fast shared storage

[Steven Tader]

any suggestions for a relatively economical storage to share files between 4 final cut suites? we use all prores for our hd work, but i still need the capability of 4 realtime streams. any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. i know that there have been a few threads on this subject, but i'm curious if anything was announced at nab that might be a good fit. thanks!

 

[Daniel Browning]

You can only pick two:

• Economical
• Shared
• Fast

The choices are:

• Economical and shared: network-attached
• Economical and fast: direct-attached
• Shared and fast: direct-attached shared disk FS

That last one is expensive for two reasons: a direct-attached storage device that has sufficient ports, speed, and distance for four systems, and because shared disk file systems are just always a much higher level of complexity than normal storage.

The most common choice for OS X is Xsan, but there may be others. Another good (cheaper, faster, but more complex) option is a distributed file system, but I'm not aware of which, if any, are compatible with OS X. GIYF.

I know that doesn't help very much, but perhaps you'll get some more responses.

 

[Simon Blackledge]

Talk to the guys at small tree.

www.smalltree.com

Basically a macpro with a 6port gig-e card feeds a fast switch with all 6 bonded as 1 that the other mac pros connect to via switch. Stick some fast DAS on the macpro server and ya good to go with ya prores.

Thats as economical as your going to get.

step up a 10gige card in the server connected to a 10gige port on the switch that has gig-e connections to the clients
s

 

[Greg Huson]

Check with the guys at MAXX digital (a sponsor of this forum, maxxdigital.com) They're packaging a system spec'd out by Bob Zelin, called 'Final Share,' that's almost entirely off-the-shelf hardware and software, but tweaked by experts. Maxx does great RAIDs that are blazingly fast, expandable, nearly to infinity, and comparably inexpensive. Final Share is dramatically less expensive than almost anything else, but works great. The client machines are Gig-E connnected, and the client software is just a little-known feature of OSX. Perfect for multiple suites of prores or DVCProHD. Bob makes no effort to hide the details (but I'd still recommend using him or another pro from Maxx to do the setup)
http://magazine.creativecow.net/article/build-your-own-affordable-san-that-iworksi

If you need uncompressed, or management software (or the ability to work with, say, Avid) Facilis Terrablock is the next step up the ladder. We've had one for 5 or 6 years now, and it's been 100% reliable. Never lost a frame, even after loosing a drive or two.

Hope that helps!

 

[Chris Kenny]

any suggestions for a relatively economical storage to share files between 4 final cut suites? we use all prores for our hd work, but i still need the capability of 4 realtime streams. any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. i know that there have been a few threads on this subject, but i'm curious if anything was announced at nab that might be a good fit. thanks!

An NAS device probably isn't going to do it. You might be able to get away with just the built-in networking hardware in a Mac Pro, but you'll want an extra one you aren't editing off of. Bond the two built-in gigabit links, connect to a switch that supports link aggregation, connect each client via a single gigabit link. Serve files off a 4+ drive eSATA array or maybe, if you're trying to save a few bucks, use one of those solutions that lets you put an extra two or four (if you ditch the optical drive) internal SATA drives in a Mac Pro. For no more than four streams of ProRes, you can probably just use AFP sharing rather than using something fancier and more expensive. This is maybe a $2900-$3000 solution, depending on details, and not including drives.

If you're trying to go even cheaper, and you're not too worried about Apple's EULA or having anything that's in any way supported or guaranteed to work, you could consider trying to install OS X on cheaper generic x86 hardware. Note that the the previous sentence uses the word "could", not "should"; this really isn't a great idea for a production environment.

As far as the possibility of serving FCP workstations from a machine that isn't running OS X, I'm planning to do some testing in the next couple of weeks to see how plausible storing footage on NFS volumes shared from OpenSolaris might be, but even if that turns out to work perfectly (which I tend to doubt it will), building an OpenSolaris storage server is more of a geeky project than most people want to undertake.

But one question you might want to ask is whether you really need shared storage. We've found at times that when the amount of footage for a project isn't huge (isn't more than a terabyte or two) and the footage doesn't change all that often (which it usually doesn't), it can make sense to just have a local copy on each workstation, and only put project files and non-video media on the server.

 

[Steven Tader]

thanks for the info. we currently share everything on NAS, but we pull the prjects down locally to work on them. we have RED, XDCAM and P2 in house, so we're dealing with a lot of proxy files that would be nice to access directly from the server. also, we're adding a FCP box in our machine room so that the guy back there can handle versioning and mastering without tying up one of the main rooms. BTW, we're looking for something in the 15k range but might spend 30ish if we can find the right system. what are you guys using for asset management? I'm looking into FCP server and CatDV, but very open to suggestions.

 

[Chris Kenny]

Depending on how much storage you need, $15-30K gets you into the range of actual tested, integrated SAN systems, rather than roll-your-own solutions. It's also enough money that vendors will actually pay attention to you. I'd give Apple and Studio Network Solutions a call, for starters.

 

[Eric Harnden]

I saw this demoed at LAFCPUG

I saw this demoed at LAFCPUG

Check with the guys at MAXX digital (a sponsor of this forum, maxxdigital.com) They're packaging a system spec'd out by Bob Zelin, called 'Final Share,' that's almost entirely off-the-shelf hardware and software, but tweaked by experts. Maxx does great RAIDs that are blazingly fast, expandable, nearly to infinity, and comparably inexpensive. Final Share is dramatically less expensive than almost anything else, but works great. The client machines are Gig-E connnected, and the client software is just a little-known feature of OSX. Perfect for multiple suites of prores or DVCProHD. Bob makes no effort to hide the details (but I'd still recommend using him or another pro from Maxx to do the setup)
http://magazine.http://www.teenink....le/build-your-own-affordable-san-that-iworksi

If you need uncompressed, or management software (or the ability to work with, say, Avid) Facilis Terrablock is the next step up the ladder. We've had one for 5 or 6 years now, and it's been 100% reliable. Never lost a frame, even after loosing a drive or two.

Hope that helps!

FYI, I saw this demoed at LAFCPUG by Bob Zelin and it's pretty amazing. I agree that he should use the guys at MAXX, who were there (As well as smalltree.com). I also talked to John West over at MAXX Digital at NAB this week (at the REDUSER Party) and they have a killer setup for this.

You can reach John West over at MAXX:
John West
VP of Global Sales
Maxx Entertainment Digital
Office: 714-374-4944
Cell:714-588-4818
Fax:714-374-3404
e-mail: johnwest@maxxdigital.com
website: www.maxxdigital.com

If you do, tell him Eric @ Quintessential Studios says "Hi".