Medà©a and ATTO Support Apple’s Power Mac G5 and New Mac PCI Express Architecture

Medà©a Corporation, the leading manufacturer of SATA/ATA-based RAID storage solutions, has announced support and compatibility of the VideoRaid™ RTR320/RTR320X SCSI and FCR2/FCR2X Fibre Channel RAID arrays with the newly debuted Apple Macintosh ® PCI Express (PCIe) architecture for the Power Mac ® G5 platform. The announcement was made at the 2005 NAB Post + Production Show where Medà©a is showcasing a variety of RAID solutions during 3-day event in Booth 628 at the Jacob Javitz Convention Center

Compatibility and data-transfer rates capable of sustaining High Definition for a variety of digital media applications are made possible with integration of the Ultra320 UL5D PCI Express SCSI host adapter from ATTO Technology. On the Fibre Channel side, ATTO’s Celerity FC-42ES and FC-44ES storage adapters integrate with the Medà©a FCR2 and FCR2X arrays and lend the benefit of two key ATTO features – 4Gb Fibre Channel and PCI Express, a serial, high-speed connection that supports the most demanding application requirements including high-definition video, rich content databases and other high-bandwidth environments.

“Medà©a is pleased to support Apple’s Power Mac G5 platform and the new Macintosh ® PCI Express architecture and offer Fibre Channel and SCSI storage that is optimized for a variety of content creation and production post applications,” states Martin Bock, President of Medà©a. “Apple has established a dedicated and growing legion of video professionals in the creative space and reliable, powerful and scalable storage that seamlessly integrates with the G5 architecture is essential for their work. ATTO Technology plays a critical role in enabling this with cutting edge Fibre Channel and SCSI host bus adapter technology that ensures high bandwidth throughput without bottlenecks.”

The Medà©a VideoRaid FCR2 and FCR2X are the latest innovative Fibre Channel arrays optimized for a variety of high bandwidth applications. The FCR2 features a single channel 2Gb Fibre Channel interface with sustained data-transfer rates of 180 MB/s while the FCR2X features dual channels and combined transfer rates of 320 MB/s ‘ enough to sustain HD editing. Both arrays are compatible with SD and HD capture cards from manufacturers like AJA Video Systems and Blackmagic Design running with Final Cut Pro. For the new Power Mac G5, the FCR2 and FCR2X integrate seamlessly with the ATTO Celerity FC-42ES and FC-44ES host adapters which feature the latest in host interconnect.

The SCSI Ultra320 interface is also widely favored among many professionals in the production post and content creation arenas. The rack-mounted Medà©a VideoRaid™ RTR320 and RTR320X disk arrays features a single or dual channel high-performance Ultra320 SCSI interface and can be configured with 5 or 10 SATA disk drive modules, depending on model, and offer storage capacities up to 4TB. Both arrays feature Medà©a’s proprietary Multi-Stream Technology (MST), a sophisticated stream-handling algorithm that works with the system’s on-board caching RAID controller to support the simultaneous real-time playback of multiple streams of uncompressed Standard Definition and High Definition content. Combined with the ATTO Ultra320 UL5D SCSI host adapter, the array’s single or dual channels are capable of combined transfer speeds of up to 640 MB/s, more than enough for real-time playback of two streams of uncompressed HD content and up to eight streams of uncompressed Standard Definition content in the case of the RTR320X.

“We are pleased to further develop our relationship with Medà©a and support the Macintosh PCI Express architecture with our Ultra320 UL5D SCSI and Celerity FC-42ES and FC-44ES Fibre Channel host adapters,” explains Sherri Robinson, director of markets for ATTO Technology. “The Macintosh platform remains a trusted platform in the digital media workplace. By supporting several Medà©a RAID storage solutions, ATTO continues to affirm its commitment to meet user demands for reliability, performance and innovation.”