Thunderbolt, Rugged RAID, and the Importance of a Sane Backup Strategy
Greg LaPorte: Until Thunderbolt, video and audio professionals who needed to use any type of high-speed, high-performance supporting external device, such as video capture or high-speed RAID storage, were limited to desktop computers with internal PCIe expansion slots. Therefore, flexibility, portability and convenience are great advantages of Thunderbolt because it means production teams can now take their work on the road and use laptops in the field to edit raw content and perform other tasks. They also have a lot more flexibility with space-saving all-in-one computers like the new iMac with Thunderbolt. With a simple adapter such as our new Echo Express PCIe 2.0 expansion chassis, production teams can connect a high-performance PCI Express 2.0 card to any computer with a Thunderbolt port. In other words, Thunderbolt really brings together the best of both worlds by extending the portability of a laptop or the convenience of an all-in-one computer with the expandability of a desktop for devices like full-size professional video capture cards, 8Gb fiber channel cards, 10Gb Ethernet cards, and RAID controller cards, faster storage, etc.
What kind of challenge do Thunderbolt implementations present from an engineering point of view? Will those products be significantly more expensive for users?
Thunderbolt’s faster data-transmission speeds mean there’s more to consider from an engineering perspective. Greater expertise is required to create Thunderbolt-compatible products that work well, and there’s less margin for error. Since Thunderbolt is based on the concept of combining both video and PCIe protocol transmissions over the same connected chain, every device and computer along that chain needs sophisticated electronics that will detect the type of data coming through and properly convert it. Because peripheral manufacturers like Sonnet have had to deploy additional circuits to work with the Thunderbolt chip, some incremental costs will result. Users trying to connect low-end, low-cost RAID storage systems are more likely to notice these costs. However, that incremental cost becomes inconsequential with the ability to attach higher-end eight-drive storage arrays with advanced RAID controllers. Furthermore, because you have a capability now that didn’t exist before (the ability to attach these high-performance cards to laptops in the field, for instance), cost is a moot point since there’s really no basis for comparison.
Who are your typical users, and how have their needs evolved over the last three years?
Our users are pro video and pro audio editing professionals who have always demanded the ultimate performance, reliability, and support. Their needs have evolved in recent years along with the types of media they now have to deal with. Digital video, HD, and 3D have each increased demand for storage capacity, bandwidth, and consistent speed’which our products are specifically engineered to handle.
Another thing we’re seeing is the growth in the number of smaller workgroups that are tasked with high-end video editing. These customers have the same needs as larger organizations with full-time IT staff. They, too, need high-performance shared SAN storage, but delivered as a solution that is easy to manage and will help them control costs. We have been evolving our products to support these users. One example is our new Fusion RX1600 Vfibre video editing shared storage, which offers a single plug-and-play product including SAN server software, Metadata controller, up to sixteen 8Gb fiber channel ports, 10-Gigabit Ethernet, and lots of expandable storage.
Also, our customers’ ingest requirements have become more demanding with projects that require them to record large amounts of video onto electronic media. These users need to get their content off the memory cards and into storage as quickly as possible, so we’ve seen an increase in demand for our high-speed Qio media readers – and we continue to develop new products to meet that demand.
Talk about an especially interesting or exceptional use case for one of your products.
Our Fusion F2 and F3 line of ruggedized, shock-tolerant RAID storage systems are made to be mobile, so we see a lot of interesting use cases of these products in some pretty remote and interesting locations, such as the jungles of Costa Rica. We have one customer that used our Fusion F2 system to produce video news flashes for the Canoe Slalom World Championships in the Spanish Pyrenees, editing footage on location and uploading it to YouTube every evening. Another customer used the F2 for documentary production during a world tour of Iron Maiden, editing the footage of one day’s performance while on the plane to the next gig. The Los Angeles Times used our Fusion F2 to edit and upload photos and footage from a desk at the Oscars. Yet another example is the LA La Ride, when our user, a professional director of photography, followed two actresses on a 2,500-mile motorcycle trip across the U.S. to raise awareness for the Gulf oil spill. At the end of every day, the customer offloaded the day’s video onto a Fusion F3 system for editing.
How is the storage market changing, and how will Sonnet keep pace?
The explosion of applications for video use is having a large impact on the storage market. It’s not just movies and TV, with hundreds of channels and thousands of programs, but now so many websites are loaded up with video with more springing up all the time, including online periodicals. This means there’s been a large increase in the amount of production that’s going on. A new crop of boutique companies and smaller workgroups are meeting the demand, and their numbers will continue to increase as video becomes ubiquitous. And as we’ve said, these users are having to deal with increasingly complex, bandwidth-hungry video formats. Sonnet’s mission is to offer these customers leading-performance storage technology, the likes of which have previously been available to only the most sophisticated, budget-rich high-end shops. We also have an ongoing commitment to delivering the industry’s most comprehensive service and support, a critical consideration for the four-to-14-person workgroup that is our typical customer.
Name the most intriguing or enabling piece of technology you’ve discovered lately, inside or outside the content-creation industry. (Note: NOT a Sonnet product!)
It’s hard to pinpoint a single piece of technology. When you thinking of systems and/or products that are really game-changing, they tend to be made up of a lot of very unique and groundbreaking technologies that are only commercially viable as part of an integrated system. When put together properly, they become a game-changing product. The iPhone is one example. There has been a lot of recent talk about the Thunderbolt “breakthrough,” which is another example of an innovative evolution of a collection of enabling technologies that were already in place.
What’s a commonly held misconception about storage?
A large misconception is that protected RAID storage is all you need to ensure that your data is completely safe. Some professional users rely on RAID5 or RAID6 storage as their only protection, but there is risk in this approach. For example, RAID 5 allows for one drive failure. That drive can be hot-swapped with a new drive and automatically rebuilt. However, what happens if a second drive fails during the rebuild process? As unlikely as it is, if it can happen, it will happen, and the user has to ask himself how much the data is worth before taking any risk. Insurance companies often insist on tape backup. There have also been cases of OS file system corruptions, and guess what? The RAID system preserves a perfectly protected corrupted file system.
Someone once told me that the only sure things are death, taxes, and drive failures. It is best to assume that every drive will eventually fail, so we urge all our customers to have a good backup and archiving strategy that is performed on a regular, scheduled basis. These concerns apply to any storage manufacturer’s products.
For more information: www.sonnettech.com.
Sections: Business Technology
Did you enjoy this article? Sign up to receive the StudioDaily Fix eletter containing the latest stories, including news, videos, interviews, reviews and more.
