Raid Solution?

[jonathan murphy]

I own a small production house and am needing a raid solution that can connect (hard-wire) into 3 different editing computer stations at the same time. They will all edit red footage and are all windows machines. I can add in thunderbolt 2 cards if needed. I just don't know what will be best for what I am needing. I want them all pulling from the same raid so that we can move projects around to one another. Any suggestions? Obviously I don't really know much about this particular subject. Any help would be MUCH appreciated!! Thank so much!

 

[Lassiter Holmes]

more info, will this be your media raid? Also how will you prevent cross edits to a source file with out a server? You can set up a server you can then network but you will need a minimum of two drives per workstation, so six drives but your through put will be limited without having a very fast router

 

[jonathan murphy]

more info, will this be your media raid? Also how will you prevent cross edits to a source file with out a server? You can set up a server you can then network but you will need a minimum of two drives per workstation, so six drives but your through put will be limited without having a very fast router

Thanks for the help. Yes this will be my media raid. We never work on the same project at the same time so cross edits shouldn't be a problem.. However I literally know nothing about servers.. hence the problem. It would just allow for all the source media to be in one place rather than constantly having to move footage around with an external hdd.

 

[Lassiter Holmes]

do you have a raid card? If so, I would just setup a fourth computer on Windows file sharing and mount your raid in the fourth computer. There are faster solutions $$ but you could get up and running with this. You should consider using Raid3 for this application so you will need 8 soo something like http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...151149&cm_re=areca_3.0-_-16-151-149-_-Product. The other option is a raid server tower $$ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816151148&cm_re=areca-_-16-151-148-_-Product

 

[jonathan murphy]

Hey thanks so much for your advice! I am ok with spending some money as I currently have a 8tb simple raid box now. Its just pretty slow. So I am wanting something that is decently fast and able to wire connect to multiple computers. I would say I am willing to invest about 4k on something.

 

[PatrickFaith]

I wouldn't go thunderbolt 2 raid on windows machines unless your a expert with that, windows is more of a usb3 or esata environment. What i did for a few years was setup one windows machine as a file share (with the group options), and had the disk on that as esata raid 5(had two separate raid 5 arrays, one as a backup). That way the server/windows pc was managed separately and people just pulled data and/or worked from file shares pc/server. If the projects get even slightly complex though, this gets to be a hassle. It's often safer when you don't have a computer expert in your post group (since your so small), to just duplicate the footage onto 3 separate 4 terabyte drives (i.e. a usb3 drive for each machine so you would have 3 copies of the raw data). Just because it's raid, doesn't mean the data is protected, since the likely culprit for data destruction is someone accidentally deleting and/or moving files. It's really tough for small shops, and when you get enough work you'll want to move to something like hiero/foundry or shotgun/autodesk to manage the workflow (but you really need a expert to start using the full workflow packages).

 

[Eric Bowen]

A storage system with a Areca SAS raid controller and 10Gbe Ethernet card would be the best solution for performance and price. The Intel 10Gbe cards start at $360+ and the Netgear 8 port 10Gbe switch is around $900. If you have a system already to build into for storage then this is doable in the budget. If not then Thecus has NAS storage units with PCI-E expansion for 10Gbe Ethernet cards. Some models come bundled with the Thecus card.

 

[Craig Weeding]

For a small cost effective SAN on Windows you should look at Studio Network Solutions http://www.studionetworksolutions.com

we have been running their SAN MP software for since 2003 and had good support.

Works with both Windows and Mac

 

[David Kuhn]

The first question when it comes to storage is always - "How much do you want to spend?"
Then - "What's your environment (Win/Mac/mixed...)"
Then - "How much storage do you think you need"
Then there are a number of other things to think about... like "What sort of backup architecture are you looking for... none (bad bad bad idea), tape, multiple arrays on a single system, replication to a separate array, etc...", do you have any throughput targets (do you need 10g and a crazy fast array or would dual gige work...), how concerned are you about uptime reliability (fault tolerance), and a bunch more that follow on during the discussion.

 

[Brian Merlen]

Studio Network Solutions and Evo are excellent. Project/bin sharing, good support, platform agnostic. I highly recommend them compared to setting up your own San or Nas. I have worked with both a legitimate and supported solution from SNS, and also a cheap Nas solution and the cheap solution has no support, constant crashing issues, its a bag of hurt. You would need an IT guy just to service it, and even then unless they know their stuff it becomes an issue. I think SNS is the best way to go, far cheaper then Avid ISIS Unity solutions, but similar functionality, plus it works with all the major NLEs. The support staff there are great to work with. If I had multiple bays I would buy one myself, but since I work alone I am getting the TB2 promise unit instead. For multiple bay needs an SNS product is the way to go, free support vs constant IT calls on your Nas issues. You will save money with SNS in the long run. Plus Cat5E cables can run 4k for you just fine...

 

[Cuong Q]

I own a small production house and am needing a raid solution that can connect (hard-wire) into 3 different editing computer stations at the same time. They will all edit red footage and are all windows machines. I can add in thunderbolt 2 cards if needed. I just don't know what will be best for what I am needing. I want them all pulling from the same raid so that we can move projects around to one another. Any suggestions? Obviously I don't really know much about this particular subject. Any help would be MUCH appreciated!! Thank so much!

If time is not a major issue, then you can DIY a 10Gb Network Storage

1x http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131977&cm_re=i5_uATX-_-13-131-977-_-Product @ $159
1x http://www.microcenter.com/product/432159/Core_i3-4150_34GHz_LGA_1150_Boxed_Processor - @ $99.00
+ CPU + 8GB RAM
1x case http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...th_nine_3.5_drive_bays-_-11-352-031-_-Product
1x 400W PSU

1x Areca ARC-1224-8i Areca 8-Ports PCI-E 2.0 (x8) 6GB/s SATA RAID Controller Retail box ( cable included)
Upto 8x HDD Hitachi Deskstar

The Intel 10Gbe cards start at $360+ and the Netgear 8 port 10Gbe switch is around $900

Patrickfailth

DL and load openfiler into an 8Gb USB

It should cost you less the 4K and maybe 4~8 hrs. It is a great way to learn about networks

You should be able to transfer easily 400~500MB/s to/from Client Windows

Mine as similar configuration with iSCSI i was able to transfer 800MB/s+

Let me know if you need some help!

 

[Eric Bowen]

You want the Enterprise drives for redundant raids due to the timeout recovery option in their firmware. The Desktop drives dont have that and will get prematurely marked out of the raid array if a repair operation takes to long. It's not worth the headache of rebuilding the array constantly due to this issue nor the time.