• Storage & Archiving

  What would you buy with a 20k budget?

  Posted by Jeff Hinman on May 30, 2014 at 1:00 am

  I am upgrading my company to three editing stations and shared storage. I would like to have the ability for everyone to edit off of one shared storage unit. My budget is 20k not including the editing machines themselves.

  What I have:

  3 Mac Pros (older without thunderbolt)
  1 Netgear 8-Port 10-Gigabit ProSafe Switch (recent drunk 2am purchase)
  1 Mac Pro with a 10gbe card which will run Mac Server OS (recent drunk 2am purchase)
  1 Tape machine LTFS SDNA backup system (left over from previous company)

  What would you do with the remaining 20k? I’m thinking a small tree SAN device. I plan on using about 10 TB a year.

  What would you do with my remaining budget?

  Bob Zelin replied 11 years, 11 months ago 4 Members · 4 Replies
• 4 Replies

• 

  David Roth weiss

  May 30, 2014 at 4:28 am

  Hey Chris!

  Let me ask you a couple questions, and from there I can provide an answer, or maybe two, to your question that will astonish you.

  1) what’s your primary NLE?
  2) what codecs are you primarily cutting, at at what frame size and frame rate?
  3) how many streams/layers are typical for most of your projects?
  4) do you use After Effects and/or Cinema 4D?
  5) what is it about the Small Tree solution that you like?

  Looking forward to seeing your responses…

  David Roth Weiss
  ProMax Systems
  Burbank
  DRW@ProMax.com

  Sales | Integration | Support

  David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.
• 

  Neil Smith

  May 30, 2014 at 2:58 pm

  Which 10GbE card is installed in the Mac Pro? … exact model number if poss.
  Neil

  Neil Smith
  CEO
  LumaForge LLC
  high performance workflow
  323-850-3550
  http://www.lumaforge.com
• 

  Jeff Hinman

  May 31, 2014 at 1:26 am

  Let me rephrase this question.

  If you had 20k to build a video editing network what would you buy? Hypothetically, you already have a 10gbe switch and the Mac Pro editing machines.

  Basically, would you go with NAS or SAN. What RAID (NAS or SAN) box would you buy and would you use tape or not? There are three editors and maybe five in the future all editing in Pro Res.

  QNAP, Drobo, Small Tree, EMC, …?
• 

  Bob Zelin

  May 31, 2014 at 5:28 pm

  you already own exactly what you need, except for the disk drive array. You have the Mac Pro, you have OS X Server, you have the 10G card, you have the 10G switch. You need some big fast disk drive array (and a host controller card). That’s it you are done. You don’t need anywhere near 20 grand to do what you want.

  Feel free to ask more questions, or contact me for more answers.

  Bob Zelin

  Bob Zelin
  Rescue 1, Inc.
  maxavid@cfl.rr.com

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