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Sharemax
Hey. Anyone using the Sharemax Ethernet based video storage system from Promax?
Any other thoughts on Ethernet-based editing or experience with other providers of such?
Thanks,
Andrew
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11 Replies
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It’s the same thing as Maxx Digital Final Share, or Small Tree Granite Stor. ProMax copied what we did. Does it work – sure it works.
Ethernet based shared storage works perfectly.
These are some of the companies that make ethernet based shared storage –Maxx Digital
Small Tree
ProMax
Apace Systems
EditShare
1Beyond(Facilis now offers ethernet based shared storage)
AVID Unity ISIS 5000 is ethernet based shared storageAnd all iSCSI based shared storage (like Studio Network Solutions
or 2DegreesFrost) is also ethernet based.And yes – I am talking about Gigabit ethernet, not 10Gigabit (although 10 Gig ethernet works just as fast as fibre).
So if you have heard that “you must have fibre” – that is wrong information.
Bob Zelin
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Thanks, Bob. I have read some of your other replies as well and you are always very helpful.
Any advantages/disadvantages that set one system apart from the others? Especially simplicity of use and bulletproof construction/reliability, as they are most important to us.
Thanks again,
Andrew
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Nothing is simplier than ethernet based shared storage, as most systems use Apple File Sharing, and not a propriatary software license (which cost $1000 per computer) that is required in Fibre Channel systems. Do fibre channel systems outperform ethernet based systems – of course they do, and they cost dramatically more money.
With ethernet based systems, once you turn on file sharing, that’s it – you connect to your server from your client, and away you go !
If you want to see some systems like this, go to
https://www.bobzelin.comAll the systems I listed work perfectly.
Bob Zelin
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We use an Apace vStor system and it works great. It’s been running for almost 3 years now and has been off 3 times…all during power outages. It’s never hiccuped, never had any file corruption, and best of all, we get 3 to 4 real-time channels of DVCPro50 SD video across 3 edit stations simultaneously. It can also do compressed HD (DVCPro100 or Cineform) without issue, but fewer channels. You can add drive arrays and inscrease your real-time performance and stream counts.
Their customer service is the best I’ve ever experienced and while we’re a PC based shop….all the clients they had me talk to before we bought were Final Cut based shops…so it works happily with Mac and in fact, will work in a mixed editing shop since it’s OS agnostic. It’s formatting doesn’t give a hoot about the workstation’s OS.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com
Read our blog http://www.videomi.com/blog -
We use an Apace vStor system and it works great. It’s been running for almost 3 years now and has been off 3 times…all during power outages. It’s never hiccuped, never had any file corruption, and best of all, we get 3 to 4 real-time channels of DVCPro50 SD video across 3 edit stations simultaneously. It can also do compressed HD (DVCPro100 or Cineform) without issue, but fewer channels. You can add drive arrays and inscrease your real-time performance and stream counts.
Their customer service is the best I’ve ever experienced and while we’re a PC based shop….all the clients they had me talk to before we bought were Final Cut based shops…so it works happily with Mac and in fact, will work in a mixed editing shop since it’s OS agnostic. It’s formatting doesn’t give a hoot about the workstation’s OS.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com
Read our blog http://www.videomi.com/blog -
Thanks, Chris. How much storage do you guys have and about how much did it cost (if you don’t mind me asking)? Also, were you guys able to set it up yourself or did you need installation from Apace?
Thanks again for your help!
Andrew
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We have 4TB or storage. Apace spent several hours in phone conferences and using “Go To Meeting” to help us select our hardware setup and then help us with the software install.
We hired a local IT guy to do the actual network installation, but only because I was busy with other work. If you have a working knowledge of networking, it’s not very difficult to set that part up yourself. But Apace will provide loads consultation help getting it installed as part of the purchase. They probably spent an hour in phone conferences (along with our reseller IEEE in California) helping us make choices on how to configure and cable things, recommend what switch to buy etc.
Then spent another 3-4 hours (over 2 separate days) controlling our workstations setting up the software side of it for us and connecting and testing the 4 workstations.
The vStor unit we bought cost $8900, but once we added a spare drive, a 48 port managed GB switch, some new cabling, 2 LaCie rackmount network backup drive (4TB) a LaCie rackmount network project drive (2TB), a rolling rack, sound proofing material for the closet it’s housed in (the vStor is WELL cooled and is hence loud)…and paid the local IT company for about a day’s worth of installing all that…we spent about $15,000. It’s been running non-stop since the install in Jan-Feb 2008 without a single hiccup or technical issue. It’s been off 3 times…all for power outages since.
Hope that helps.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com
Read our blog http://www.videomi.com/blog -
I am amazed Chris, that after all this time, you can survive with only 4TB of storage since 2008. Most of my clients are passing out that they only have 16 – 32 TB of storage, and most have expanded by now. How do you continue to work in 2011 with only 4TB of shared storage between all of your rooms ?
Bob Zelin
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Probably 90% of our projects are SD; we only load “good” takes for projects, and we have a really good backup workflow. We backup to a 4TB LaCie network drive every night, then once every 30 or 60 days we offload about 500GB – 1TB of that to 2 External SATA drives that can be hot-swapped on one of those external docks.
So we just buy 500GB sata drives and offload old projects. If we need them for revisions, we just restore what’s needed and we’re off and editing. We also backup to multiple drives for redundancy.
We’re getting to the point of needing to look into expanding since we’re starting to do more HD projects, but 4TB has been plenty for us so far.
I think a lot of facilities have really awful pre-production routines and many, many young editors think they need EVERYTHING that has been shot before starting an edit. We mark takes during a shoot, then review before the edit and pare those down even more before we ever start editing, so we don’t load the drives with hours and hours of unneeded footage.
I’m 50 and started editing with film, then tape to tape, so I think I have a better pre-production process than a lot of younger editors who seem to think storage is endless. I also train our younger editors to edit and prep this way and I honestly think it makes them better editors as well.
As we move more into HD I’m sure we’ll have to add storage…but with the vStor, we can just add another unit and increase space and performance…so we should be good for at least the forseeable future.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com
Read our blog http://www.videomi.com/blog -
I’m going to quibble with Bob on this.
ShareMax is definitely *not* the same thing as Small Tree or Maxx Digital sells.
It may have the same chassis (bent metal) and it may have the same cards and cables.The difference is that we set our systems up and poke our noses into how they are tuned and configured. We get right on the system and set all that up. We also deal with each OS upgrade when apple changes those parameters and performance tanks or changes (like when 10.6 changed the default IO size or AFP gets broken because of a TCP issue).
So the difference is that phone call when it breaks. We screen share, look at the actual individual IOs coming from the raid and figure out what to do. We know how this works from platter to graphics card. (We even know about all the bugs on the built in Ethernet chips because we actually have (and read) the errata sheets)
If you want to take your chances, I think Sonnet sells the same chassis. It’s *real* cheap. You can put your 10^14 Read Error rate drives in there and set it up however you want 🙂
I heard one IT guy in New York put it very succinctly: Some people have hit the realization that they have $200,000 worth of product sitting on a $300 disk drive. Some haven’t. If they haven’t hit that realization, there’s no selling them a good product.
Lots of vendors buy Small Tree cards, but they don’t have my computer engineers. We do this every day. We live and breath it. And we don’t gouge you for it. We just make sure you can sleep at night.
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