Introducing Jellyfish V3

Since its launch in 2015 the Jellyfish has become the most popular shared storage for video teams, with thousands of users across the world editing with them every day. Since the beginning, we set out to design a server that could handle the 4K footage we loved shooting in, and we knew that even our entry level product like the Jellyfish Mobile had to be up to the task, otherwise why bother? Helping teams of editors work with together in hi-res, with multiple angles, on any NLE or computer is kind of our thing. Pretty niche, we know, but we dig it.

For a quick trip down memory lane, here’s a video of one of our founders, Sam Mestman, debuting the Jellyfish Mobile (previously called the LumaShare) in April 2015 at a LACPUG meetup... remember when people used to meet up for things?

We know workflow needs are going to expand along with growing file sizes from higher resolution cameras. You all are going to keep pushing the boundaries of what’s capable in video editing environments and we’re eager to see what you can do.

With this in mind, we are excited to share some significant hardware upgrades that will make your Jellyfish experience even better. Over the past year we've refreshed our entire product line to keep up with what's next.

If you’ve recently purchased a Jellyfish and are wondering what this news means for your current system, don’t worry! We’ve quietly been including the upgraded hardware in all of our systems for the past year. This announcement is us sharing what’s new and what we’ve been working on so hard behind the scenes!

So, enough hype - here’s what’s new:

Processor Upgrade

All of our solutions now include the newest Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors. This upgrade improves compression, encryption, workload-optimized performance and throughput, and NIC offloading technologies that allow the Jellyfish to put higher total aggregate read/write speeds for growing teams.

Of course, the Jellyfish Tower and Jellyfish Rack still come with dual processors.

Faster RAM & More RAM

As a quick refresher, the RAM in Jellyfish servers is the first tier in a three-tiered caching system which results in both better playback performance and higher write speeds.

We also offer a performance boost across all of the Jellyfish options which includes doubling or tripling the RAM of any Jellyfish server.

Here are the new RAM spec options for each option:

Mobile - Standard: 128GB, Boosted: 256GB

Tower - Standard: 256GB, Boosted: 512GB

Rack - Standard: 256GB, Boosted: 512GB, Custom Boost option*: 768GB

*You can speak with one of our workflow consultants about this custom option, along with a few other upgrades that we can provide teams striving to push the boundaries of what a Jellyfish can do.

4x Increase in Read Cache

In our three-tiered cache system, our second-tier (after RAM) is handled by SSD drives. The third tier makes its way to the bulk of the storage in our system, enterprise-level HDDs (equipped with on-board RAM).

Our read cache is what we call the second tier of cache hosted by the SSD drives.

You can bet we made a huge improvement here as well. The Jellyfish Mobile, Tower, and Rack now have 4 times the amount of SSD reach cache inside every system standard. That means performance improvements in every unit during playback and editing high-resolution media files.

New NLE Project Cache

Every non-linear editing software (Premiere Pro, FCPX, Davinci Resolve, etc.) has a place in its settings where you can set the cache location for project files or the scratch disk. In the past, the fastest option was to use your workstation’s internal SSD to keep project load time down, unfortunately doing this meant that every workstation needed to generate its own cache.

That’s why we introduced the new Project Cache volume. This is a separate device that lives within the Jellyfish and is mounted separately from your main Jellyfish volume.

We created a new share using a PCIe based 2TB NVME drive inside every Jellyfish to store the cache files from your projects so that you can share your cache with your team, ensuring that everybody’s project files can load much faster than before. It's awesome.

High Bandwidth Connectivity Options

With V3, you will have the option for 25GbE or 50GbE direct connections to your workstations from a Jellyfish Tower or Rack. This comes with a processor upgrade and is mostly used for heavy VFX and coloring workflows. There are a few adapters on the market that you can use with your workstation to get this high of a connection (which is great news for new Mac Pro users as these adapters can be installed directly into the PCIe slots).

Flash Pool Options for Jellyfish Rack

Jellyfish Rack and Jellyfish Rack Expansions now officially offer the option for a complete SSD pool in a variety of storage capacity options. VFX teams and teams that work primarily with high frame rate footage will appreciate the value that this upgrade offers. If you’re interested in learning more about these custom options, please reach out to one of our workflow consultants.

Ok, this sounds awesome...but what does this mean for my workflow?

Let’s jump into the nitty-gritty about aggregate read/write speeds! Here’s our data on the actual performance that we measured across multiple workstations using speed tests, stream counts, and actual editing in multiple NLE's.

Jellyfish V3 Mobile - Standard

Aggregate Write Speed - 2300 MB/s

Aggregate Read Speed- 3200 MB/s

Jellyfish V3 Mobile - w/ Performance Boost

Aggregate Write Speed - 2900 MB/s

Aggregate Read Speed - 4800 MB/s

Jellyfish V3 Tower/Rack - Standard

Aggregate Write Speed - 4100 MB/s

Aggregate Read Speed - 4600 MB/s

Jellyfish V3 Tower/Rack - w/ Performance Boost

Aggregate Write Speed - 5200 MB/s

Aggregate Read Speed - 6800 MB/s  
 
 

We can’t wait to see what you do with these beasts!