MagStor Integrated Thunderbolt 3 RAID and LTO Ingest-to-Archive Storage Solution for Digital Workflows

MagStor, Inc. announced a Thunderbolt 3 integrated portable LTO RAID Unit (LRU) multi-tier storage solution.

The LRU is a Thunderbolt RAID and LTO tape archiving solution for digital workflows. Content can be offloaded from cameras to high-speed RAID on-set or at the end of the day, and then the raw footage or completed projects can be archived to LTO tape media for long-term safeguarding. The LRU comes in a portable form factor with a carrying handle, making it for both on-set and post-production environments.

LRU units support up to 6xSATA SSD drives with hardware-controlled RAID, enabling fast offloading of video from camera cards at up to 2,400MB/s. Configurations are available with LTO-7, -8 and -9 half-height drives, with the LTO-9 version offering 18TB of native cartridge capacity and RW speeds of up to 300MB/s for archiving of video content.

LRU also supports the Linear Tape File System (LTFS), which mounts the tape drive in the same way as a disk drive, enabling simple drag-and-drop access to the tape cartridge. All LRU configurations ship with a free license for Hedge Canister LTFS archiving software.

“Today’s Digital Imaging Technicians and Content Creators need a high performance, yet easy-to-use storage solution that helps them respect the 3-2-1 principle of protecting video content (3 copies of your data, on 2 different media, with one copy offsite)“, said Dmitri Troia, chief executive. “The 3-2-1 principle is becoming increasingly widespread in the video production world. Netflix, for example, now requires it of its production partners ^(*). The MagStor LTO RAID Unit is an answer to those requirements, providing an easy way of getting raw footage or completed projects onto LTO media as quickly as possible.”

Key features

Company‘s patented Thunderbolt-3 to LTO design with SSD RAID
Hardware based RAID using a single TB3 interface with previously unattainable ingest speeds to LTO
Supports up to 6xSATA SSD drives with RAID 0,1,3,5,6, 10 (add your own drives, or choose a preconfigured model)
Dual Core ARM A 15 1.6GHz processor with RAID On Chip
8GB DDR4-2666 cache memory with ECC protection
OS support including macOS, Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and VMware
Ships with Hedge Canister LTFS software and supports other LTFS archiving and backup software applications
Compatible with NanoPure media
3-year parts and labor RTD warranty

LTO RAID Units are available from the firm’s website and from their network of authorized resellers and distributors. MSRP start at $5,399.

^(*)Netflix’s Production Best Practices Guide