NSM5200 Series Network Storage Manager 250 MBPS RECORDING THROUGHPUT, UP TO 36 TB OF RAW CAPACITY, RAID 6

• Recording Throughput up to 250 Mbps Meets Demanding
  Performance Requirements for Write-Intensive Applications
• Hardware Designed to Eliminate Single Points of Failure, Including Redundant Fans, Power Supplies, and RAID 6 Storage for Optimum Reliability
• Pooled Storage Management Provides Automatic Distributed Load Balancing and Active-Active Failover Within a Storage Pool to Ensure Continued Recording if Catastrophic Failure Occurs
• Hot Standby Failover Provides Redundancy in Installations Where Storage Pooling Cannot Be Utilized.
• Multicast Recording Support Allows for Recording of Multicast Data Streams for Restricted Bandwidth Scenarios
• Redundant Recording Ensures Duplication of Vital Data for Mission-Critical Applications
• Built-in EnduraStor™ Storage Management Increases Storage Efficiency by Grooming Recorded Streams Based on Age and Priority
• Ability to Serve 32 Simultaneous Playback Streams Per Storage Pool
• Performance Levels Maintained in Normal and RAID Error Conditions
• Built-in Diagnostic Monitoring Provides Preventative Maintenance and SNMP Monitoring
• Reduced Cost of Ownership and Increased Energy Efficiency Through Consolidation of Multiple Hardware Components into a Fully Integrated Chassis

The NSM5200 Series delivers industry leading performance and innovation for mission-critical storage needs. The combination of high performance, scalable hardware design and advanced software capabilities enables the NSM5200 to meet the unique storage needs of physical security and surveillance applications.

Hardware Built for Performance, Reliability, and Scalability

The demands of surveillance applications place unique strains on storage subsystems. Storage systems require the bandwidth and capacity to keep up with incoming streams. They must also simultaneously manage all other common disk and RAID functions. In addition, physical security applications are almost always mission critical. Any downtime, degraded performance for routine maintenance, or loss of recorded footage is extremely disruptive to the organization’s physical security mission.

The NSM5200 has been engineered to meet these unique performance and reliability demands. Custom hardware components, to eliminate common performance choke points to a patented scheme for writing content to a disk drive, have been specifically designed to deliver sustained high throughput for recording and playback. The NSM5200 is capable of a maximum of 250 Mbps of throughput for incoming streams while delivering 32 simultaneous playback streams per storage pool. This performance is maintained whether the system is operating under normal conditions, dealing with disk drive errors, or rebuilding the RAID array.

The NSM5200 improves the total cost of ownership and energy efficiency by consolidating disparate components into a single chassis. The 250 Mbps throughput provides double the improvement over Pelco’s first generation integrated recorder, allowing users to service far more data streams in one storage unit than previously possible. In addition, with the integration of the management server functionality into the storage chassis, cost and energy efficiency is optimized by eliminating the cost of additional servers and the associated heating, ventilation, and cooling costs. Finally, the use of lower power components and adaptive cooling inside the chassis manage power dissipation based on load requirements.

Reliability is enhanced through the use of redundancy at all common failure points. A CompactFlash card is used to host the operating system for higher reliability than traditional hard disk drives. To mitigate any downtime resulting from CompactFlash errors, the database is striped across the storage array. The RAID 6 storage configuration provides double parity protection of recorded data. The hard drive bay is cooled through the use of high capacity, redundant fans to ensure that the drives are kept at an optimum operating temperature. Finally, fully redundant power supplies guard against any power supply failure.

As with any other system, maintenance is an important and vital part of sustained operation. The NSM5200 incorporates various innovations to make maintenance more efficient and to allow the system to continue operating at peak performance levels. Easy access to hard disk drives and the CompactFlash card is available from the front panel. A unique rail system allows access to a failed fan should it need to be replaced. Temperature sensors throughout the chassis detect possible air-flow obstruction or clogged intake filters. The use of enterprise-class SAS® technology provides advanced enclosure management and monitoring. Notifications of potential or actual issues are transmitted to the specified user interfaces for action.

Storage capacity is scaled using third-party storage arrays with an optional fibre channel interface.

Software Built for Flexibility, Reliability, Cost

Optimization

In addition to unique strains placed on hardware components, surveillance applications also demand innovations in software. Recording software must accommodate automatic failover should a catastrophic failure occur. Recording software must deal with file fragmentation caused by overwrite, locking of video clips, and managing metadata associated with alarms and events. Finally, recording software must deal with the escalating cost of storage by finding innovative ways to manage recorded content. This ensures that the user extracts the most value from the cost of the storage subsystem.

The NSM5200 supports the pooling of multiple recorders to provide for automatic load balancing and failover. Up to twenty NSM5200 nodes can be placed into the same storage pool. One of the NSM5200s in the pool acts as the master and manages the assignment of incoming streams, health monitoring, and redistribution of the recording load. Should a unit fail, the given streams are automatically redistributed to the remaining units in the storage pool. When the failed unit is brought back on line, the recording load is distributed again such that the load on any given recorder is balanced. This capability also allows users to dynamically add additional storage to a pool as their retention needs change. Single NSM5200s can be monitored by another NSM5200 or an entire storage pool when the single NSM5200 cannot be incorporated into a standard storage pool.

For mission-critical applications where business continuity is essential, the NSM5200 supports redundant recording. Independent schedules can be created on both the primary and redundant storage pools to ensure that the most vital data is duplicated across physical boundaries.

The NSM5200 incorporates an improved version of Pelco’s patented EnduraStor™ storage optimization technology. EnduraStor was developed to manage the cost of storing high resolution, high-frame rate video by leveraging the fact that the value of recorded video is typically higher immediately following an incident. Organizations are capable of specifying a desired delay period during which all recorded video will be kept at 30 images per second (25 for PAL). As the age of video available on hard disk drives exceeds the delay period, it is automatically groomed to a lower frame rate, thus freeing up storage capacity for new data. The NSM5200 incorporates advancements in the EnduraStor algorithm, which gives administrators the option of classifying the priority level of alarm or event video to retain the full frame rate.

The NSM5200 is built upon the proven stability and robustness of its Linux®-based operating system. It utilizes an XFS file system and automated defragmentation routines to keep the database from becoming fragmented. XFS has been proven to be a more superior file format for the rigors of surveillance recording applications than an NTFS file system, which is standard with Windows®-based recorders.

The NSM5200 incorporates a number of diagnostic monitoring functions that serve vital roles in notifying operators of potential problems and failures. Integrated diagnostics utilize on-board LED indicators to display warnings and failures on the NSM5200 and then it reports these failures to operators. The NSM5200 monitors and provides warning messages for items such as retention time issues, accumulation of software errors, network errors that result in packet loss, and changes to network link speeds. It also monitors and reports hardware diagnostics such as temperatures approaching established thresholds, hard disk drive failures, fan failures, power supply failures, or when a stream or a NSM5200 is off line. Finally, the NSM5200 can communicate to an APC Smart-UPS® series uninterruptible power supply to provide battery status information and initiate a graceful shutdown if the available charge falls below its designated threshold.