The News: Nyriad exhibited their new UltraIO storage system at NAB 2023 in Las Vegas. UltraIO is a block storage system that uses GPUs for erasure coding of hard disk drives (HDDs). Erasure coding can protect from more device failures within a group (depending on the protection settings) and the use of GPUs will greatly accelerate the protection and the rebuild processes after a device failure. The acceleration makes a dramatic improvement in performance compared to when those processes are in progress. Read additional details on Nyriad UltraIO here.
Nyriad Exhibits their New UltraIO Block Storage System at NAB 2023
Analyst Take: The NAB show was an opportunity for Nyriad to showcase their sequential performance of UltraIO for video with different file systems. Large, sequential I/Os dominate the video performance demands in the Media & Entertainment market and Nyriad’s use of GPUs increases the bandwidth for sequential transfers.
The TCO value for data storage with low acquisition costs of HDDs protected for long term storage by GPU accelerated erasure codes gives customers an alternative to use of tape and more expensive disk-based systems.
Nyriad will be sold through channel partners – which is especially important in the M&E market.
How Nyriad Will Give Customers More Options
Supporting a variety of file systems that can be deployed on Nyriad increases the potential number of customers, allowing those with preferences, usually due to familiarity, to choose the Nyriad storage system as the platform for the file system. The value for Nyriad, aside from the sequential performance capability, is in the economics of protecting HDDs over a long period of time. This will give customers more options in storing their videos and other data files. I found the use of GPUs as a significant element in that longer term storage argument to be very intriguing. It will be very interesting to understand the economics that have factored into customer decisions.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
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Author Information
Randy draws from over 35 years of experience in helping storage companies design and develop products. As a partner at Evaluator Group and now The Futurum Group, he spends much of his time advising IT end-user clients on architectures and acquisitions.
Previously, Randy was Vice President of Storage and Planning at Sun Microsystems. He also developed disk and tape systems for the mainframe attachment at IBM, StorageTek, and two startup companies. Randy also designed disk systems at Fujitsu and Tandem Computers.
Prior to joining The Futurum Group, Randy served as the CTO for ProStor, where he brought products to market addressing a long-term archive for Information Technology and the Healthcare and Media/Entertainment markets.
He has also written numerous industry articles and papers as an educator and presenter, and he is the author of two books: Planning a Storage Strategy and Information Archiving – Economics and Compliance. The latter is the first book of its kind to explore information archiving in depth. Randy regularly teaches classes on Information Management technologies in the U.S. and Europe.
