Wild Eyes Productions Integrates 96TB Archion Synergy Storage

Wild Eyes Productions, noted for going into some of
the world’s most dangerous places and coming back alive while also pushing the
frontiers of digital workflow, has recently added 96
TB of Archion Technology’s Synergy shared storage solution to its
Avid Unity MediaNetwork. Wild Eyes track record in television,
documentary and docu-reality film making balances military documentaries like Inside Al-Qaeda and Inside the Taliban for National Geographic with reality
TV series like The Squad: Prison Police for the A&E Network.

"As they move into stereoscopic 3D production, Wild Eyes has
been utilizing the 96TB Synergy system to handle increasing amounts of
High-Definition (HD) and 3D content", noted Conor Morris, Post Production
Supervisor at Wild Eyes. "Synergy provides the scalability and protection for
their Unity Media Engine without compromising workflow and performance."

"Simply put, Archion’s Synergy has proven to be a lifesaver
for us," said Morris. "Like most facilities, our biggest obstacles have always
been how do we expand on a budget and how do we tie it into the existing
workflow. Synergy was much more cost-effective than Avid, and it runs off of
the same Unity interface and we didn’t need a new rack or new wiring to fit it
into our system and it worked flawless right out of the box."

According to Morris, Wild Eyes was not willing to compromise
their media and therefore choose to protect it all with Archion’s Synergy
solution. Of their 96TB of Synergy storage, 72TB are fully protected and
usable. If they went with Avid storage, he noted, they would have been limited
to only 64TB. Synergy can actually scale to a full 128TB of usable protected
storage.

Morris was impressed by Archion’s customer
support, which started even before he purchased the Synergy shared storage
solution.

"I really liked the Archion people because they made me feel
comfortable right from the start", said Morris. "They walked me through the
entire process what I could expect if I purchased the Synergy box, how the
equipment would operate and really took time to explain everything to my
complete satisfaction. That really impressed me".

"Archion’s Synergy is the highest capacity storage available
for the Unity MediaNetwork", said Zeke Margolis of Key Code Media, Archion’s
reseller based in Burbank, CA. "The massive amount of storage needed for 3D
television production twice as much, in fact required Wild Eyes to add
96TB of Synergy storage to their Unity in less than 90 days. This would have
cost hundreds of thousands of dollars more if they went with any other option. Not only did Archion save our client money, but the product has performed
flawlessly."

"We are delighted that Wild Eyes saw the advantages of
incorporating Synergy into their Avid Unity workflow and are enjoying the
benefits of the significantly greater scalability and RAID 5 protection," said
Daniel Stern, Archion’s Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing. "We
want facilities such as Wild Eyes to know that there is a compelling
alternative to adding Avid storage or completely moving to a different SAN. Archion provides investment protection now and in the future."

The Synergy Line
Archion’s line of RAID storage for Avid’s Unity MediaNetwork
and Media Engine platforms has been proven with thousands of clients worldwide. The Synergy UXE and new Synergy XTR extend the Synergy’s abilities to 800 MB/second and increase its capacity to 32TBs in a single chassis
for Unity Media Engine (5.x). It is also certified for use with Unity
MediaNetworks (v3.5 – 4.2x) and is compatible with other
Archion-certified Unity add-on storage systems.

Synergy storage systems deliver 8-, 16- or 32 TB of storage
in a three-rack unit design with a 16-drive chassis. With its
built-in hardware RAID controller to manage storage, the Synergy UXE and Synergy XTR automatically rebuild a faulty
drive so that the rest of the network is unaffected by the drive failure.

With the patent-pending Vdisk technology,
Archion ensures compatibility between versions and that operation is
transparent to the Unity system. The Synergy UXE and Synergy XTR RAID
controllers manage the disk drives, RAID sets and Vdisks in a more efficient
manner, requiring far fewer drives than Avid storage subsystems to deliver
higher capacities and resolutions.