Quantum unveils F-Series NVMe storage platform

Quantum has introduced the F-Series, a new line of NVMe storage arrays designed for performance, availability and reliability. Using non-volatile memory express (NVMe) flash drives for ultra-fast reads and writes, it supports massive parallel processing and is designed for studio editing, rendering, and other performance-intensive workloads utilizing large unstructured datasets. Incorporating the latest Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) networking technology, the F-Series provides direct access between workstations and the NVMe storage devices, delivering predictable, fast network performance. By combining these hardware features with the new Quantum Cloud Storage Platform and the StorNext® file system the F-Series delivers powerful end-to-end storage capabilities for post-production houses, broadcasters, and other rich media environments.

 

Quantum F2000 hardware architecture

The first product in the F-Series is the Quantum F2000, a highly available and performant storage server, purpose built for NVMe. The F2000 is a 2U, dual node server with two hot-swappable compute canisters and up to 24 dual-ported NVMe drives.  Each compute canister can access all 24 NVMe drives, and includes processing power, memory, and connectivity specifically designed for the highest performance and availability.

 

New Software-defined architecture

The F-Series is based on the Quantum Cloud Storage Platform, a software defined block storage stack tuned specifically for video and video-like data.  It offers a future proof and reliable platform, eliminating data services unrelated to video while enhancing critical capabilities such as enhanced data protection, flexible networking and block interfaces.  The result is an efficient architecture that maximises streaming performance.

Tightly integrated with StorNext

Quantum’s Cloud Storage Platform is tightly integrated with StorNext, further boosting its end-to-end storage capabilities. StorNext improves collaboration through comprehensive multi-protocol access, protects data through advanced replication and copy functionality, and offers automated tiering of data to capacity-optimised storage.  This allows customers to reduce total cost of ownership and maximise the value of content across its entire life-cycle for cutting edge workflows such as those found in:

• Post-production: The F-Series is designed for real-time editing of 4K and 8K content to meet the needs of the most demanding producers, directors, and studio executives.
• Sports video: Well-suited to environments with tens to hundreds of cameras generating content, the F-Series is capable of handling multiple concurrent ingest streams and playing out this content in real-time.
• Rendering and simulation: The F-Series can be deployed in animation and visual effects studios that require extremely high IOPs and low-latencies between large-scale render farms and the storage subsystem.

 

Benefits of Quantum F-Series

Quantum F-Series will enable customers to:

• Ingest, edit, and finish content with lightning fast performance:  The F-Series is as much as 5x faster than traditional flash storage / networking, delivering extremely low-latency, and hundreds of thousands of IOPs per chassis.
• Gain predictable, low latency access via fiber channel or ethernet: Enables users to reduce infrastructure costs by moving from fiber channel to Ethernet IP-based infrastructures.
• Meet performance requirements with less rack space: Customers who use a large number of HDDs or SSDs to meet their performance requirements can gain back racks of data center space.