iodyne Pro Data Review – StorageReview.com

The iodyne Pro Data is the corporate’s first product; a laptop computer-sized RAID enclosure containing twelve NVMe SSDs. This system is primarily centered on artistic skilled purposes, particularly the movie trade the place massive quantities of information delivered at excessive speeds are vital. The firm claims as much as 5GB/s in switch speeds utilizing their novel Thunderbolt Multipathing, which aggregates two Thunderbolt 3 ports to extend total bandwidth.

The iodyne Pro Data is the corporate’s first product; a laptop computer-sized RAID enclosure containing twelve NVMe SSDs. This system is primarily centered on artistic skilled purposes, particularly the movie trade the place massive quantities of information delivered at excessive speeds are vital. The firm claims as much as 5GB/s in switch speeds utilizing their novel Thunderbolt Multipathing, which aggregates two Thunderbolt 3 ports to extend total bandwidth.

The Pro Data helps RAID0 and RAID6 out of the field. There is {hardware} RAID that’s dealt with by an SoC within the system, however the use and configuration of the Pro Data requires the software program to be put in on every laptop, however fortuitously, no downloads are wanted. If you plug the Pro Data into a brand new machine, you’re introduced with a quantity that incorporates the installer, which is nice for rapidly including new methods to the workflow.

There are some caveats I’ll get into, however total, the software program works fairly effectively. Some background on myself; I’m an IATSE Local 600 Digital Imaging Technician and this product is designed virtually precisely for folks like me and my work. Let’s get into the specs, observe up with workflow examples, and at last some benchmark and actual-world outcomes.

For this evaluation, I’m working with the 12TB Pro Data. That carries a price ticket of $3,950 on the iodyne store.

iodyne Pro Data Specifications 

Capacity	12TB or 24TB (helps as much as 576TB over six models)
Connectivity	8x Thunderbolt 3 ports, 15W Power Delivery
Performance	Up to 5GB/s
Operating System	macOS 10.15+
Power	180W Power Brick (20V 9A)
Dimensions	15.39″ x 10″ x 1.22″, 7.3 lbs 39.1cm x 25.4cm x 3.1cm, 3.3kg
Additional Features	RAID6 and RAID0 XTS-AES-256 Encryption with Hardware Secure Enclave NVMe Thunderbolt Multipathing as much as 4x paths Multi-User connectivity for as much as 4x computer systems Storage Handoff between related computer systems Dynamic Containers with as much as 15 containers per system RAID Levels per-Container with adaptive striping and parity Automatic SSD Fault Management and RAID Resilvering
Warranty	1 yr normal, 3yr with iodyne Cloud Account. SSD alternative free below guarantee.
Endurance	12TB – 6000TBW 24TB – 8000TBW
In The Box	iodyne Pro Data 180W AC Power Brick 0.7m Thunderbolt 3 Cables Vertical Stand

There are a few asterisks so as to add to the specs listing. First with capability; iodyne at present solely affords the Pro Data preloaded with twelve 1TB or 2TB drives, although when you’ve got particular wants or a naked chassis you may contact them instantly. Its declare of supporting 576TB is formidable, needing six models daisy-chained utilizing 96 8TB drives. However, you could possibly rise up to 96TB in a single unit at present utilizing twelve 8TB drives, that are available as QLC fashions. Cost apart, there’s a compelling argument to be made should you require that a lot storage, as nothing else comes near this degree of efficiency in a package deal this dimension, whereas additionally providing all the opposite options that the Pro Data does.

Second, OS assist is at present macOS solely (each Intel and Apple Silicon are supported and from what I can inform, the app runs natively on Apple Silicon), however Windows and Linux assist is coming and is at present in beta. You can sign up to check it should you’d like.

Third, just a few readability on the Thunderbolt 3 ports; there are eight of them, however it’d be higher to consider it as 4 pairs of ports. Each pair is an upstream and downstream port (doesn’t matter which) for daisy-chaining units, together with a number of Pro Datas if you wish to go loopy. Each port can present 15W of energy supply, which is sufficient to hold your MacE-book topped up, however that’s about it. This is moot on 2021 MacE-book Pros as they’ll cost with MagSafe and moot on older MacBooks when you’ve got a Thunderbolt hub that gives energy, which most individuals utilizing this system will.

iodyne Pro Data Design and Repairability

The iodyne Pro Data is constructed like a tank and weighs as a lot as one, too. This is actually not a light-weight, on-the-go system, however it wasn’t designed to be. It’s about the identical kind issue as a (thick) 15-inch class laptop computer, however weighs in at over 7lbs (over 3kgs). For reference, that’s a couple of and a half 16-inch 2021 MacE-book Pros. It comes with a vertical stand to make the place you stash it simpler, and the stands can even interlock with one another should you’re rocking a number of Pro Datas. It additionally features a 180W energy adapter that, regardless of being Gallium Nitride, can also be massive.

The system runs on 20V at as much as 9 amps, so including to a 12V or 24V energy system on a DIT cart received’t be seamless, however it runs on related voltages and related amperage necessities as most Thunderbolt docks, such because the CalDigit TS4 or OWC Thunderbolt Hub, so it’s not unattainable to implement. The complete factor is aluminum with ample vents for its three blower-fashion followers to maintain issues cool below heavy masses. There are some seen orange LEDs internally and I’m personally keen on their selection of purple because the LED colour for normal operation.

iodyne has been clear from the get-go that this system was designed to be repairable, and I’ve at hand it to them, they did an amazing job with that. Personally, proper-to-restore is a matter that’s crucial to me and I’d be remiss to not use my place right here to reward corporations like iodyne for embracing that. It’s not excellent, however it’s a superb begin they usually’ve even gone so far as publishing their own iFixIt articles on disassemble the Pro Data.

All the essential components you would want to entry at residence or on location are accessible with a handful of screws. Two Phillips #2 screws on the facet can help you pop the facet panel off, revealing all 12 NVMe SSDs, that are every held in by a single Phillips #1 screw. Three hex screws maintain within the fan shroud, which gives entry to the blowers for cleansing or alternative, which themselves are held in by just one extra hex screw every.

If I needed to be vital of the repairability, it’d be the usage of a number of various kinds of screws, particularly the Torx bit required to take away the remainder of the chassis. As far as I can inform, there’s no purpose the entire system can’t be assembled with fewer varieties of screw heads and the variations solely add complexity. Also, a really minor gripe however I’ve to say it, the 2 Phillips screws to take away the facet panel are non-ferrous and a little bit of a ache to get out since they’re not magnetic. These minor complaints are by no means a deal-breaker and total, I give iodyne plenty of credit score for doing what they’ve performed. Even if it looks as if the minimal, most tech corporations exit of their technique to stop repairability, so iodyne is firmly doing the proper factor right here.

The software program facet can also be good for repairability. They present lifespan knowledge on all of the SSDs and a diagram of their bodily location within the system to assist establish the issue if one fails. The errors are introduced clearly and inform you precisely what’s fallacious, versus a generic “contact assist” message. I bought the message above after I tousled reassembly and it made repairing the difficulty fast and straightforward. Having a visible illustration of which fan was the difficulty was nice.

Workflow

The iodyne Pro Data is designed primarily for media and inventive professionals, particularly folks working with massive knowledge units like excessive decision, low compression footage. More particularly, it’s designed for media and inventive professionals who need to collaborate on the go. This system received’t exchange a correct NAS, which would supply actual-time collaboration on the identical recordsdata on the identical time, however the choice to be on a location shoot for an prolonged time period and have a good facsimile of a NAS is a pleasant bump to collaborative productiveness.

It additionally beats having to lug round a devoted NAS, and most received’t even come near the efficiency of the Pro Data, even the QNAP TVS-872XT I reviewed a 12 months in the past that’s Thunderbolt-capable has a fraction of the throughput of this. Most importantly, it’s not making an attempt to interchange a devoted server {that a} staff of editors could be working off of.

So what’s the iodyne Pro Data making an attempt to do? It’s making an attempt to make on-set media administration and collaboration with Digital Imaging Technicians, Loaders, and Editors extra handy and most significantly, means sooner. iodyne has just a few methods up their sleeves to attain this.

First and foremost is their Thunderbolt Multipathing. This is precisely what it seems like; join two Thunderbolt cables and also you get double the throughput. In the true world, it’s not a linear doubling as there’s appreciable overhead with the multipathing firmware to attain this, however there’s completely an enormous increase to efficiency. Enough that, relying in your utility, sacrificing a Thunderbolt port in your laptop could also be well worth the improve in velocity. The different trick is the flexibility at hand off containers to different connected computer systems by way of their software program.

In my testing, the handoff was quick and seamless and admittedly, I used to be very impressed with how straightforward it was. This does require every laptop connected to the Pro Data (at present as much as 4) have their software program put in, however plugging the system into a brand new system presents you with a small container that has the software program proper there, no want to hook up with the web or obtain something. Once arrange, it’s so simple as clicking “Handoff to..” or “Request Handoff” and that’s it.

Even if the container is password-protected, handing off bypasses the necessity to enter it, which for my part is nice and provides to the seamlessness of the method. Speaking of, the Pro Data software program affords glorious safety features and password-protected containers to maintain knowledge compartmentalized if wanted.

Speaking of, organising the Pro Data isn’t tough, however it does require a restart or two and requires turning off Secure Boot in macOS, although this isn’t an enormous deal. In my work, I have already got this disabled for the set up of a number of completely different items {of professional} software program, such because the Codex Device Manager. As talked about earlier, the software program and system extensions for the Thunderbolt multipathing must be put in on every machine that’s related to the Pro Data, however this solely must be performed as soon as.

So again to the precise workflow. Let me provide you with an instance of how you could possibly use the Pro Data to one of the best of its skills. Say, hypothetically, I’m on location within the Cayman Islands doing media administration and transcodes for a movie and dealing carefully with the editor who’s with us. I can arrange three RAID6 containers: one for me, one for the editor, and one to share. I can offload the media from the every day shuttles to the primary container, arrange my software program to dump the transcoded recordsdata into the second container, then hand that container off to the editor to import into the mission that they’re engaged on within the third container.

They can begin engaged on the recordsdata immediately whereas my laptop continues to churn by way of the footage. It additionally lets the editor work uninterrupted whereas I do one thing else with the footage, like evaluation it with the Director of Photography. It additionally provides me the choice to password shield my container and provides the Pro Data to the editor and by no means fear about having the footage already there being disturbed in any means. This setup may also be utilized to a DIT and Loader workflow.

This performance is nice, however we additionally know that DITs aren’t essentially the most sociable bunch of individuals and direct face-to-face collaboration possibly isn’t for you. Fortunately, at the same time as a standalone system, the Pro Data makes a good on-set RAID for normal use. It is massive, and it’s type of heavy, and I personally am not a fan of including one other AC energy brick to my assortment, however the commerce-off is an all-flash RAID array with efficiency that’s effectively past what’s required for many jobs.

My every day driver is an 8TB OWC Express 4M2 and whereas I like that factor, it’s restricted in capability in comparison with the Pro Data. Keep in thoughts the Pro Data has twelve NVMe SSDs in it and, if cash isn’t any object, you may cram 96TB of uncooked storage in right here with twelve 8TB drives (the most important dimension accessible as of this writing). Alright, alright, I’ve teased it sufficient at this level. Let’s get to the efficiency.

iodyne Pro Data Performance

Let’s get to the meat and potatoes of this system. Simply put, it’s quick. But let me throw an enormous asterisk subsequent to that, as a result of it’s quick…for a Thunderbolt system. And it’s quick, however not in each situation. And it’s quick, however possibly not the place it counts in your workflow.

First, let’s have a look at the numbers then break them down. Testing was performed with amorphousDiskMark (the macOS analog to CrystalDiskMark) on a 2021 MacE-book Pro (macOS 12.2.1, 16”, M1 Max, 32GB RAM) and outcomes had been sanity-checked on a 2018 Mac mini (macOS 10.15.17, i7-8700B, 32GB RAM).

I examined RAID0 and RAID6 containers with 4GiB and 64GiB of take a look at knowledge, the latter testing for over a half-hour to simulate longer sustained workloads which are widespread in movie and tv. The Pro Data was operating the newest firmware (1.1.3) as of March 22, 2022.

Using a single Thunderbolt cable, the Pro Data was remarkably constant in learn speeds, placing up over 3,100MB/s in all configurations. This indicated to me that this is absolutely the quickest velocity you will get with a single cable, which isn’t dangerous contemplating my every day driver OWC Express 4M2 can solely handle about 2,300MB/s in reads.

The Read speeds with two cables, and leveraging iodyne’s Thunderbolt multipathing, exhibits the place their innovation shines. With about 5,000MB/s throughput throughout the board, my testing validates their claims of 5GB/s of efficiency. There had been even just a few runs that went as much as about 5,300MB/s, which is spectacular, to say the least.

The write speeds are the place the aforementioned “buts” present up. The quickest velocity I used to be in a position to obtain was about 2,150MB/s utilizing two cables in RAID0. RAID6 has, as anticipated, even worse efficiency, and admittedly is slower than some shuttle drives, albeit with none knowledge resiliency. This is slower than one thing just like the 4M2 which might’t supply the identical capability because the Pro Data, however is significantly smaller and cheaper.

It is value noting, one of the best single-cable efficiency was in RAID0 with 64GiB of information, which implies this system is not going to throttle in steady workloads and virtually appears to carry out higher the longer you employ it, which is definitely crucial for typical on-set workflows.

These speeds are constant on each the Mac mini and the MacE-book Pro, which had 50MB/s of variance most. I additionally examined hitting the system with each computer systems on the identical time with two cables per laptop. With amorphousDiskMark operating 16GiB of information in sequential, I noticed about 2700MB/s Read and 1150MB/s Write in two RAID0 containers on each machines. The containers had been a 50/50 cut up on the whole storage pool, and it’s unclear how iodyne provisions the containers throughout the SSDs. Based on this efficiency, I think about the containers are striped throughout all drives, versus provisioning six SSDs to at least one pool, and 6 to a different.

These outcomes are additionally within the ballpark of what iodyne has posted in an article on their own website, which additionally dives into completely different purposes and their completely different outcomes. They clarify the speculation behind queue depth and issues like that should you’re excited by studying extra about why that issues and the way it interprets to actual-world use. In any case, for duties which are straight sequential writes, like ingesting plenty of footage concurrently, the Pro Data falls a bit quick in comparison with different units normally present in a DIT’s arsenal. This turns the Pro Data from a “positively” suggestion to an “it relies upon” suggestion, which I’ll clarify extra within the conclusion.

Conclusion

The iodyne Pro Data is nice. That’s about one of the best summation I might give, all issues thought of. As I discussed above, the much less-than-stellar write speeds type of restrict its use as a do-all system. If you’re in a scenario the place you have got eight cameras taking pictures 8K uncooked, this simply isn’t going to chop it. If you end up collaborating face-to-face typically, whether or not or not it’s with an editor or a Loader, the workflow fashion that the Pro Data affords could also be for you. If you’re working lengthy-time period on a documentary or one thing you too can use it at hand off between a number of folks securely.

I didn’t dive an excessive amount of into it on this evaluation, however the Pro Data has glorious safety and encryption for initiatives that want that further degree of safety, so in case your mission requires that, this firmly checks that field. If your work is extra in put up-manufacturing, the second-to-none learn speeds of this system might suit your wants completely. VFX artists or editors working instantly with uncompressed footage will enormously profit from the efficiency provided.

The Pro Data is concentrating on a distinct segment market and much more area of interest use-instances inside that market. I’ve introduced you with my ideas and the information, however in my expertise, should you want this sort of system, you already realize it. With that stated, should you’re in search of a do-it-all system to interchange one thing just like the OWC Express 4M2, this won’t be precisely what you need. It actually received’t disappoint however it won’t impress both.

If this does pique your curiosity and also you assume this may suit your wants, I can absolutely suggest it. The construct high quality is superb, the repairability is a significant plus for me personally, the assist appears glorious, and the staff at iodyne appears very receptive to ideas, which might’t be undervalued for a tool designed for a bunch as small as skilled DITs, Editors, and the like. The Pro Data simply falls a bit quick in efficiency for it to be an throughout-the-board suggestion.

With that stated, I will probably be taking the Pro Data with me on a month-lengthy job in a foreign country the place I will probably be doing media administration and transcodes for 3 cameras taking pictures gradual-movement uncooked footage. I’ll put it by way of its paces with some actual-world workloads with actual footage and work instantly with an editor who will probably be with us on location. We’ll see how effectively it does! Be positive to look out for the observe-up piece on the iodyne Pro Data within the coming months.

iodyne product page

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