MediaStor – A Modern Approach To Storage And Archiving

If you are in the business of generating high volumes of digital assets, it is likely that you regularly consider how best to store your valuable files.

Rather than utilising a single storage technology such as spinning disk, the key to efficiency may be to adopt a strategy involving a range of storage hardware organised by a high-powered file management system.

Powered by Suitcase TV, MediaStor is now available from Screen Systems, the leading provider of subtitling creation and delivery solutions and other products used by media companies across the globe. MediaStor is a software defined storage platform that provides flexible options for scalable online, nearline and archive storage built on commodity IT hardware.

At the heart of every MediaStor system is a virtual file system that utilises object based storage to provide a near infinitely scalable distributed storage platform whilst providing a familiar user experience using a traditional file/folder structure.

Media companies are already discovering that a scalable and flexible solution for nearline storage is MediaStor Archive Blade, a 1RU storage chassis providing 128TB of storage as MAID (massive array of independent disks) architecture utilising SMR (shingled magnetic recording) disks. MediaStor Archive Blade is transparently integrated as part of a MediaStor clustered storage platform.

Total cost of ownership analysis shows the solution to be comparable to LTO with significantly lower maintenance requirements and the added benefit of near-online file access. Each MediaStor Archive Blade is connected via a dual 10Gb Ethernet link with all files first being held on RAID-based storage on a MediaStor cluster node. Each chassis is managed by MediaStor's Archivist HSM software to ensure data is written in one continuous process with an optional mirrored disk in a separate chassis. The archive duplication can be done between the MAID array and a traditional LTO tape system, or second copy disks can be removed from the blades and stored.

MediaStor provides a fully integrated MAID solution that works seamlessly with RAID-based storage. Movement between the different tiers is hidden from users thanks to the embedded HSM functions provided by the Archivist software which runs on the MediaStor clustered storage platform.

Media files can be migrated to this new lower cost storage platform and once there can be used in-situ without needing to be restored first. Modified files are automatically stored in RAID-based storage and will be re-archived to MAID if they continue to meet the archive criteria. The solution provides a hybrid model that allows higher cost, higher performance RAID-based storage to be used when it's really needed and for all long-term archiving to make use of the lower-cost lower-power MAID architectures.

To find out more about MediaStor, talk to Screen Systems at SU5805 or the Suitcase TV team at NAB booth SL5826.

www.screensystems.tv

www.suitcasetv.com

(JP/LM)