Keeping up with the growing demand for digital asset and edit storage in the film and television production space, TOLIS Group, Inc. is pleased to announce the immediate availability of the new ArGest Rack Mod160, ArGest Rack Mod240 and ArGest Rack Mod320 storage expansion chassis. These 2U rackmount expansion chassis interconnect with a customer's existing ArGest Rack solutions to expand the available disk storage from the current capacities of 3TB in SSD and 4.5TB in HDD configurations to a maximum added expansion capacity of 448TB of raw, unformatted storage.

"We were very pleased with the recognition and response that we received with the announcement of the ArGest line at the end of last year," said Tim Jones, president and CTO of TOLIS Group, Inc., "but the one request that we continued to receive was for larger capacity points within a studio environment. While 2TB of SSD works well for a remote DI setup for dailies or simple shoots, the available capacity points didn't allow for a similar layout and data management workflow in a studio environment, where much larger collections of data were utilized. Since the ArGest line was designed with expandability in mind, providing a modular growth solution for such an environment was an easy next step."

The new ArGest Rack units are available in capacity points of 16, 24 and 32 TB of unformatted disk space per module, and may be expanded up to 14 units for a maximum total ArGest capacity of 452.5TB of unformatted storage. The units may be combined into a single, large storage well, or split into subunits for specialized configuration needs. The use of the ATTO ExpressSAS R680 RAID Host Bus Adapters provides the widest range of configurability with the highest levels of reliability and performance. Combining that storage with the ArGest tape solutions allows the user to provide nearly infinite near line and offline archival capacity through the use of HP LTO technologies.

"The expandability provided by the total ArGest solution allows for the user to start at a storage capacity that meets their needs today, while knowing that they can easily expand their solution as their data needs grow," continued Jones. "Being able to minimize initial buy-in for storage and archival, while knowing that future expansion doesn't mean scrapping their initial investment and starting over is a very important consideration for customers in today's tight economy. ArGest provides that."

The ArGest solution family is designed using enterprise grade components instead of lower cost consumer-grade components for the most reliable and highest performance ingest and editing operations, as well as high speed archival of assets in a single, bundled solution. Combining HP's highly reliable LTO tape technologies with the TOLIS Group BRU PE or BRU Server software for tape archival management, data is protected through the entire process by insuring that all data written to LTO tape is protected from end to end. The BRU format used provides both the ultimate in performance (over 180MB/sec or .64TB/hour with LTO-6) and the ultimate in verifiable and auditable tape-based data storage, whether for short-term client deliverables and exchange or long-term archival operations.

The RAID-configured ArGest Rack product line pricing starts at $7,944 for 2TB of HDD disk storage and LTO-6 drive in a 1U rack chassis, or $10,244 for 2TB of high speed SSD storage w/LTO-6, and includes listed disk storage, LTO-6 tape drive, ATTO Technologies ExpressSAS R680 RAID HBA, SAS cables, LTO-6 Media, Cleaning Cartridge, BRU PE or BRU Server Basic Edition license, 3-year hardware warranty, and 3-year software support and maintenance. TOLIS Group provides the valuable single-point-of-contact for all support-related issues.

About TOLIS Group, Inc.

TOLIS Group is dedicated to provided leading-edge native Unix, Linux and Apple OS X data backup, archival and restore software, tape drives and automation, and backup appliance solutions that deliver unparalleled reliability and excellent value to organizations and OEMs. 100% homogeneous Windows environments are supported by our proven bruAPP™ technology. The service marks of "Backup You Can Trust" and "BRU ... Because it’s the Restore That Matters" guide every aspect of TOLIS Group's business. Contact TOLIS Group at PH: 1.480.505.0488, E-mail: bruinfo@tolisgroup.com, or on the Web at: www.tolisgroup.com. View the specialized BRU Producer’s Edition solutions specifically designed for the broadcast, film and music industries on the Web at: www.productionbackup.com.

BRU, BRU Producer’s Edition, BRU Server, bruAPP, ArGest, TOLIS Tape Tools, bruCLONE, BRU Desktop and BRU Workstation are trademarks of TOLIS Group. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.