Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/283517
Storage Solutions • March 2014 • 3 DOT HILL Dot Hill's AssuredSAN 4000 family of SAN storage ar- rays (www.dothill.com) has grown with the addition of a suite of AssuredSAN Ultra48 storage arrays, which are now generally available. The ultra-dense chassis houses nearly 58TBs of data on small form factor 2.5-inch HDDs in an efficient 2U footprint. For high-performance work- loads, the array can support any combination of SSD and HDD drives in the same enclosure. "What's new about the Ultra48 is its very high-density configuration," says senior director of marketing Jim Jonez. "It packs 48 small format disk drives in a 2U con- figuration. There's no other product like it on the market." The new arrays "combine our 4000 series storage con- trollers with the Ultra48 chassis configuration for more spindles, more drives and a very small footprint," he re- ports. "The Ultra48 uses 23 percent less power, weighs 25 percent less and has twice the capacity and perfor- mance per rack-unit compared to traditional arrays." Joe Swanson, Dot Hill's vice president of marketing and business development, notes that since the Ultra48 can handle both solid state and hard disk drives, "you can optimize this array with a combination of SSDs and HDDs, providing flexibility in high-performance appli- cations like post production editing and streaming or broadcast applications for multi-system operators and video-on-demand providers." The Ultra48 offers users a number of options, too: It's expandable to 192 drives in an 8U configuration and can also support a 2U 24-drive chassis and 2U 12-drive chassis with a large form factor. With the debut of the Ultra48, Dot Hill continues to evolve its AssuredSAN 4000 family of storage solutions. "The latest version of the 4000 series controllers was updated in November," says Jonez. "And in January we announced this new chassis configuration. The Ultra48 was conceived and designed with specific input from some of our key OEM customers as well as feedback we solicited from our [user] channel." With the 4000 series, Dot Hill was the first manufac- turer "to bring a 16-gig Fibre Channel host interface to this class of storage," he notes. Users can also replace the SFP port on the host interface with an iSCSI port without replacing the array, he points out. A growing roster of video editing applications will benefit from the Ultra48's high-performance, high-den- sity attributes, according to Jonez. "4K workstreams are becoming common, cinema editing can incorporate high-frame rate and high-dynamic range editing, and stereo 3D doubles the number of images. "A traditional 2K feature film requires about 1TB ca- pacity for one hour of video, but when you combine 4K projection, high frame rates and high dynamic range, and stereo 3D, the capacity increases to 27TBs for one hour," he says. "Your throughput increases by the same factor, too. So there are tremendous storage require- ments as the industry transitions to a new cinema ex- perience." JEH PRODUCTIONS Headquartered in San Antonio with an office in Port Washington, NY, JEH Productions (www.jehproductions. com) maintains a full post production facility in Texas, where four independent edit stations run Apple's Final Cut Pro 7 and the Adobe suite of software, including Premiere. JEH cuts the commercials, Web spots, corporate branding and "promomentaries" its directors shoot, and also serves as a post facility for hire. Currently, each edit station has either a 2TB or 4TB G-Technology G-Speed RAID for near-line storage. Once projects are done, they move to a 24TB Drobo BeyondRAID for long-term ar- chiving. "We've had the G-Speed RAIDs for a while, and they've been really good. We use G-Technology portable drives on-set too, to shuttle footage back and forth and as sec- ondary back ups," says JEH president Tony Gallardo. "G- Tech has offered a great balance of price, performance and reliability for what we do as [an Apple] ProRes shop." JEH directors shoot on Red, Canon C300 and C500, and an array of DSLR cameras. AJA Ki Pro file-based re- corders/playback units are used in tandem with Red and Canon cinema cameras and the Atomos Ninja HDMI smart production recorder/monitor/playback deck with the DSLRs so directors can take their files and "jump right into editorial" when they get back, Gallardo explains. Last year he directed a compelling Web campaign for Children's Hospital of San Antonio, which eventually went to broadcast, featuring interviews with parents of children with traumatic illnesses who were brought back to health after other hospitals were unable to treat them. DP Jamie Rosenberg shot on Red, recording di- rect to Ki Pro, which went straight to editorial where the Final Cut Pro/G-Speed RAID system was in place. The campaign won San Antonio Ad Federation Gold Addys and a Special Judges Award. dot hill's assuredSan ultra48 is designed for 4k and stereo 3d workflows.