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SAN Storage for 5 Workstations
Hello,
I am new to video editing world. I am trying to spec a SAN storage system for my Video Editing team (5 workstations – MACPro). At the moment we have a NAS configuration (xServe), we are having difficulty with the two people running renders at the same time. I am looking for recommendation on storage system that will allow all 5 workstations to run After Effect, Premiere, Final Cut or CINAMA 4D at the same time with reasonable speed. We were recommended an Infortrend ES-S12F-G1433 12TB RAW storage with Q-Logic Switch and Xsan 2.2 for file management. Will this system be sufficient for 5 workstations to run video render at the same time?Any feedback is greatly appreciated.
Thanks!!!
Video Editing Newbie -
7 Replies
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Hey Binh,
There are a few options on the market, there a more NAS based set ups like you have. Then true SANs with Fibre Channel and/or iSCSI.
I’d be happy to help you spec out a system. My company has been designing and supporting these systems for the last 10 years. We have options for FC, iSCSI and NAS.
Feel free to give me a ring or an email. Also if you’re at NAB we’ll be at booth SL8922.
Good luck!
Nathaniel Cooper
Studio Network Solutions
818 209 1331
ncooper@studionetworksolutions.com -
You should also take a look at Apace and EditShare, as well as CalDigit, Dulce, Maxx Digital and probably others. There are solutions that work virtually “right out of the box” where you can connect directly to workstations with very little else needed, and then there are others that require switches, additional HBA cards for your workstations, servers etc. I wouldn’t just take the first recommendation I got without doing some fact finding on my own.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Bihn,
the answer to your question is no. Without having enough bandwidth to support 5 systems, a simple NAS, with simple ethernet will not be fast enough. You have already seen this – you try to get two people to play over a single ethernet connection back to your switch and server, and you get “drop frame errors”.If you are willing to spend the money on an Infortrend chassis, and QLogic switch, then you certainly have enough money to look into, and purchase one of the wonderful solutions that have been suggested to you by the people that have responded to you. If you say “but I want to build it myself”, then you must accept that a single GigE port on your server is simply not fast enough to run five workstations.
Bob Zelin
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I you just ‘happen to be’ in Las Vegas between 12-15 Apr then do come over to NAB and all these solutions would be there to see, speak about and compare. You can also come over to the Maxx Digital booth where experts like Bob Zelin will be available.
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Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India -
Thanks Bob!!!
What is your experience with 10GbE? Do people use 10Gb Ethernet with iSCSI for video editing? If so how does it compare with Fibre?
Thanks!!!!
Binh -
there is only one problem with 10Gig ethernet in a NAS situation today – the speed of the drives. If you use 300Mb/sec per station (which 10Gig can do), a typical 16 bay drive array that does 600 – 700Mb/sec can only have 2 clients working on it (or if you have 4 clients running 200Mb/sec for uncompressed HD – then that is your maximum number of users).
The problem is not 10Gig – the problem is the speed of the drive arrays in a NAS enviornment. The only trick that you can do is to use to SAS host adaptor cards and two drive arrays to get your arrays in a RAID 50 group, so you can run 1200Mb/sec – but again, with each client running 300Mb/sec – you will only get 4 clients working, and the others will crash.
This is why compressed HD is so important today. The ability to work at resolutions like ProRes422HQ, AVID DNxHD220, or RED codec resolutions are all under 30Mb/sec – so standard ethernet works fine for this. If you use 10Gig ethernet, yes – everything is faster, but your drive array becomes the limiting factor. You can’t have 8 uncompressed HD clients working on a single drive array even if you have 10Gig installed – the drive array is simply not fast enough.
Bob Zelin
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Hi –
this is the answer to your 10Gig question. Currently, you can easily connect two 10Gig clients to a common shared volume. The problem is that most modern drive arrays peak out at 600 – 700Mb/sec.
You can certainly stripe two RAID 5 arrays together to get better performance (about 1200 – 1400 Mb/sec) but from what I saw at NAB, 6 Gig SATA drives are to be released very soon (by end of 2010) so you will easily be able to get all 5 of your workstations setup in a 10Gig enviornment to do uncompressed HD. 5 systems running 200Mb/sec will be a total bandwidth of 1000Gig per second, and the 6 Gig drives in a 16 bay raid array will do about twice this. THEN 10 gig ethernet will be realistic for a larger workgroup (like 5 systems).you do not need iSCSI to make this work.
Bob Zelin
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