Driven by the goal of delivering an optimal high-availability storage solution for advanced media workflows, we are proud to introduce the all-new ELEMENTS GRID – a software-defined storage system based on the Ceph platform. By leveraging this powerful open-source file system, we have created a modular, scale-out NAS that combines exceptional performance with outstanding flexibility and revolutionary self-healing capabilities. In this blog we will explore the features that make ELEMENTS GRID a true game-changer for cutting-edge post-production, VFX and broadcast workflows.
Key features
- The all-NVMe platform delivers extreme performance
- Superior resilience – don’t worry about drive or even node fails
- Up to 1.47 PB capacity per 2U chassis
- Easily scales to 1000s of nodes and exabytes of data
- Powerful, yet easy to use with an intuitive interface
- Full media workflow support including the Media Library
Performance and capacity
Trough utilization of 24 NVMe drives, each node in the ELEMENTS GRID environment delivers multi-gigabyte-per-second throughput. However, it is in a multi-node environment where GRID shows its true power. It automatically spreads the data across all nodes and allows for highest possible throughput through distribution of the read/write operations. GRIDs low-latency architecture is optimized for demanding media workflows and easily handles multi-stream 4K/8K playback, editing and VFX rendering.
Adding additional nodes to the ELEMENTS GRID allows you to easily expands from a few terabytes up to multiple exabytes within a single filesystem, all without downtime or migration. Additional nodes increase both the capacity and the overall performance of the system.
Revolutionary resilience
Leveraging Ceph’s strengths, GRID ensures high availability and data durability through replication, snapshots, erasure coding and self-healing mechanisms. In practice, this means data remains safe and accessible even if a drive or an entire node fails. When issues occur, the system automatically detects data inconsistencies and repairs them in the background, restoring redundancy without the need for manual intervention.
This fully distributed design avoids reliance on RAID controllers or a head node and thereby eliminates potential hardware bottlenecks.
Future design and technology
ELEMENTS GRID uses CephFS to deliver high-performance file storage that integrates seamlessly into editing and post-production workflows, supporting standard NAS protocols such as SMB and NFS. At the same time, it offers object storage through the S3 Gateway, enabling cloud-native workflows.
Open-source technologies offer transparent source code, enhanced security, and rapid innovation. As an open-source file system, CephFS also eliminates licensing costs – removing the fees typical for proprietary solutions and making a GRID installation highly cost-competitive.
Part of a powerful media platform
GRID is fully integrated into the ELEMENTS platform, giving users access to features such as the powerful Automation Engine, cloud workspaces, advanced user management, and the Media Library, a versatile media asset manager. The Media Library enables the entire team (including internal and external users) to collaborate through comments, sharing, task assignments, rough-cutting, and more. It also makes it easy to organize and tag media, archive it, and quickly retrieve it with a powerful search function.
In summary
ELEMENTS GRID is more than just a storage system – it’s an advanced solution that unlocks new possibilities for post-production and broadcasting environments. It not only delivers the performance required for high-resolution real-time editing and VFX workflows but also offers unmatched scalability along with groundbreaking data durability and reliability.
