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Suggestions Welcome
I work for a small production company specializing in corporate video and live staging production. Two weeks ago, we began 13 videos that needed to be completed within a 2 week show deadline time frame. Fortunately everything completed successfully and the client is happy. Under that kind of pressure, with the 5 of us working 14 hour days, I’m definitely interested in any system that speeds up the production process. We currently do not use a server. Instead, we keep 34 external hard drives along with a range of 3 to 5 internal drives in each of our 6 editing computers.
I’m pushing for a cost effective server solution. The idea of multiple editors using the same media on a server is attractive.Data safety is our top priority though. Three weeks ago one of our editors knocked over a relatively new 500GB Seagate FreeAgent drive and killed it. The type of data recovery needed would cost around $800.
I’m thinking about a server incorporating drives in a Raid 6 configuration (up to 30% performance hit).
The New Adaptec cards seem quick, but I’m not familiar with the performance hit a Raid 6 configuration would inflict in a video editing environment. Especially since we are just getting started with Panasonic P2 files. If Raid 6 is out of the question regarding speed for multiple users, a central archive server would be a satisfactory compromise and a definite improvement over our current system of external hard drives scattered everywhere.The following are some products I am looking at with interest. Any thoughts?:
Kingwin
https://www.kingwin.com/product_pages/kf4000-bk.aspGigabyte Motherboard + 4 Gigabit Ethernet LAN with Teaming functionality
https://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_Spec.aspx?ProductID=2831Double-Wide Lian-Li case
https://www.xoxide.com/lian-li-pc-343b-case.html16 Internal Port Raid card:
https://www.adaptec.com/en-US/products/Controllers/Hardware/sata/performance/SAS-51645/Seagate ST31500341AS 1.5 TB
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148337&nm_mc=OTC-pr1c3grabb3r&cm_mmc=OTC-pr1c3grabb3r-_-Hard+Drives-_-Seagate-_-22148337 -
5 Replies
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you write –
Any thoughts ?I have only one thought. Of all the systems out there, that are designed for the professional video industry, for shared data storage and SAN workflow, why are you choosing these non standard solutions.
You can choose from Apple XSAN, Apace Systems, EditShare, Facilis Terrablock, Tiger Technologies MetaLAN, Maximum Throughput, Studio Network Solutions, 2degreesFrost, and even my home brew Small Tree solution – why on earth are you trying to reinvent the wheel with these products you have mentioned. You can see countless posts on the systems above right here on the SAN Networks forum. Why torture yourself ?
Bob Zelin
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You’ve left out the most important part. What software/OS are you going to run? How do you plan to turn that hardware into SAN or NAS storage? What are your client machines (Mac I assume)?
Finding cheap hardware that looks good on paper is easy. Turning it into a SAN is not.
Sean
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I’ll second Bob’s post. Unless you’re very saavy with computer hardware and configuration, I wouldn’t even attempt to build my own SAN or NAS shared storage system for video editing. It’s worth the money to buy a system designed to do what you’re looking for.
There are systems coming to market that are using 10gig-E solutions that are nearly as fast as SAN solutions. You don’t mention if you’re doing HD or standard definition. That too is a consideration, as many systems available allow you to start with a solution that will work with SD, but have upgrade paths to move to HD when you need it.
We use a system built upon our existing ethernet in our office using Gig-E. The only additional things we had to invest in were a larger, better quality switch, a couple hundred dollars in cabling, and a large network drive for backup. Yes…even if you use RAID 6, you should STILL backup to another drive. If you had a drive failure on your NAS/SAN, it could take as long as a day to rebuild the data depending on how large your storage capacity is. So having that footage backed up will get you back up and editing much quicker than doing a drive rebuild, especially if you work on deadline oriented projects.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Those drives are desktop drives not enterprise, you should get NS not AS Seagates for raid usage.
s
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We have been working with Apace Systems on multiple projects from 5 stations to 30, Mac and PC crossplat form. Apace gets video workflow and workflow in general.
If you would like to see a demo of the system interface on a webx contact me offline.
Dan Hatch
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