration, traditional NFS and SMB file applications, and over 45 certified applications. With the Scality RING 6.4 Scale-Out File System (SOFS) release, it now offers a multi-media content store with scale-out Windows and NFS file access for applications across many clustered servers. Increased file system scale and availability stems from with such features as folder scale-out for concurrent ingest of data, multi-tenancy capacity usage and reporting, dynamic fail-over, and an integrated connection load balancer.

Seagate ClusterStor G300N

Cupertino, Calif.-based Seagate's ClusterStor G300N is scale-out storage system with a flash cache accelerator for large media and entertainment workloads. Powered by the software-based Nytro Intelligent I/O Manager, the ClusterStor G300N simultaneously runs multiple mixed workloads to help reduce performance bottlenecks. Seagate claims the ClusterStor G300N is particularly suitable for the kinds of mixed and unpredictable workloads found in many large post-production environments, where multiple users across geographies need quick and easy access to edit large amounts of data—and often all at once.

Sony G Series Professional SSDs

Two new G Series professional SSDs in 480-GB and 960-GB capacities from Park Ridge, N.J.-based Sony Electronics are targeting the need for reliable external video recording devices docked to camcorders or high-performance DSLR cameras. The 960-GB SSD offers up to 2400 TBW (terabytes written), while the 460-GB model can reach 1200 TBW, resulting in less frequent replacement and increased ROI. They provide stable data writing, and feature data protection technology that keeps content secure and intact even if a sudden power failure occurs. For further stability, they include a durable connector with six-times the tolerance of standard SATA connectors.

Supermicro SimplyDouble 2U SuperStorage

San Jose, Calif.-based Supermicro's new Simply Double 2U SuperStorage systems include 48 hot-swap NVMe drive bays, or about twice the number of hot-swap drive bays as standard 2U systems. Half the drive bays are arrayed in a riser bay located on top for easy access. The Supermicro 2U Simply Double SuperStorage systems are available in server or JBOD models with either 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch drive bays supporting all-flash NVMe SSDs or SAS 3.0 hard drives. They also include an additional two rear hot-swap drive bays, 3 PCI-E 3.0 slots, redundant high-efficiency power supplies, and support for the latest Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 v4/v3 family.

Tegile Systems IntelliFlash HD

The IntelliFlash HD from Newark, Calif.-based Tegile Systems combines Tegile's IntelliFlash storage operating system with high-density flash storage. Tegile said the IntelliFlash HD is used by film producers, sports venues and sports networks to accelerate workflows and reduce infrastructure costs. Channel partners use IntelliFlash HD in conjunction with Tegile's unique pricing tools to deliver cloud-like economics to on-premises storage infrastructures.

XenData FX-Series Server

Walnut Creek, Calif.-based XenData used NAB to unveil its new FX-series servers. The FX-series provides two independent storage volumes: a high-performance shared disk volume suitable for 4K video editing with usable capacities to 240 TBs and an archive volume that supports either Microsoft Azure Cloud or on-premises LTO or optical disc archive storage. The archive volume option scales to multiple petabytes, and supports partial file restore. The FX-series systems are compatible with a broad range of media and entertainment applications including axle Video MAM, CatDV, Dalet MAMs, eMAM, Metus MAM, MXFserver, and Parking from Marquis Broadcast.