It’s time for the National Association of Broadcasters show – NAB 2024 – at the Las Vegas Convention Center, and storage suppliers are vying to see who has the fastest and most efficient storage on offer to store media files and ship them around to apps and users.
The show runs from April 14 to 17 and is the pre-eminent exhibition and conference for the media and entertainment industry, drawing thousands of content professionals from all corners of the broadcast, media and entertainment ecosystem – including storage.
The storage suppliers exhibiting include:
Seagate
Seagate is showing its LaCie range of external storage products, which get its 24TB disk drives – up from the previous 20TB HDDs. They include:
- LaCie 1big Dock 24TB – $1.049.00
- LaCie 2big Dock 48TB – $1,899.00
- LaCie d2 Professional 24TB – $749.99
- LaCie 2big RAID 48TB – $1,699.00
Seagate said the LaCie 1big Dock and 2big Dock simplify editing workflows by enabling users to simultaneously store files, connect peripherals, and charge devices in one hub. The 1big Dock 24TB and 2big Dock 48TB deliver 20 percent more capacity than their predecessors. The LaCie d2 Professional 24TB and 2big RAID 48TB also received boosts of 20 percent in capacity.
The company suggests that, for hobbyists or studio experts who are looking at the latest production tools, the 48TB products are suitable for generative AI applications. We understand that to mean Gen AI inferencing, not training.
The 1big Dock, 2big Dock and d2 Professional products are available now, while the 2big RAID 48TB will ship in May.
Storj
Decentralized storage supplier Storj, which says it’s now ten years old, is present and has just appointed its first CMO, Trisha Winter. The startup claims it provides up to 90 percent lower storage costs and significant carbon reduction compared to the public cloud.
CEO Ben Golub’s prepared quote read: “Storj has grown from a ground-breaking Web3 tech innovation to a proven enterprise solution, giving cloud storage hyperscalers a run for their money. Differentiators that make us fast, secure and highly performant also ensure our product is the greenest cloud object storage on the planet. Our organization is stronger than ever in our tenth year and poised for continued rapid growth, especially with the addition of Trisha Winter to our executive team.”
Starting this month, Storj’s user interface and invoices share data on each customer’s carbon emissions as a result of their use of Storj, compared with cloud hyperscalers, such as AWS, Azure and Google. There is a Storj whitepaper looking at emissions and savings, and its methodology.
Tuxera
The Finnish storage and network software developer is exhibiting its Fusion File Share (FFS) product and also has a presentation session with Toast Post Production, and Pixitmedia. FFS replaces the standard or default SMB software stacks, such as Samba, with a much faster one.
It offers up to 60x higher throughput and as much as 500 percent better scalability than Samba SMB. FFS also offers RDMA capability and is compatible with the SMB protocol up to version 3.1.1. Its scale-out feature enables the creation of parallel and scalable multi-SMB cluster service, providing faster throughput with low CPU and memory usage.
Veikko Ruuskanen, CEO of Toast Post Production Oy in Helsinki, Finland, explained: “We always prefer to play back raw material on our workstations in real time, regardless of the resolution or file format. Unfortunately, that was not always doable with equipment running Samba SMB server software. At times, we needed to create local caches which slowed down the workflow, frustrating both our artists and our clients. With the Fusion File Share software, we found that we could instantly manage real-time transfers of the most demanding file types. The change was immediate.”
Western Digital
WD is showing its SanDisk SD-format flash card products, G-Drive external disk drive models, and Ultrastar Transporter and JBOD offerings. The SD flash cards include the SanDisk SD Express (128GB/256GB) and microSD Express (128GB/256GB) products. But there are new memory cards as well:
- 2TB SanDisk Extreme PRO SDXC UHS-I memory card – World’s first 2TB UHS-I SDXC card
- 2TB SanDisk Extreme PRO microSDXC UHS-I memory card – Western Digital’s first and world’s fastest 2TB UHS-I microSD card
- 4TB SanDisk Extreme PRO SDUC UHS-I memory card – the world’s first 4TB UHS-I SD card
Desktop external 7,200rpm Ultrastar disk drives with 24TB capacities:
- 24TB G-DRIVE ($699.99) – Ultra-reliable storage supporting USB-C (10Gbit/sec) for fast backup
- 24TB G-DRIVE PROJECT ($929.99) – Backup and save project work. Compatible with Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C (10Gbit/sec). Also features a PRO-BLADE SSD Mag slot for modular SSD performance in sharing and editing across devices
- 48TB G-RAID MIRROR ($1,599.99) – Ships in RAID 1 (Mirroring) to automatically create a duplicate of your working files for data redundancy. Compatible with Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C (10Gbit/sec). Also features a PRO-BLADE SSD Mag slot for modular SSD performance in sharing and editing across devices
- 96TB G-RAID SHUTTLE 4 ($4,499.99) – Transportable four-bay hardware RAID solution allows for super-fast access and real-time video editing. This device ships in RAID 5, and supports RAID 0, 1 and 10 configurations
- 192TB G-RAID SHUTTLE 8 ($7,499.99) – Transportable eight-bay hardware RAID product for consolidated backup, whether on location or in the studio. It supports RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, and 60 configurations, and provides transfer rates up to 1690MB/sec read and 1490MB/sec write in default RAID 5.
Data transport and JBOD devices:
- Ultrastar Transporter – Offers up to 368TB of fast NVMe SSD performance and dual port 200Gb/E connectivity for storing, editing and physically transporting dailies and massive files from one location to the next, including the cloud. Weighs less than 30lb (13.6kg), features a durable chassis design, and includes a transport case. Features added data security with a tamper evident case and is designed for FIPS 140-2 level 2 compliance with Trusted Platform Module (TPM) Version 2
- Ultrastar Data102 JBOD Platform – External storage platform for mass storage, backup, online accessible archive and nearline content. Supports up to 24Gb SAS to the host and up to 2.65PB in a 4U enclosure with 24TB Ultrastar HDDs.
Visit the Western Digital booth #SL5041 in South Hall Lower. The 2TB memory cards are expected to be available at authorized retailers, e-tailers and the Western Digital store this summer. The 4TB card its expected to be available in 2025.
