Sonnet Technologies announced that INSP, The Inspiration Network, a television network dedicated to family-friendly and inspirational programming, is the latest client to use Sonnet's Fusion DX800RAID high-performance, eight-drive RAID SATA storage system and Fusion D400QR5 desktop four-drive RAID storage appliance. Both systems provide reliable and flexible locally attached storage for the network's video editing and production teams.
The four-drive Fusion D400QR5 features internal RAID 5 support to deliver data protection in the event of a drive failure. The system offers a quad interface for flexible connectivity, and delivers data transfers up to 220MB/s read and 210MB/s write when connected via eSATA and with its drives configured as a RAID 5 set. INSP chose the D400QR5 for its rough-cut editing suites to support multistream video editing, before the video is sent to a Final Cut Profinishing station.
Like the D400QR5, the eight-drive DX800RAID offers RAID 5 support but uses an included high-performance RAID controller card for greater performance and protection. With its eight drives formatted as a RAID 5 group, the DX800RAID yields impressive read and write file transfer speeds of up to 870MB/s and 850MB/s, respectively. At INSP, the DX800RAID systems are attached to the network's Final Cut Pro edit finishing stations, where they provide powerful local storage for final editing of video to be aired on INSP networks.
The INSP broadcast facility is located in Charlotte, NC. With the expansion of digital content for their ever-increasing lineup of programs, the network was looking to find adequate disk space to accommodate multiple terabytes of raw footage that was coming in from on-location shoots and other projects. As a solution, INSP sought to equip its Final Cut Pro editing stations with high-capacity and reliable storage capabilities. Both the Fusion DX800RAID and D400QR5 integrate an ultraquiet Vantec Stealth fan, which is 80 percent quieter than a standard case fan, making the systems well-suited to INSP's noise-sensitive production environment.
