Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1230537
2 STORAGE SOLUTIONS MAR/APR 2020 STORAGE SOLUTIONS libraries predominate, with some flash memory used for caching, buffers and metadata. Hard disk drives as well as enterprise SSDs are used in high performance storage applications where storage cost factors must be balanced with performance requirements. For applications requiring rugged field use or fast playback response, flash memory either as cards or solid-state drives (SSDs) are now standard fare. Let's look at the state of storage technologies used in M&E and see how video professionals are using this storage, and who some of the best vendors are. In 2019 Coughlin Associates conducted its 10th annual survey of media & entertainment professionals on their use of digital storage in their media workflows. Results from that survey, as well as the Coughlin Asso- ciates report on media & entertainment storage will be used to provide some illustrations in this article. SOLID STATE STORAGE AND THE RISE OF NVME & NVME-OF Because of higher performance and ruggedness, solid state storage, based upon NAND flash memory, are desirable for many media and entertainment applica- tions. Flash memory is the dominant storage media for professional video cameras as shown in "Figure 1". Companies such as Angelbird, Panasonic, Sony, SanDisk (WDC) and Lexar offer flash-based media for content capture applications. Figure 1: Percentage of various recording media in professional video cameras As the size of video files increase, performance and latency become more important. Multi-channel raw 4K and 8K video post production storage performance and latency requirements exceed the capability of HDD-only storage systems. With declining NAND flash prices, storage systems with flash-based SSDs are becoming primary storage for many applications, with hard disk drive-based systems often used for second- ary storage. NAND flash-based SSDs, especially with NVMe interfaces, working on the PCIe computer bus, are quickly becoming the dominant SSD interface. As a consequence, the price of NVMe SSDs is about the same as SAS SSDs. NVMe avoids the built-in legacy overhead of SATA and SAS interfaces, allowing more of the internal performance of flash memory chips to be available to the PCIe bus. NVMe SSDs are available from many companies, including Intel, Kioxia (formerly Toshiba Memory), Micron, Samsung, SK hynix, Seagate and Western Digital. NVMe enabling technology is available from companies such as AMD, Huawei, Intel, Marvell and Mellanox (now part of Nvidia). Today, NVMe access is mostly storage-based (file or block), but there are software stacks that could allow direct memory-like access for NVMe storage. This will be especially useful with very fast emerging non-vola- tile memory technologies that could replace traditional volatile memories, such as Intel's Optane technology (which is also available on DIMM modules for the computer memory bus). NVMe is moving us closer to a more memory-centric computing architecture that could transform rendering and other video production tasks, requiring high resolution and high frame rate. The NVMe protocol can also be transported over fabric networks. Storage systems are now available using NVMe over Fibre Channel, Infiniband and espe- cially Ethernet networks, enabling features such as remote direct memory access (RDMA). Many storage companies (hardware and software) serving the media and entertainment market are now offering NVMe and NVMe-oF storage solutions, including Dell, EditShare, HPE, IBM, NetApp, Pavilion Data, Quantum, Qumulo and Stellus. There are also companies adding comput- ing capability to NVMe SSDs or in the NVMe fabric, such as NGD and Eideticom, creating computational storage solutions. Flash memory and other solid-state storage will play an increasing role in M&E storage in future years, although HDDs and magnetic tape will dominate lower cost bulk storage of media content. In particular, we expect the use of SSDs in post production to increase significantly in the next few years. "Figure 2" shows our projections for flash memory revenues in 2024 for various M&E applications. Figure 2: Projections for flash memory revenue in 2024