Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/799353
4 STORAGE SOLUTIONS MARCH 2017 STORAGE SOLUTIONS In 2016 Panasas announced DirectFlow for Mac, the first and only high-performance parallel data pro- tocol for the Apple Mac. It is delivered on ActiveStor as part of the integrated PanFS file system and stan- dard protocols. It enables users to ingest, process and deliver video faster and in higher resolutions and unifies all their Macs on a simple, high-speed Ether- net under a single global namespace. DirectFlow for Mac follows DirectFlow for Linux for the high-performance computing space. "We asked M&E customers, if we made DirectFlow for Mac, would people want it?" Sallak recalls. "The feed- back we got was, 'How soon can we get it?' We gave the code in its early stages to customers like pro- duction companies Asylum Entertainment and Ugly Brother, which helped shape the product and were a big influence in bringing our idea to market." At NAB 2017, Panasas plans to demonstrate a production-to-post-to-delivery workflow, featuring ActiveStor with DirectFlow for Mac; Axle media asset management; Adobe Premiere Pro on DirectFlow for Mac for editing; DaVinci Resolve on DirectFlow for Linux for finishing and Elemental Encoder on Direct- Flow for Linux for streaming delivery. JMR ELECTRONICS Steve Katz, vice president of sales at JMR Electron- ics (www.jmr.com), cites "the growing popularity and shift to PCIe or memory express drives," as an important new trend. PCIe drives were designed for high performance and affordability in the mass marketplace as demand increases for zero latency and very high bandwidth transfers, especially with ultra high-resolution video production and even with gamers, he says. JMR has stepped up to the plate with SiloStor NVMe SSD, a full-length, half-height PCIe 3.0 x8 drive that adds up to 8TB of high-availability storage to any server, computer or workstation. It occupies a x16 PCIe slot and may be connected via Thunderbolt PCIe expansion to computers with that capability. Launched just prior to NAB 2017, SiloStor "takes advantage of the ultimate bandwidth of the Gen 3 PCI express bus," Katz reports. "We partnered with Samsung, which is among the leaders on the tech- nology curve on PCIe drives, although other drives will function too. We're using very fast and highly reliable Samsung 960 PRO M.2 drives." SiloStor is available in single-drive, dual-drive and top-of-the-line, four-drive versions. Price is commen- surate with storage capacity. Katz notes that JMR was forward-thinking in de- veloping SiloStar a year ago, but now the PCIe mar- ket has "matured a bit" and customers have begun requesting PCIe drives. "Instead of a rack cabinet full of drives to achieve multi Gigabyte per second data transfers, they say it would be nice to have a few PCI cards and do everything inside the computers," says Katz. "Now they really can." Another trend is "smaller, lighter, less expen- sive" storage devices. JMR has begun shipping its MacMini Lightning workstations, which were shown at the Alpha level last year at NAB. Now updated and Thunderbolt certified, the workstations are "very media and entertainment oriented," Katz says. "They are very quiet and suitable for use on set as well in editing suites or machine room operations." FotoKem Burbank is among MacMini Lightning's first customers. JMR's LTNG-XD-8-MM2U is a 2U rack-mount work- station/server that allows the user to install a MacMini inside the unit using a provided tray. All connections are remoted internally for Thunderbolt breakout to PCIe slots and front-panel and/or rear-panel connec- tions for all the Mac I/O ports. It includes a 75-in-1 media card reader at the front panel for camera ingest. With its built-in hardware RAID controller, it provides eight 2.5-inch SSD hot-swappable drives at the front panel with up to 32TB native capacity. LTNG-XQ-8-MMDT is a desktop unit with similar functionality; it accommodates eight 3.5-inch hard disk drives or can be used with SSDs. JMR MacMini (top) and rackmount (bottom) JMR's Katz