A nationally recognized digital media agency that creates content for all media platforms, T2+Back Alley Films focuses on motion graphic design and visual FX, interactive and experiential applications, augmented reality, webisodes and branded entertainment. Creating that kind of diverse and deep content meant that T2+Back Alley Films (Take Two) in Kansas City kept running into the same problem - storage limitations. As a result, the organization's creative team faced serious bandwidth issues as video editors and graphic designers pushed and pulled files across the server.
Featuring four Final Cut edit stations, Autodesk Smoke and six graphic stations including Maya and Cinema 4D, Take Two had outgrown its existing Fibre Channel storage solution. With little interest in exploring a cost-prohibitive Fibre Channel upgrade, the agency sought an affordable and scalable storage alternative that would maximize throughput in its graphic suites while providing the option of connecting the facility's video editing workstations at a later date. To meet both objectives, Take Two installed GraniteSTOR ST-RAID DT8, an 8-drive, 2 TB, Ethernet-based shared storage solution from Small Tree.
At a fraction of the cost of a Fibre Channel upgrade, GraniteSTOR ST-RAID provided Take Two with the robust system it needed and required less than 30 minutes to install. Before installing the Small Tree storage system, along with a PEG6 6-port Ethernet card and Edge-corE ES4528V 28-port Gigabit Ethernet switch, the agency's graphic design team had to render locally and then copy to the server for distribution. Today, the creative professionals can work directly from the server, no matter what suite they are located in. The resulting 10 fold increase in productivity has led Take Two to consider installing another ST-RAID to provide real-time editing to its video editors.
"Originally, we implemented Small Tree's technology to get our network up to speed so that we could move files from one place to another instantaneously," said Matt Kinnan, Take Two's director of engineering and technology. "Now that this has been accomplished, we are looking at adding more storage and a faster network backbone so that we can move away from Fibre Channel."
Designer of simple-to-install, affordable Mac-based networking and shared storage products, Small Tree is the premier multi-port Ethernet networking technology provider for OS X customers, enabling cost effective Ethernet shared storage technology. For more information about the company and its products, please call 1-866-STC4MAC (1-866-782-4622), or visit www.small-tree.com or follow Small Tree on Twitter @smalltreecomm.
