• Storage & Archiving

  Recommendations for a SAN

  Posted by R Walter on February 1, 2007 at 11:17 am

  Our facility wants to install a SAN, so I’m trying to do a bit of research as to what we need. We have 4 FCP edit stations which should have simultaneous access, but wouldn’t need multiple streams. Since we do a lot of green screen we would like to capture uncompressed, but our final output will be a DV format – DVCAM for now, but we’ll probably move up soon.

  Any recommendations? Fibre or Ethernet? XSan or something else? What kind of switcher? Each computer needs a card, does it not? I’m a novice at networks.

  Thanks,

  Roland Walter

  Joe Huggins replied 19 years ago 5 Members · 5 Replies
• 5 Replies

• 

  Shane Sokolosky

  February 2, 2007 at 10:57 pm

  Hey Roland,

  There are quite a few options out there, if all 4 edit stations are capturing uncompressed 8 Bit SD then your looking at 90 MB/s (actually in the 80’s but just to be safe). So the one thing you want to make sure of is that your storage is capable of that at the very least, then next thing you’ll want to consider is how much storage you’ll need (i.e. how many hours of uncompressed are captured for each project and are four projects going to be going at the same time?) The SAN is built around the storage and connectivity those are the most important parts, the rest is all about how you want to manage it and what best suits your workflow which brings us to the next important part – SAN management software, there are many options out there including
  Apple’s XSAN https://www.apple.com/support/xsan/
  Studio Network Solutions’ SANmp https://www.studionetworksolutions.com/content/products/sanmp/default.asp
  these are a couple of my favorites and the ones I have most experience with but there are many others also.

  Feel free to email me or call if youd like to talk about some options,

  Shane Sokolosky
  Circuit Access

  Email – heysomthin@aol.com
  Phone – (714) 599-1611
• 

  Jeff Bernstein

  February 3, 2007 at 8:07 am

  In doing green screen, you need to avoid compression artifacts at all cost so that you can have the cleanest keys. Otherwise, you will be wasting a ton of time and money cleaning up the keys. For capture, stay away from DV and DVCAM. In fact, also stay away from any format that uses either a 4:1:1 or 4:2:0 color space.

  As to SANs, I would also check out MetaSAN. We find it to be simpler to administer, more versatile, and more stable than XSAN. Did I mention their incredible support? Check it out here…

  https://www.tiger-technology.com/

  Jeff Bernstein

  Digital Desktop Consulting
  Apple Pro Video VAR
  XSAN Certified

  323-653-7611
• 

  Bob

  March 13, 2007 at 3:59 pm

  I have been told MetaSan is good as well, Jeff how many workstations editing have you set up? . How do you handle space quotas and permissions with MetaSan?

  I have have an installation with at least 7 stations .

  I also looked at the facilis system any thoughts

  Thanks

  Bob

  ITV
  Boca Raton Florida
• 

  Jeff Bernstein

  April 7, 2007 at 8:45 pm

  We have SANs as large as 30 workstations. It works quite well. Space quotas are not a feature. Speed quotas for both minimum and maximum are, however. Permissions can be handled in a variety of way, R/W Everyone, Volume Permissions, or File Security through either Active Directory or Open Directory.

  Facilis is also a good system, but it is a volume-based SAN.

  Jeff Bernstein

  Digital Desktop Consulting
  Apple Pro Video VAR
  XSAN Certified

  323-653-7611
• 

  Joe Huggins

  May 1, 2007 at 7:46 pm

  Jeff,

  You note incredible support from MetaSan? We found just the opposite. We spoke to a person who took your name and problem who did not know about the system and he relayed messages. We were Mac based. It never seemed to function long-term so we de-installed it.

  Did I miss something here?

  Thanks, Film Joe

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