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MetaLan setup with Avid Meridien’s: Will it work?
Hi all
I am in the process of trying to get cobble the pieces I need to set up a SAN with some ancient Windows Avid Meridien’s.
I’m going to go with the Tiger Technology MetaLan setup as I already have a spare PC for a server and the gigabit ethernet switch. Has anyonemanaged to get this working with the older Meridian Avids?
I’m worried that these old dogs won’t have the bus bandwidth to cope with the network traffic. My plan is to install gigabit ethernet PCI cards into the Avids – they’re the Compaq and IBM Intellistation machines – which would hopefully work.
My next area of concern is the media drives I want to use. We have 4, 1 terabyte External Firewire 800 drives which I want to RAID and use as our network media storage. I’m concerned about the BUS bandwidth here too.
Any comments or suggestions greatly appreicated.
Cheers
Keren
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7 Replies
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Bob Zelin can probably answer all of your questions better than me. But I don’t think it’s a good idea to try to take external Firewire 800 drives and try to configure them in a RAID for your network storage. I’m not even sure it’s possible to set up a RAID using 4 separate external devices. Nor is it a good idea to take a “PC you have lying around” and configure it as your server, especially since it’s the computer that will be directing traffic and managing data. You can get high-end HP and IBM workstations, still under warranty off Ebay for $500-$800.
As for the Intellistations on the client side, we’re running an Apace vStor using 3 Intellistation Z Pro’s (anywhere from 6-4 years old) and they work fine. We use $29 Intel PCI Gig-E cards in each PC, connected to a 48 port managed switch (recommended by Apace), and that connects to the vStor’s 4 Gig-E ports. So each PC has it’s own connection and IP address to the storage server (vStor). We don’t do any link aggregation or anything fancy like that. The only tweak is using jumbo frames set at 9014 on the Intel ethernet cards and the vStor. But…that’s not even necessary. We only set it that way because one of the Intellistation’s has a single processor, and it would drop frames occasionally on capture. The other 2 are dual processor and they never had a problem capturing. All have 2 GB RAM in them.
So I think your server/raid hardware and configuration is more important the the client PC. An Intellistation (unless it’s pre-2003 or so) should be plenty of PC to setup a shared editing enivronment. If they’re really old with slow processors, it could be an issue.
On our setup, each intellistation uses it’s on-board ethernet for connection to the rest of our network, so the only traffic that flows thru the Intel cards is the video and audio moving from the vStor. Using this model, you’d be better off getting a new or off-lease workstation to use as your server, put mutlipe ethernet cards in it (or a dual or quad port card), and get real RAID storage capable of very high sustained data rates. Remember, if you have multiple clients wanting to move data back and forth during an edit session, your server and it’s RAID storage better be able to handle 300-600MB sec transfer rates to keep up. Your server PC also better be able to keep up with all the demands that places on the CPU, RAM and operating system.
Again…I’m no expert, but I doubt the setup you describe will work. You’ll end up with a big headache. Don’t scrounge up old equipment and expect it to all work together and pump out the data rates and stability you need for video editing.
Hope that helps.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Thanks for the input Chris.
I’d just like to make some clarifications.
The spare computer I have lying around is actually an 2 year old HP server box with plenty of RAM and processing power. I’ve already ordered a 4 port gigabit ethernet card for the server as you have suggested.
I think you’re right about the Firewire 800 drives being a bad choice. Luckily, the server machine I have has a built in RAID card with hot-swappable drives. Would high speed SATA drives in RAID work as an alternative? All our media is 2:1 SD so I don’t think it would be too taxing.
Regarding the client machines themselves, well they’re old. I’ve just used CPU-Z to try to identify the processor and motherboard manufacturing year. It’s not good news. The Compaq is an EVO W8000 with a single Intel Xeon processor running at 2.1 GHZ circa late 2002. The Intellistation is even older than I thought! It’s a 2001 model Symphony. Luckily, I can substitute it with another Compaq Evo. All machines only have 1 gig of ram, and we can’t upgrade that as it’s old RAMBUS Ram (why oh why did they think that was a good idea!)
I think I’m going to try it and see what happens – the alternative is hiring in a bunch of Avid certified SCSI drives which will cost 4x what this experiment is going to cost me, other than time and frustration 😉
I’ll let you all know how it goes. If anyone has any further advice or comments, please be sure to post or email me. Hoppefully Bob will reply with his infinite wisdom.
Cheers
Keren
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you are making great assumptions. I would never try this.
Forget SAN’s period. I have tried to simply install single eSATA cards in older Meridian systems. (like Cal Digit and Sonnet). Although the drives mounted, computers like the Compaq would not even launch the AVID application. You are making ASSUMPTIONS that all of this will work, but the Meridian system are VERY sensitive to what boards are installed in the computer along with the Meridian card set.
Before spending a penny, get your ethernet cards, stick them in your Meridian systems, and see if you can run and capture from the AVID application. Once this works (if it works), get a switch, and see if you can network these computers together. Only then should you even attempt to do the SAN system – before wasting a lot of time and money.
I have personally “had it” with AVID Meridian systems, as they are very tempermental to ANY third party hardware. This is much easier to do with newer Adreanline or Mojo systems, that do not use the Meridian cardset.
bob Zelin
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Bob
Thanks for the comments.
I will install the gigabit ethernet cards tomorrow and see what happens. Hopefully, it will be OK – Chris’s machines seemed to be ok with it.
I already have a managed gigabit switch which the IT department doesn’t need at the moment so no money is being spent there. The only outlay thus far will be for the 4-port gigabit ethernet card which can be absorbed into the IT dep as they will find a use for it. Tiger Technologies has very kindly given me trial licenses of MetaLan to see if I can get it to work. I’m also testing everything on an unused Meridian system.
Hold your thumbs!
Cheers
Keren
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do not install MetaLAN yet. Get your network working first.
You need a managed switch that supports IEEE 802.3ad which is LINK AGGREGATION. If it does not support this (and there is nothing on the switch website that says it supports it), then it will NOT work.
You must link 4 ports together, and you must have a 4 port ethernet card. If you don’t do this, you are WASTING YOUR TIME. When you get this working, THEN install MetaLAN.Bob Zelin
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Did you ever get this working Karen? I’ve been looking at MetaLAN with interest for an upcoming job.
For what it’s worth, we had great success in reviving a couple of old Meridien systems for a big job last year, where we used an Editshare over the W8000’s built-in network card.
It worked like a charm. Mind you, we were only dealing with 15:1 media.
Best,
Christopher -
Hi Christopher
In the end, I never went with it as it was worked out to be more of a pain than it was worth. The job was only for 4 months and we managed without it. I’d still love to test my theory out though, as there are a lot of unloved Meridien Avids lying around post-production houses and I’d love to put them to good use. Especially when you’re working at offline 15:1 resolutions.
Cheers
Keren
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