2017 NAB Show Special Addition Submission
By Bill Thompson, EditShare storage product manager
Until today, the only option for media facilities wishing to take advantage of the performance, fault-tolerance and ease of management of a scale-out storage solution was to purchase a storage cluster consisting of three storage nodes and at least one metadata controller. While an excellent solution for moderate to large media enterprises, the on-average 96TB capacity of the smallest three-node cluster available was often beyond the requirements and financial means of the thousands of smaller productions and media shops.
To better address the requirements of smaller productions, EditShare has developed the single-node EFS storage system models – the XStream EFS 200 and 300 introduced at NAB 2017. Incorporating the best of the enterprise XStream EFS platform (450 model), the new single-node system combined the capabilities of the EFS metadata controller and a storage node into one compact, affordable and powerful shared storage server that can easily satisfy today’s production needs while also providing an important “no forklift” upgrade path to expand capacity, performance and fault-tolerance, supporting future production expansion needs.
Single-node EFS systems are designed as scale-out systems and therefore any system can be expanded from one node to a multi-node storage cluster. Tripling storage capacity is a simple matter of adding two storage expansion nodes to the initial “Single-Node All-in-One.” An XStream EFS 200 system can include a total of eight storage nodes while an XStream 300 system can be expanded without limit.
Key for every customer regardless of their production size is reliability and ease of use, and EFS has built this into every model. The hardware-based RAID 6, which protects against as many as two drive failures in each chassis, and redundant hot-swap power supplies, boot drives and fans ensure that single-node EFS systems support around the clock production operations.
Also standard on every single-node EFS systems are dual 10GbE network ports as well as the EFS Native Client driver for Windows, Mac OS and Linux. When used in place of legacy SMB and AFP network protocols, the EFS driver will deliver much higher performance. And unlike scale-up NAS storage solutions, all EFS systems present a single namespace (single files system) no matter how large the system becomes. Administrators no longer need to content with multiple volumes, no longer need to balance user workloads across multiple workspaces, no longer need to schedule maintenance activities like defragging, and no longer need to worry about running out of capacity and planning for forklift upgrades.
As an added bonus for productions, EditShare currently includes media management software licenses for Flow (production asset management) and Ark (back up and archiving). This gives facilities an added control layer for managing their assets from the moment they ingest to until they archive and bring them back again.
Attendees can learn more about the new single-node models by visiting the EditShare booth SL9716 during NAB 2017.
The XStream EFS 200 is a single-node configuration with 12 enterprise-grade HDDs offering 24, 48, 64, 96 or 128 TB of raw storage capacity in a 2U space-saving form factor. The XStream EFS 200 is “EFS Native Client” compatible. Client workstations connect via a lightning-fast, multi-threaded client to achieve a performance boost of 20% or more compared to legacy SMB and AFP network protocols. In addition to media management capabilities like advanced project sharing, the XStream EFS 200 ships with five Flow production asset management licenses and an Ark archiving application. For a full description of the XStream EFS 200 model, please visit www.editshare.com/products/xstream-efs-200.
For customers who need greater capacity and lower cost per TB (usable) than is available with XStream EFS 200, they can step into the XStream EFS 300. Equipped with 16 drives, the XStream EFS provides 28, 56, 84, 112 or 140 TB of usable capacity in a 3U chassis. Along with increased capacity, the EFS 300 has additional processor power delivering increased bandwidth capability and stream counts. Like the EFS 200 series, the EFS 300 is “EFS Native Client” compatible and benefits from a performance boost of 20% or more compared to legacy SMB and AFP network protocols. In addition to media management capabilities such as advanced project sharing, the XStream EFS 300 ships with 10 Flow production asset management licenses and an Ark archiving application. For a full description of the XStream EFS 300 model, please visit www.editshare.com/products/xstream-efs-300.
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