Accusys ExaSAN Thunderbolt SAN for Post-Production Workhouse

Accusys Storage Ltd ExaSAN provides an shared platform for media professionals who work on Macs-Thunderbolt SAN.

This is a solution that allows multiple Macs to access 1PB of data on PCIe RAID storage over Thunderbolt connection. Via the help from Thunderbolt SAN, creative artists can share data and consolidate projects in one storage and focus on creating the artwork without dealing the lousy data transfer job, backup, and Thunderbolt cobweb.

Thunderbolt SAN composition
The main idea of Thunderbolt SAN is to make users build a shared platform for Mac workstations in a workhouse; all these Macs can share, edit, and backup file in this platform. This saves the cost and time for media professionals in management of storages. Thunderbolt SAN solution is composed with these main products: PCIe switch SW16, PCIe storages, Thunderbolt to PCIe converter C1M, and the Mac mini as the Xsan 4.0 server.

The PCIe switch SW16 is a SANing device that connects devices together on a storage network. It allows up to 12 Mac workstations or SAN server on connection to access to 1~4 PCIe storages. The PCIe storages including 8-bay, 3U 16-bay and 2U 12-bay, are designed to deliver the highest level of performance and scalability. Users can base on their requirement to choose the required storages then grow the storage capacity by adding more storages or JBODs in Thunderbolt SAN.

The converter C1M makes users connect a PCIe cable to PCIe switch, and then plug into the Thunderbolt port of a Mac workstation. In this way, the Mac workstations can be connected to PCIe switch and then access the PCIe storage. This Thunderbolt solution supports Mac mini as Xsan server. By upgrading the OS X into OS X Server, users can gain Xsan for server. Xsan enables multiple Mac computers to concurrently access hundreds terabytes of content on PCIe RAID storage over Thunderbolt cable.

Thunderbolt SAN superiority
Thunderbolt SAN Solutions is based on PCIe technology and fully utilized PCIe high-performance advantage. The single host can reach 1,350MB/s and the aggregate performance of 4 storages can reach 5,500MB/s for up to 11 clients’ concurrent usage. Data transfers for backup, sharing, and editing are faster with Thunderbolt SAN technology, reducing times to complete these tasks. For time-sensitive data, such as video during creation and playback, data transfers can be critical to the success of the work.

Comparing with similar solution adopting FC or Ethernet, Accusys ExaSAN solution owns higher performance and costs lower budget. Users may choose Ethernet solution for their workhouse, but the transfer rate only reaches about 600MB/s; this would not satisfy the needs in editing 4K videos. FC SAN provides similar performance to users; but, to reach the same performance as ExaSAN solution, users have to spend much higher budget.

This Thunderbolt solution helps post-production workers improve their workflow by its shared capability, performance and scalability without spending much budget. This solves the problem of the external Thunderbolt storage now available in market-high cost, and inconvenience in sharing files.