In Broadcast - October 2017 - 54

54

www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 7 - Issue 10 | October 2017

InMedia

Data Storage
And Archiving
Contributing Editor David Kirk considers the storage migration path
from tape, to hard drive, to SSDs, and back to LTO tape technology...

T

he transition from dedicated
hardware to software-based
broadcast
production
equipment
proved
highly
traumatic
for
manufacturers of magnetic-tape-based
video and audio recording equipment.
A few had sufficient prescience to
experiment with magnetic Hard Disk
Drives (HDD) advanced from high-cost
temporary storage devices to form the
basis of today's cost-efficient highcapacity servers.
Supplementing but not quite
competing with HDDs, solid-state
storage devices have also greatly
increased in capacity and costefficiency and are now the preferred
storage medium for mobile video
capture devices such as camcorders
where weight, size, and robustness are
important issues.
Magnetic tape is far from obsolete,
surviving mainly as a long-term
archiving medium in the shape of LTO.
Hewlett Packard, IBM and Quantum
claim a record 96,000PBs of total
compressed tape capacity shipped in
2016, 26% up on 2015. Greater LTO-7
tape technology density as well as
the continuous growth in LTO-6 tape
technology shipments are quoted as
key contributors to this increase. While
the total compressed tape capacity
grew dramatically in 2016, hard disk
drives saw a decrease in unit sales of
approximately 9.5% year-over-year.
Data archiving has in recent years
migrated to some extent from local

ALTO disk archive system

Disk performance and reliability is vital for media storage

HDDs to remote storage devices
accessed via public or dedicated IP
networks. In other words, archiving as
an online service. An example is Spot
& Spin which gives film and television
production and post houses a way
to ingest, archive, and manipulate
content without building up a large
overhead of hardware. Spot & Spin
is based on the Cubix media asset
management,
automation
and
orchestration platform developed and
produced by sister company Ortana.
Archion Technologies has enhanced
is EditStor product line, comprising
of the EditStor EO, EditStor Velo,
EditStor Omni and Omni Hybrid.
Archion has added Intel based 40GB
cards to enhance compatibility with
Blackmagic Davinci Resolve and Centos
6.8. Archion has also completed
DPX and EXR testing of its EditStor

Archion is certified
for helium-drives

Omni with Digital Vision's Nucoda.
Archion's EditStor product line is now
compatible with 25GigE, 50GigE and
100GigE fibre. Archion has doubled
the RAM across the EditStor product
line for faster system performance.
EditStor can now expand to 2.4PBs
utilising 10TB drives. Archion has also
tested and ultimately certified both
8TB and 10TB helium-filled drives. The
density of helium is one-seventh that
of air which reduces drag force acting
on the spinning disk stack and allows
thinner platters which can be packed
more densely.
Avid's FastServe family of video
servers supports UHD and IP I/O to
enable ingest, editing and playout of
news, sports and other types of live
productions. FastServe servers can
also handle higher channel counts per
video server, which means a lower
overall cost-per-channel and a smaller
footprint, requiring less cooling and
power. The FastServe family includes
FastServe Ingest, FastServe Live Edit,
and FastServe Playout. FastServe

supports a wide range of formats
including DNxHD, DNxHR and Sony
XDCAM HD. FastServe video servers
work with legacy Avid Interplay and
iNews systems as well as Avid's new
MediaCentral.
CalDigit's AV Pro 2 USB-C external
data storage module is available with
capacities up to 6TBs. In addition to
being a storage device, the AV Pro 2
can charge the attached laptop, as well
as incorporating a built-in USB 3.0 hub
for connecting extra USB devices. The
AV Pro 2 features a removable drive
that allows users to switch between 3.5
inch HDD and a 2.5 inch SSD. The 3.5
inch HDD model features speeds up to
200MB/s and the SSD model increases
the performance up to 430MB/s.
Dalet Orchestration provides a view
of all stored content with tools to
optimise workflow from acquisition to
production and distribution of content
to multiple broadcast platforms and
publishing systems. Delivered with
Dalet Report Center, it offers analytics
to measure performance throughout
the chain.
Disk Archive Corporation's ALTO is
a disk archive system based on disks
including 6TB, 8TB, 10TB, 12TB and
16TB capacities. Any disk which

XStream EFS 40NL data store
http://www.inbroadcast.com http://www.diskarchive.com http://www.facilis.com http://www.archion.com http://www.editshare.com/xstream/xstream-efs-40nl
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