Free shipping in North America. Visit our webstore.
Menu

Symply Media Promo is Back! SAVE up to $540 and get up to 108TB of FREE capacity

With Fujifilm and other LTO manufacturers increasing pricing, Symply has got your back with a FREE media promotion* to ensure you can efficiently archive and back up your important projects.

Unlike many other vendors, Symply always include one media cartridge and one cleaning cartridge with every purchase. But for a limited time only, and whilst stocks last, Symply is going bigger and better, 5 better to be precise.

When you purchase any SymplyPRO Thunderbolt, SymplyPRO DIT Thunderbolt, or SymplyPRO Ethernet Tape we will include 5 additional media cartridges for FREE.

The Promo is available from our US Webstore and via Symply Authorised Resellers in North America and EMEA.

Follow and connect with us on LinkedInYouTubeInstagramFacebook and X for more information.

*Available while stocks last. Terms and Conditions Apply. Free Media Cartridges will match the LTO drive generation purchased.

Symply Expands Disk, Tape and Cloud Product Offering for Media and Entertainment at NAB 2024

Symply announces SymplyPRO XTL Tape Libraries with the industry’s widest range of integrated interface options, including Ethernet and Thunderbolt 3; SymplySPARK 4-bay Desktop Transportable RAID; and SymplyAURA, a high-density Object Storage Appliance.

Visit Symply at NAB Show 2024 Las Vegas, Booth SL5135

Las Vegas – April 11th, 2024 – Symply, an innovative developer of high-speed digital storage and archive solutions, announced the expansion of their award-winning Disk, Tape and Cloud product portfolio.  With the release of SymplyPRO XTL Tape Libraries, new ultra-compact SymplySPARK and SPARK XT 4-bay Desktop Transportable RAIDs, and a single-server scalable object storage appliance, SymplyAURA.

SymplyPRO XTL Tape Library solutions have been engineered to suit all requirements from small compact entry level libraries -to- enterprise-class modular tape libraries. Equipped with an industry leading choice of interfaces including SAS, Fibre Channel, and uniquely Ethernet, and Thunderbolt 3, SymplyPRO XTL Tape Libraries are designed to seamlessly integrate into customers’ infrastructure.

Built on field-proven technology trusted by some of the world’s largest organizations, SymplyPRO XTL Tape Libraries offer support for the latest LTO generations, including LTO-7, LTO-8, and LTO-9 with configurations available from compact 8-slot to enterprise-class 80-slot models. Modular 40- and 80-slot libraries simplify the process of expanding storage capacity and adding LTO drives as needs evolve. All SymplyPRO XTL Tape Libraries come backed by an industry-leading 3-year warranty, ensuring reliable performance and peace of mind for our customers.

SymplySPARK 4-bay Desktop Transportable RAID is built on the hugely popular SymplySPARK 8-bay Thunderbolt 3 RAID.  The new 4-bay model is even more compact and transportable, whilst remaining rugged and whisper quiet.  Smaller than its peers, SPARK 4-bay models incorporate a robust carry handle for easy handling while featuring full user serviceability of HDDs, the fan and power supply.

The award-winning SPARK XT is also available in the new 4-bay form-factor, incorporating the latest Seagate MACH.2 18TB multi-actuator drives and providing performance that would normally be associated with competitive 8-bay products. This unparalleled throughput is truly game changing, reducing the need to trade off capacity and increased costs for SSD solutions, enabling users to be more productive by dramatically increasing the speed at which content can be backed up from camera cards on set.  The SymplySPARK and SPARK XT 4-bay models come with an industry leading 5-year warranty as standard.

SymplyAURA represents a breakthrough in data management and protection, offering a single-server appliance solution designed to meet the evolving needs of modern enterprises. AURA empowers customers to swiftly deploy a “plug & play” S3 object storage repository, catering to both active archive and backup requirements with unparalleled efficiency and security.  Built on16th-gen software and deployed and orchestrated on integrated Kubernetes, AURA ensures reliability and performance. Unlike other appliance offerings in the market that are purposely limited in their scalability, AURA can start with a single appliance and customers can scale capacity via the addition of appliances as required, with no software or hardware-imposed limitations.

“We’re excited to expand our Disk, Tape and Cloud portfolio in line with our customers’ needs” said Keith Warburton, CEO at Symply. “Customers were having to look elsewhere for certain solutions and weren’t receiving the quality of product and level of support they had been accustomed to with Symply. Our new SymplyPRO XTL Tape Libraries with their native connectivity options, alongside 4-bay SPARK models and AURA object storage for private cloud deployments, show we are always listening to our customers.”

Symply will be showing SymplyPRO XTL Tape Libraries, SymplySPARK, and SymplyAURA alongside their existing Disk, Tape and Cloud portfolio at NAB Show Las Vegas, 13th to 17th April at booth SL5135. More information about the company is available at www.gosymply.com

About Symply (www.gosymply.com)

Pioneers in Modern Data Storage Solutions. Since our inception in 2016, Symply has been dedicated to revolutionizing digital data storage for the media and entertainment industry. Our journey began with a simple philosophy: to design and build the most innovative workflow-enhancement and storage solutions available.

At Symply, we recognized early on that traditional data storage solutions were failing to keep pace with the evolving needs of modern businesses. With data sizes expanding exponentially and teams becoming increasingly decentralized, the demands on storage infrastructure have never been greater. That’s why we’ve taken a forward-thinking approach, focusing not just on what businesses want, but on what they truly need.

Follow and connect with us on LinkedInYouTubeInstagramFacebook and X for more information.

Press Contact: 

Roman Minalto 
roman@gosymply.com  | +44 1223 228019
SYMPLY 
Unit 7 Kings Court 
Cambridge
CB4 2PF, UK 

How to backup and archive from a QNAP NAS with SymplyPRO LTO and Archiware P5 

QNAP is well known for providing on-premises network-attached storage and innovative software solutions. Although all the QNAP can protect against data loss from failed drives, and also QNAP supports replication between local and remote systems, by adding LTO to their environments customers can further protect against data loss, and free up capacity by archiving cold data. 

The causes of data loss take many forms, corrupted data or file systems, failed drives or devices, sadly malicious and ransomware attacks are increasingly common, and of course, there is always good old human error. LTO (Linear Tape Open) is an excellent long-time storage strategy, it is highly resilient and open format and has an extremely low cost, and carbon footprint, but critically it provides an “air-gap” to protect against ransomware and other malicious attack. 

Check out this video from QNAP to see how easy it is to add cost-effective air-gapped data protection to their NAS with the addition of SymplyPRO SAS LTO and Archiware P5. 


In fast-paced archive settings like media & entertainment, medical, and engineering industries, achieving quick and dependable data storage and retrieval is crucial. Addressing the challenges of timely archiving and restoration requires a solution that boosts both speed and reliability. That’s where Symply’s recommendation of LTO-9 Full Height drives shines. 

Symply offers the broadest range of Full Height LTO-9 drive technologies tailored for various industries, available in different forms such as Thunderbolt 3, SAS, and 10Gb Ethernet connectivity options for both desktop and rack solutions. Full Height drives are specifically engineered for superior performance in environments that demand faster motors and larger data buffers. These enhancements not only accelerate search speeds but also minimize data access time. 

Moreover, the robust loading mechanism of these drives can handle heavy load/unload cycles, making them ideal for intensive read/write operations such as Production (On-Set) Archive, Active Archive, HSM, and more. This reliability and performance make LTO-9 Full Height drives the optimal choice for industries requiring steadfast data handling capabilities. 

Full Height vs Half Height Drives, What’s the Difference? 

Symply provide LTO-9 in both Full Height and Half Height form factors, so let’s have a look at the key differences.  

As you can see the primary difference between LTO-9 Full-Height and Half Height drives is the performance, with the Full Height drive providing an extra 100MB/Sec of throughput with LTO-9 media and giving an extra 60MB/Sec with LTO-8 media in a Full Height LTO-9 drive. 

The specifications also show the difference between the loader mechanism, with the number of load and unload cycles that the respective drives support. Demonstrating the additional robustness of the Full-Height drive. 

What Makes the Full-Height Drive Different? 

For LTO drives, a bigger form factor is better, and brings the following 5 advantages… 

  1. Larger Motors for Performance and Reliability.  The larger form factor of the Full-Height Drives allows for larger motors providing a higher performance in terms of both throughput and seek time.  The larger motors also operate a lower percentage of their designed maximum load making them more reliable.  The additional space within the LTO drive also allow for better cooling efficiency. 
  1. Faster Media Movement and Acceleration.  The faster motors and additional space at the tape heads all Full Height drives allows for the fast movement of the tape media through the drive.  Improving the seek time both forwards and backwards through the tape media.
  1. Greater Tolerance to Vibration and Shock.  The Full Height drive has a much more robust base plate, that aids the structural integrity of the drive, increasing the drive resilience shock and vibration.  
  1. Higher Cartridge Insertion Force Tolerance.  The loading mechanisms on the Full Height drives can handle a significantly greater insertion force.  Although originally designed to better support LTO automation, the mechanism’s robustness is equally advantageous in standalone desktop and rackmount scenarios. 
  1. Higher Performance. As we have seen Full Height Drives provide a higher throughput compared to Half-Height drives.  The combination of larger motors and a better mechanical fabrication make the Full Height drives as a future-proof choice for sustained high-performance applications. 

What makes Full Height Drives a Better Choice for High-Performance Environments? 

While both FH and HH versions share common characteristics, the distinctive features of Full Height LTO-9 tape drives make them the superior choice for demanding environments and specific use cases. The advantages in reliability, performance, and durability of Full Height drives as the preferred solution, where efficiency and speed are paramount. 

Consider that using and LTO-9 Full Height drive instead of a Half-Height LTO-9 drive provides an extra 100MB/Sec of uncompressed performance. Over a period of say an 8-hour working day, it is possible to archive and extra 2.88TB (or an additional 8.64TB in 24hrs).  In a demanding high throughput environment where deadlines are always tight, the performance and reliability advantages of Full Height drives can make all the difference. 

The advantages of Full-Height LTO-9 technology are too good to be only the preserve of automated tape libraries, so Symply decided to bring the technology benefits to a wider audience by creating a series of world’s first products.  Including the first Thunderbolt 3AS connected FH LTO-9 Drive and the first 10Gb Ethernet-connected LTO-9 drive, both available in desktop and 2RU appliances.

We would like to thank you for your valuable time to attend our webinar on Advanced Data Protection with SymplyPRO Ethernet LTO Archiware P5 Archive. In case you missed it, you can click the link below to watch at a time convenient to you.

The SymplyPRO Ethernet LTO appliance is a revolutionary range of desktop and rack-mountable high-performance LTO appliances with Ethernet connectivity designed for Ethernet-based and Hyper-converged environments including media & entertainment, business, enterprises, and datacentres.

Archiware P5 Archive is a software tool providing MAM-like archive to LTO/LTFS and pairs beautifully with SymplyPRO Ethernet LTO for added flexibility. Learn about these two complementary products, and how your Archive infrastructure can gain momentum by employing archive to LTO via iSCSI over 10Gb Ethernet.

Join Archiware’s David Fox and Symply’s Nick Warburton in this 40-minute webinar, in which they overview both product ranges and a show live demo of the solution, and answer questions from attendees.


Symply Redefines Collaborative Shared Storage Workflows with the WORKSPACE XE-R Family of Products    

NAB New York, October 25th 2023 – Symply, a leading provider of media-centric shared storage solutions, proudly unveils the latest addition to its cutting-edge product lineup with the introduction of the SymplyWORKSPACE XE-R family. Building on the resounding success of the revolutionary WORKSPACE XE desktop collaborative storage solution launched earlier this year, the WORKSPACE XE-R promises to redefine shared workflow storage capabilities while prioritising ease of use. 

The WORKSPACE XE-R is available in two highly versatile configurations: a 4RU 24 Bay model and a 4RU 60 Bay variant, both offering a spectrum of storage choices, including HDD, all-flash, and hybrid storage configurations. This innovation represents a significant leap forward in collaborative shared storage solutions, offering an array of features that will transform the way media professionals work. Key features include storage tiering, robust user and project management, seamless hybrid cloud workflows, and optional Media Asset Management (MAM) support, empowering users with transcoding capabilities, local and remote file ingest, browser-based editing, and secure content sharing. 

Keith Warburton, CEO of Symply, stated, “The WORKSPACE XE disrupted the landscape of desktop collaborative storage when it was first introduced at NAB Las Vegas in 2023. Building upon the success of that milestone, we’ve taken innovation to new heights with the WORKSPACE XE-R. This product delivers unprecedented throughput and configuration flexibility while preserving the unmatched simplicity that Symply is renowned for.” 

One of the standout features of the WORKSPACE XE-R is its seamless connectivity through 25Gb or 100Gb Ethernet, thanks to a client-side Ethernet driver optimized for TCP/IP. This architecture ensures that the shared storage is perceived as a block-level local disk device, eliminating the unpredictability associated with network shares. As a result, these systems are engineered to deliver optimal performance across a variety of environments, including Raw 4K and 8K workflows, addressing the fundamental shared storage requirements of diverse media pipelines, including on-set production, postproduction, VFX, broadcasting, houses of worship, sports teams, and agencies. 

The WORKSPACE XE family seamlessly integrates into Symply’s extensive product portfolio, which encompasses hyper-fast Thunderbolt3 shuttle RAID solutions, Thunderbolt3, SAS, and 10Gb Ethernet-connected LTO devices, in-facility and transportable S3 native private cloud storage, as well as high-performance public cloud storage with zero egress charges. These solutions are readily available through Symply’s global network of authorized resellers, known for delivering the Symply Better experience to customers worldwide. 


More information can be found at https://gosymply.com/item/workspace-xe/

Press Contact: 

Roman Minalto 
roman@gosymply.com  | +44(0)1223 228040 
SYMPLY 
Unit 7 Kings Court 
Cambridge
CB4 2PF, UK 

Follow and connect with us on LinkedInYouTubeInstagramFacebook and X for more information.


Press-Release_Symply-Workspace-XE-R-1Download

Hedge Announces New Releases for macOS and Windows

In a recent development, Hedge, the creator of Canister, has unveiled two significant releases, marking a new chapter in their journey as a leading software provider. Following last week’s successful OffShoot release, they are taking a bold step by ensuring its products are fully compatible with both Mac and Windows operating systems. 

The latest update not only brings substantial improvements to Canister on macOS but also introduces Canister for Windows, aligning with Symply’s commitment to eliminate any vendor lock-in for their customers. The end goal is to achieve parity between Windows and macOS, giving users the freedom to choose their preferred computing platform. 

Many people (wrongly) assume Hedges’ macOS and Windows apps share codebases simply because that’s the case with apps like Premiere Pro, Resolve, and Scratch. That approach has a clear downside: you can’t craft beautiful user interfaces and experiences if you can only use what works on both operating systems. To make the most of an app, tune it to what the OS gives you. As a result, Hedge’s apps, do not share code, emphasizing a shared vision and interface design instead. This approach, though time-consuming and resource-intensive, is a testament to their dedication to delivering the best user experience possible. 

A Brief Look Back

Canister’s journey began in early 2017 to bring the same level of usability and design excellence to LTO (Linear Tape-Open) storage as Canister had already achieved with its backup solutions. With a little guidance from the dev team at Symply, Canister evolved to become the innovative software it is today. 

Canister quickly gained recognition for its ability to deliver the usability that LTO technology had always promised but struggled to provide. By addressing the challenges of LTO storage, Canister changed the game for users and garnered praise for its sleek interface and design. 


Canister for Windows: A New Era

The release of Canister for Windows is a result of hard work, dedication, and a commitment to providing a seamless experience on both major operating systems. While Canister for Windows is missing some features available on macOS, such as Spanning and support for simultaneous transfers, Hedge is actively working to bring these features to the Windows version. Canister’s driver manager, Preflight Checks, was designed out of a need for better driver installation on macOS, but it is less necessary on Windows, where installing LTO drivers is a smoother process. 

Hedge plans to add the missing features in future updates while also working on features that can be delivered simultaneously on both platforms, enhancing the user experience. 

Introducing Connect

In a recent update, Canister unveiled the third iteration of Connect, an online dashboard where users can track transfer progress in real-time and receive push notifications when transfers are complete. Connect is accessible from desktops, tablets, and smartphones, providing users with the flexibility to monitor their operations remotely. 

By introducing Connect, Hedge ensures that users are no longer tethered to their workstations during transfers. This feature allows users to monitor LTO transfers remotely, providing peace of mind and a frictionless experience. 

The Future of LTO

LTO technology, often viewed as a relic of the past, is proving its vitality in the modern data storage arena. LTO-9’s Sept 2021 release offered a substantial 18TB, has turned heads, and LTO-10 set to increase capacities again to 35TB native. These significant capacity increases demonstrate that LTO is very much alive and evolving alongside cutting-edge NVMe technology. 

Notably, LTO has adapted over the years, transitioning from SAS to Thunderbolt connectivity. Now, the industry is pushing the envelope further by introducing Ethernet-connected LTO appliances. This innovation brings cost-efficiency and convenience to the forefront. With Ethernet, users can relocate their LTO drive to a machine room while keeping their computer, whether it’s a NUC or Mac Mini, on their desk. This setup eliminates the desk clutter and the need to constantly access the machine room for connections. 

In a constantly shifting data storage landscape, LTO technology’s resilience and adaptability shine through. The addition of Ethernet connectivity enhances its versatility, ensuring that LTO remains a relevant and practical choice for professionals seeking efficient data storage solutions. 

Upgrading and Updating

As always, Canister provides updates for all existing licenses eligible for support. Users can simply click the ‘updates available’ ribbon to access the latest enhancements and features. For those unsure of their license status, Canister provides clear notifications during the updating process and offers options for extending support. 

New Canister licenses, starting from today, include compatibility with both macOS and Windows. Existing Canister license holders looking to switch to Windows or use both operating systems can easily add Windows compatibility for a nominal fee. 

The demand for data will continue to explode, and of that, there is no doubt. An IDC report puts the amount of digital data in the world in 2025 at 163 Zetabytes (ZB). Of course, all of this data is not going to be stored long term, but 11.1 ZB is predicted to be stored long term by 2025, and 60% to 80% of this data is expected to be cold or archival data.  Much of this is driven by Sports, Media and Entertainment (but also Oil & Gas, Healthcare and Surveillance), and those content owners have ever-growing lakes of valuable content that they are either monetising already or are planning to do so.  This is going to be made possible, in large part, by a more widespread adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) tools to make sense of the vast volume of data. 

One of the biggest trends at the moment is processes relating to optimising where content and assets are stored.  There seems to be a lot of truth in the “cloud boomerang” a phenomenon in the Sports, Media and Entertainment industry in which companies are egressing content from public cloud providers and storing, once more, on-premises.  Although this trend is being driven primarily by financial concerns, over both recurring and escalating cloud storage costs, there are other advantages of this migration out of the cloud for customers. 

Companies that are rich in content usually have their media distributed over multiple geographies. This is where cloud native solutions add a tremendous amount of value, with the ability to easily search metadata and deliver content on demand.  In contrast, many public cloud providers do an excellent job of actually siloing content in geos making it difficult to share content within an organisation. To pull together customers’ public and private cloud storage, Media Asset Managers (MAMs) are going to be increasingly leveraged, not only to index the content contained within them, but also to build or enhance workflows, and provide a single point of access across an organisation. 

AI and ML applications that provide transcription, object recognition, and transcoding tools, for example, can be easily set to work on these newly created content lakes. Traditionally many of these tasks were carried out by teams of media professionals, interacting with MAMs, and painstakingly inputting or logging data.  However, the ability to bring AI and ML applications to the content, where performance and processing are unaffected by the constraints of an organization’s connectivity to the public cloud, or the need to migrate between public cloud vendors to access the desired applications. Likewise, content can also easily be accessed by OTT applications to provide an immediate pathway for many companies to make it easy to monetize their assets. 

Choosing a cloud-native solution such as SymplyPERIFERY to host on-prem workloads, provides a rock-solid platform on which to consolidate valuable content, in order to maximize its longevity, governance, security, and sovereignty while applying AI/ML toolchains to harvest the content’s inherent value to an organization.  What’s more the performance and scalability of SymplyPERIFERY remains under the direct control of customers, who not only benefit from improved performance, but also from consolidation, and the ability to more accurately predict their costs.    

As a company, Symply helps customers implement this on-premises-first (OPF) Hybrid Cloud infrastructure model, which prioritises on-premises workflows enabling customers to unlock the advantages already discussed and treats the public cloud as an enhancer that can be removed or changed without disruption to operations.  Thus, enabling organisations to preserve operations, applications, function, and performance, while allowing them to continue to grow and protecting them against the cost unpredictability of the public cloud. 

The SymplyPRO Ethernet LTO appliances enable Acceleration and De-centralisation of Data Protection   

Cambridge, Great Britain – 5th September 2023Symply, a pioneering technology company specializing in professional storage solutions, is thrilled to announce the launch of a new range of cutting-edge LTO appliances with Ethernet connectivity that expands the SymplyPRO family. Designed for Ethernet-based and Hyper-converged environments including media & entertainment, enterprises and datacentres, the SymplyPRO Ethernet LTO appliances provide secure, shared access to LTO tape drives over a 10Gb Ethernet network.

Elevating Data Protection with Network Efficiency  

By deploying the appliances on a network, organizations can reduce reliance on dedicated and expensive servers by dispersing and de-centralising data protection tasks with readily available high-speed access to Linear Tape-Open (LTO) technology.  

Unparalleled Configuration Flexibility  

SymplyPRO Ethernet LTO appliances are available with half-height LTO drives in single and dual-drive desktop and 1RU configurations, with 2RU rackmount configurations featuring full-height LTO drives offering native performance up to 400MB/sec per drive. Dual 10Gb Ethernet SFP+ interfaces offer flexibility in network connectivity. The appliance can support either an additional two LTO drives via a SymplyPRO SAS LTO making a total of four LTOs, or the appliance can be connected to a LTO tape library installed with one or two LTO drives, providing maximum flexibility. 

The Heart of Performance: A Potent ARM Processor  

At the core of these appliances lies a potent ARM processor, enabling lightning-fast command processing and data traversal on distinct pathways. This results in maximum block transfer sizes to the LTO drives across the Ethernet network, while integrated data acceleration technology ensures optimal performance without straining host system compute resources. Resultantly, SymplyPRO Ethernet LTO appliances provide a remarkable 20% performance increase over conventional SAS-connected LTO drives. With dedicated Dual 10Gb Ethernet network connectivity, client systems can achieve aggregated performance of up to 2,000MB/sec when reading from or writing to the LTO appliances.  

Your Pathway to Enterprise-Class LTO Storage  

“Our vision for these new Ethernet-connected appliances is to make enterprise-class LTO storage readily accessible for organizations of all sizes,” said Keith Warburton, CEO of Symply. “By moving LTO to a dedicated Ethernet fabric, a user experiences a new level of performance, scalability, and dispersed ease of use for important data protection initiatives.”  

Key features of the new SymplyPRO Ethernet LTO appliances include: 

The new SymplyPRO Ethernet LTO appliances are available to order now starting at $7999 and can be seen on the Symply stand at IBC 2023, Hall 7, Stand C21.


More information can be found at https://gosymply.com/item/ethernet-lto/ 

About Symply: 

Symply is a forward-thinking, dynamic technology company based in Cambridge, Great Britain, specializing in cutting-edge storage solutions. With a dedication to innovation, performance, and security, Symply continues to redefine data management for creative professionals, businesses, and enterprises worldwide. 

Press Contact: 

Roman Minalto 
Roman@gosymply.com  | +44(0)1223 228040 
SYMPLY 
Unit 7 Kings Court 
Cambridge
CB4 2PF, UK 

Follow and connect with us on LinkedInYouTubeInstagramFacebook and X for more information.


Press Release_Symply Ethernet LTODownload

SPARK XT: Unleash Your full potential with Mach.2 Drives


In the world of storage solutions, the SymplySPARK XT has emerged as a true game-changer. At first glance, it may appear similar to its predecessor, the SymplySPARK 8-bay Thunderbolt 3 Shuttle RAID, with its durable all-metal enclosure, integrated carry handle, dual Thunderbolt 3 ports, a whisper-quiet fan, and premium replaceable power supply, all bundled in a customized NANUK 950 impact-resistant wheeled carry case. However, the real magic lies within the SPARK XT’s hard disk drive technology, featuring the groundbreaking Seagate MACH.2 drives.

Unparalleled Performance

Prepare to be amazed by the remarkable performance delivered by the Seagate MACH.2 hard disk drives featured in the SPARK XT. These drives redefine the boundaries of what traditional hard drives can achieve, boasting staggering sustained speeds of over 500MB/sec, comparable to Solid State Drives (SSDs). With a spinning speed of 7,200 RPM and impressive capacities of 14TB or 18TB, the SPARK XT, with the help of its hardware RAID controller, achieves real-world read speeds of 2,500MB/second and write speeds of 2,000MB/second when configured as a RAID 5. Undoubtedly, the SPARK XT currently holds the title of the fastest high-capacity 8-bay Thunderbolt 3 RAID available on the market.

SPARK XT read-write

The Marvels of MACH.2 Technology

At the heart of the Seagate MACH.2 drives lies an innovative multi-actuator technology, which sets them apart from their predecessors. Traditionally, hard drives have relied on CMR (conventional magnetic recording), employing perpendicular magnetic recording on circular disk platters to store data. These platters, made of a glass substrate, consist of concentric grooves housing countless tiny magnetic grains representing the binary language of computers. The platters spin rapidly, facilitated by helium gas to reduce friction and accommodate multiple platters. An actuator arm equipped with a read/write head flies closely over the platters to change or retrieve data.

Seagate’s MACH.2 drives introduce a ground-breaking advancement by incorporating two actuators instead of one. This design change addresses the performance limitation inherent in hard drives as their capacities increase. Physics dictates that performance in terms of input-output operations per second per terabyte tends to decrease with rising capacities. By doubling the number of actuators, Seagate effectively doubles the IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second) performance per terabyte of their MACH.2 drives, resulting in an astonishing boost in performance. This brilliant concept showcases the remarkable engineering behind Seagate’s technology.

Mach2 multi-actuator

Empowering Performance and Capacity

In practical terms, the performance of a MACH.2 hard drive is effectively twice that of a comparable single-actuator hard disk drive. These drives provide performance akin to SATA SSDs while offering capacities of 14TB and 18TB per drive. What’s more, the price point of MACH.2 drives align with regular enterprise hard drives, making them an attractive choice for users seeking high-speed, high-capacity storage solutions without breaking the bank. The combination of speed and capacity makes the SPARK XT an unparalleled solution at Symply.

The Perfect Fusion

In essence, the SPARK XT seamlessly integrates Seagate’s MACH.2 technology into its Thunderbolt 3 storage solution, delivering ultra-fast, high-performance, and high-capacity capabilities to users. The SPARK XT not only provides exceptional bandwidth but also sustains performance levels as the RAID fills up with content, resulting in a superior user experience. Many users have transitioned from competing high-performance SSD Thunderbolt RAIDs to the SPARK XT for its cost-effectiveness and higher capacity without compromising performance. In fact, the SPARK XT’s RAID controller efficiency outshines SSD-based RAID systems in real-world, concurrent read/write workflows.

The SymplySPARK XT is available in two capacities: 112TB and 144TB. These configurations are perfectly suited for a range of demanding applications such as creative on-set workflows, DIT (Digital Imaging Technician) setups, post-production environments, and other data movement tasks that require top-notch performance.

Mach2 multi-actuator

Conclusion

With the SymplySPARK XT, the possibilities for high-speed, high-capacity Thunderbolt 3 storage solutions have been revolutionized. The integration of Seagate’s MACH.2 technology propels the SPARK XT to the forefront of the market, offering unmatched performance and reliability. Whether you are a creative professional, a post-production expert, or anyone requiring lightning-fast data storage, the SPARK XT is the ideal solution to fulfill your needs. Explore the power of SymplySPARK XT and unlock a new level of storage excellence.

For further information, please visit our website or contact us at hello@gosymply.com

CONTACT US

US
(818) 650-1065
UK
+44 1223 228040
DE
+49 (89) 26207042
Email
hello@gosymply.com
© 2025 Symply
magnifierchevron-down linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram