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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

San or Nas? fiberchannel or iscsi?

Joel Arvidsson

Joel Arvidsson

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Im very tired of having tons of external hardrives. Also I like to be able to share the projects files to different workstations more easy... So Im looking for a san or a nas with fiber channel or iscsi.

What would be the best bang for the buck for working with 5k r3d files?
What speed/s do you need?
 
I have an caldigit raid that sounds alot. Maby its normal.
If only i could use more than 1m cable with it. Then it would be put in
Another room!
 
Oh and I would say stay away from ISCSI.

We tried it against the doubts of our IT consultants and they were right and then some. It was a mess and performance was really poor.
 
I would prefer sneaker-net over iSCSI any day... Even if the iSCSI were on a 10G ethernet or 8G fiber. Not going to happen here.

I'm looking into the CalDigit Super Share myself. Looks good, but I'm going to check it out and a few other solutions at NAB.
 
super share looks awesome. only thing it needs (if it doesn't have it already) is a partitioning system similar to avid unities. instant resizing and creation of partitions without effecting data. That way shared storage can be controlled, moderated, and isolated.
 
we built our own proprietary NAS system that is fast, reliable and WAY cheaper than all these boxed solutions... spend the money on a smart IT guy... he will pay for himself quick.

To me the bottleneck is always on INGEST. Sharing the files is like lightning once in, but man clients LOVE to use those shitty mini USB 2.0 only drives and its like WTF!

I feel like adding a RECOMMENDED DRIVE section to our new web site.
 
the best is when you have 2 TB plus to give to a client, and they hand you a usb only drive. I tell them it will be done in a little under a week of continuous copying... they wanted additional backups, I forced them to buy me g-raids... finished in 4 hours.
 
Tim Whitcomb said:
we built our own proprietary NAS system that is fast, reliable and WAY cheaper than all these boxed solutions... spend the money on a smart IT guy... he will pay for himself quick.
Click to expand...

Super Share is pretty darn cheap, all things considered.

My current SAN solution is self-built. Linux based, works well, but it's a few years old now and can't keep up. Pricing out building my own, which is still an option on the table, I'm not coming out ahead here. Not for the connectivity speeds I'm looking at. Actually that's one of the stumbling blocks with SuperShare -- it's probably not fast enough for what I'm wanting to do. Ideally, I'd like 20Gbps per SAN node. SuperShare seems to be 20Gbps internally at the switch, making their switch the weak link in the whole setup.

Only way I can effectively get 20Gbps per node on a self-built solution is with dual bonded 10G ethernet. Dual 8gig FC gets me close for about the same money for workstation cards, but the switches are more expensive than 10G ethernet switches. 10Ge is about to go mainstream anyway and become standard on workstation and server class motherboards. It's already standard on a select few.

CalDigit's 20Gbps X4 PCIe implementation, and others doing the PCIe interface thing, have the lowest latency of any potential SAN product. There are really no build it yourself PCIe solutions at the moment.

My current SAN setup is a hodge-podge of 4gb FC and 10Ge. Everything in the office is connected to it. Unfortunately only one Mac Pro has FC connectivity, all my other macs are via gigabit ethernet, so I'm lucky to get 80MB/s in most cases. Hence why I need the upgrade. One because the system is overloaded. But also for faster connections. The one problem I'm having trouble solving is Mac Pro connectivity... There are just not enough expansion slots.

Tom.Wong said:
the best is when you have 2 TB plus to give to a client, and they hand you a usb only drive. I tell them it will be done in a little under a week of continuous copying... they wanted additional backups, I forced them to buy me g-raids... finished in 4 hours.
Click to expand...

One client gave me a 1.5TB WD external HDD -- USB2.0 was the only interface on it. WTF? Anyway, it was full of R3D files. He needed it transcoded to ProRes HQ 422 right away he said. The guy gave me a couple more of the same external USB2 drives to copy the ProRes onto. I tried to explain to him that it was going to take forever and he wouldn't listen. Told me I needed to figure it out and he wasn't going to buy any more hard drives I wanted to sell him, which did come up.

Problem solved, I just pulled the SATA HDDs out of the USB enclosures to do the job, then put them back in when I was finished. ;)

I did a nice job of peeling off the warranty void labels on the drive enclosures too. I don't think he noticed them missing.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
...One client gave me a 1.5TB WD external HDD -- USB2.0 was the only interface on it. WTF? Anyway, it was full of R3D files. He needed it transcoded to ProRes HQ 422 right away he said. The guy gave me a couple more of the same external USB2 drives to copy the ProRes onto. I tried to explain to him that it was going to take forever and he wouldn't listen. Told me I needed to figure it out and he wasn't going to buy any more hard drives I wanted to sell him, which did come up.

Problem solved, I just pulled the SATA HDDs out of the USB enclosures to do the job, then put them back in when I was finished. ;)

I did a nice job of peeling off the warranty void labels on the drive enclosures too. I don't think he noticed them missing.
Click to expand...

Good thinking, but I would've just told him to buy them himself if he thought I was trying to rip him off. He'll probably just expect the same special treatment next time. Either that or I would've used the USB2 and charged him overtime or another day to do the transcode! It happened to me once - now I always put that in as a condition of me DITing if they supply non-recommended drives.
 
Chris Parker said:
anyone have a real world update on Caldigit Super Share yet? just checking in.....
Click to expand...

We've had one on order for five or six weeks now...

They've been really slow with delivery. Getting sick of waiting.
 
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