Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Macquarie University
The Synology RackStation provides us a reliable and dependable solution for saving multiple streams of HD video from our medical labs across a network, and synchronising it to cloud storage for secure sharing and archiving. Iain Brew, Clinical AV & IT Coordinator, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Macquarie University
The Company
As the newest faculty at Macquarie University, The Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences is ambitiously pushing the boundaries of progressive thinking and challenging what's possible to solve some of the big issues of our time. Key focal areas include neurosciences (especially motor neuron disease, neurological rehabilitation and the clinical neuroscience of pain), cancer medicine, and vascular science.
The Faculty's prestigious areas of research foster research excellence and collaboration – both nationally and on a global scale - and drive innovation. The Faculty hosts the Australian Institute of Health Innovation, an internationally acclaimed powerhouse researching health systems, e-health and patient safety.The Surgical Skills Lab at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Macquarie University
The Challenge
Constructed in 2010, the Surgical Skills Lab of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences is a research facility used by the medical community to explore human anatomy. To facilitate the research, workshops in the Lab are often recorded for review and analysis. A typical workshop session generates approximately 8GB of video assets for further documentation.
To handle the growing video data, the Faculty previously used standard definition DVD recorders to document all workshop videos. The system was however cumbersome to use, especially when trying to share content. To improve the ease of use and accessibility of video data, the Lab initiated an in-house upgrade of AV solution at the end of 2016.
As part of the AV upgrade, the Lab purchased two HD recorders which can record to USB memory sticks or a network share. Originally, the Lab opted for the former option, but USB sticks soon proved unreliable and could also pose a security risk. Based on his previous positive experience with Synology products, Clinical AV & IT Coordinator Iain Brew decided to replace the USB sticks solution with a Synology NAS. "I had used Synology products in a previous role with the University to archive and back up large amounts of media files and was really impressed with the power and ease of use, so it was my go-to choice to solve this issue," explained Iain.
The Solution
Currently, the Lab has two HD network video recorders, recording directly to a RAID5 setup on a RackStation RS816 on a private AV network on LAN1. From here, once the files have finished being recorded, they synchronise to Microsoft Office365 OneDrive cloud storage solution via LAN2, which allows faculty researchers to securely view and selectively share content as required. While currently only two out of the four available bays are used, the system is future-proofed with the ability to add more storage to the RackStation with expansion unit RX415. Additionally, the fast network throughput will easily handle additional recorders the Lab is planning to add.
"From an administrative point of view, it's been great having access to the RackStation from wherever I am via QuickConnect to check on recordings and manage the system whether I'm in the office, at home or on the go," described Iain.
What's more, the ability to back up to multiple points automatically is also attractive to Iain should the needs change down the track – there will be no need to invest in other solution than the existing setup. The Lab will also explore video transcoding features available to create small, sample files automatically when a recording is finished for review work.
Recommended Models
- RS816
- RX415
Recommended Features
- Cloud Sync
- QuickConnect