HD (high Definition) programs such as 2K digitalized TV programs and 4K resolution films are more and more common in the video industry. Facing an ever-growing demand on the video server and the storage, the capacity and the performance are the critical elements when choosing equipment for these applications. The SAN environment that supports multiple users on a single file system are ideally suited for this requirement, to date these have been Fibre channel hosted and expensive.
Arena introduce the PCI-e SAN solution. "ExaSAN"
Arena's ExaSAN solution is based on the high performance PCI-e x4/ x8 bus architecture that provides maximum flexibility with unrivalled speed. The advantage not only its higher performance but also lower the cost over the traditional Fibre Channel hosted SANs. There are no protocol conversations to effect the bus speeds and this gives high performance editing, recording and playback. The SAN structure allows the data to be accessed and shared by all and easily expanded for future growth. This provides faster accessing to content for Editors and client as well as growing from a small solution to enterprise class SANs. The solution includes the RAID storage, ExaSAN host switch, and device switch, PCI-e HBAs, cabling and accessories. 

Product Highlights:
Sustained Performance- Seamless task execution on applications
Unlike traditional external storage (Fibre Channel, SAS, eSATA or SCSI), Arena ExaSAN solutions uses native PCI Express protocol. The objective is to avoid protocol codec/ decode translations. The benefit is the fastest performance that a modern host computer can deliver by reducing any unnecessary overhead and handling the data and command exchanged in a more efficiency way by directing memory access or DMA between the system memory and buffer memory on the controller. Which provides the ability to reduce overhead and to provide higher bandwidth.

Storage Sharing - Multiple clients editing in heavy load environment
Arena’s unique ExaSAN technology supports multiple host connection, multiple storage connection and high scalability of the SAN characteristics. It's fully compatible with MacPro, Mac OS X Server, Windows and PC servers. Arena ExaSAN is not only working seamlessly with Apple Xsan 2 but also improving the performance and reliability of the application. The high-performance ExaSAN can support multiple uncompressed high definition video streams with no frame drops, and provide large and scalable capacity demands for high definition video in media broadcasting or movie industries with multi user support.