Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/57245
STORAGE SOLUTIONS NetApp expands Content Management solution SUNNYVALE, CA — NetApp (www.netapp.com) has fol- lowed the successful launch of its E5460 Media Content Management solution at SMPTE 2011 with the intro- duction of two additional chassis: the E2612 and E5424, both of which are now available. The original E5460 chassis is a 60-drive, 4RU con- figuration designed for large media and entertainment customers. The two new products address market seg- ments that don't need the capacity of a 60-disk system. NetApp's E2612 is a modular 12-disk system, 2RU high, which offers expansion shelves for additional chassis that can expand the Media Content Management solu- tion to 24, 36 or 48 drives. Its 1.5 GB/s bandwidth make it well suited for 2K ingest and color correction at smaller facilities or in departments within larger companies. "The sweet spot for this product will probably be 24 disks," says Jason Danielson, NetApp media and enter- tainment industry lead. "The hardware controllers in this generation of technology are so fast that you want to put at least 24 disk drives behind them to leverage the bandwidth of the controller. Having the modularity of the 12-disk chassis works well for most people." The company's new E5424 features a 24-disk enclo- sure with fast 2.5-inch drives capable of over 3GB/s of sustainable mixed read/write video throughput. It is designed for high-bandwidth usage, such as dozens of editors doing uncompressed HD editing requiring Tier 1 storage. The product boasts the same 5400 controller as the E5460 enclosure. The E5424 is expandable with as many as eight en- closures, but Danielson sees most customers opting for 24- or 48-disk configurations. The system can also accom- modate solid-state drives to reduce latency for 24/7 trans- coding farms. "NetApp is traditionally known as an enter- prise storage vendor," he notes. "But we're at a crossroads with our new storage line and its E Series technology. When we acquired the Engenio line we gained 30 years of engineering experience in developing the fastest RAID controllers and disk arrays. Their fifth-generation system with hardware controllers is optimized for sustained video throughput. That gives these chassis the best bandwidth per rack unit, which is important to post facilities." Storage Solutions • March 2012 • 13