LAS VEGAS — Fusion-io has announced that the ioFX workstation acceleration platform is now available with 1.6 TB of capacity, in addition to the original 420 GB form factor.
The high capacity ioFX is ideal for video editing, computer assisted design (CAD), 4K and stereoscopic production, as well as digital intermediate (DI) finishing.
"Digital production is undergoing a resolution revolution as production moves to 4K and beyond, while production budgets and deadlines continue to tighten," said Vincent Brisebois, Fusion-io Director of Visual Computing. "To overcome these opposing forces, the Fusion ioFX can help digital artists efficiently deliver creative work faster, even when faced with the most demanding production requirements. Fusion-io is proud to collaborate with industry leading software developers and hardware companies to deliver breakthrough acceleration for the tools used by professional artists worldwide."
Based on the Fusion ioMemory platform trusted to accelerate data centers around the world, the 1.6 TB Fusion ioFX significantly improves workstation application performance. The Fusion ioFX removes traditional data storage bottlenecks to allow high performance CPUs and graphics processing units (GPUs) to operate at their full potential, enabling artists to composite, edit, playback and finish digital content with significantly greater speed and efficiency. The ioFX is also ideal for encoding, transcoding, particle simulations and working with large amounts of cached data.
Connecting via PCI Express, the ioFX is also available in a 420 GB capacity to provide artists with choice in selecting the ideal capacity for their applications. To help professionals maximize the capabilities of today's powerful applications for digital content creation, Fusion-io has worked closely with the industry's leading entertainment hardware and software providers to optimize the ioFX for visual effects production.
"Nvidia GPUs provide powerful performance to professional workstations, which is further boosted with the ioFX high speed memory platform," said Greg Estes, industry executive, media and entertainment, NVIDIA. "ioFX dramatically increases the amount of high-resolution content that can be sent to NVIDIA Quadro graphics boards for processing at extremely high speeds, enabling better artist interactivity and, ultimately, better client satisfaction for our customers."
"From accelerating 3D painting in MARI, to reviewing shots in HIERO, to compositing in NUKE, Fusion ioFX adds powerful acceleration that can significantly enhance our applications," said Bruno Nicoletti, Head of Technology and Founder at The Foundry. "All of our software is designed to remove as many technical barriers from production as possible, and Fusion-io acceleration takes that one step further with the ioFX integrated into artist workstations. As the amount of data artists work with in today's high resolution formats continues to increase, the ioFX can help creatives spend more time manipulating their work with much more interactivity than before."
Fusion ioMemory software enables Fusion-io products to transparently deliver peak performance through an advanced operating system architecture that cuts through the latency introduced by hard drives and solid state disks. Fusion ioMemory products such as the ioFX also include Fusion ioSphere remote monitoring and management software, allowing IT teams to monitor and manage all Fusion-io solutions deployed throughout a studio from a single interface.
The 1.6 TB Fusion ioFX will be available in summer 2013. List price will be disclosed when the product is released. The 420 GB ioFX is available now from Fusion-io for a list price of $1995 USD.