SYMPLY shows off hard drives with SSD performance at NAB 2022

At this year's NAB show we caught up with Symply to find out about its new ultra-fast Spark shuttle drives.

NAB is about more than just cameras and camera equipment. In an on-set environment or in a studio, storage is an incredibly important consideration. We spoke to Symply about its latest offerings, which include the SymplySPARK and the SymplySPARK XT, which are designed for production and studio environments.

With up to 144TB capacity for the SymplySPARK and 112TB for the SymplySPARK XT, the new drives promise to be ultra-quiet, making them ideal for on-set use. They even feature a studio mode, which dims the drive lights on the front of the device.

In the case of the SymplySPARK XT, Founder and CRO, Alex Grossmann, tells us about how they manage to achieve SSD type speeds using hard drives and multi-actuator technology, and the positive effect on cost this has for the products. In a live demonstration the drive achieved speeds over 2000MB per second. If that wasn't enough, the drive system is fully user serviceable, with Symply providing a kit, including a high quality screwdriver, with a spare fan and power supply.

Alex also takes us through the company's new ultra-fast Thunderbolt 3 LTO drives, which can achieve speeds of 400MB per second, and integral power supply. With innovations such as a SAS pass through port, the new drives can make older SAS based LTO drives Thunderbolt 3 compatible.

I've only scratched the surface here, and if you thought storage couldn't be interesting, it's worth watching the video below and be educated. Symply is creating products that are very well thought through, and cater for the needs of production professionals in ways that we're not seeing elsewhere.