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Is this Possible: Final Cut with Centralized Storage on campus
Hello all,
I have a problem here and I’m looking to find out if there is a solution, or, more likely, find out that it is impossible.
So I work for a university IT department that is interested in moving all storage of students/faculty/staff work to a centralized server. In other words, we don’t want any local storage on any lab computers on campus. For 99% of the campus, this is a great idea, and already in place to some extent with AFS. However, the one area where we don’t know if this will work is in multimedia production, specifically with Final Cut Pro projects, especially when students are now shifting to working with HD footage.
So my question is, what would the requirements be to have a centrally located storage facility where students all over campus could access files and work (hiccup-free) on potentially uncompressed HD footage? Is this possible with a Gigabit network? 100 Gigabit? Is this something that a fiber infrastructure could handle? What are the bottlenecks?
I’m more of a multimedia guy than a server infrastructure guy, so pardon the perhaps ignorant form of the question – I basically need to prove to the higher ups that this is either possible but expensive, prohibitively expensive, or impossible (or at least highly unrecommended for practical purposes).
Cheers,
Michael -
13 Replies
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Uncompressed?
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Anything really. SD, HDV, 1080… (I’m not a video guy either, I’m just in charge of the labs… so once again, apologies for sounding ignorant).
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Go to MaxxDigital.com and look at the Final Share server solution.
We’re testing it now with 6 workstations all running 1080i/60 ProRes, but I’m told the system can be expanded for more workstations. Give them a call to discuss. I never believed you could truly do this with ethernet until we started testing it out and it does work. We’re still working out some kinks in the new Areca card that actually hosts the array, but that will be solved this weekend.
The best part about it is there is no software to screw up the students. They volumes just show up like local drives on the computers.
And no, it’s not prohibitively expensive. My system is about $20,000 with 24TB of storage and the same FibreChannel solution would be in the $40,000 to $50,000 or higher range.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
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Michael,
This is probably the best post ever on the subject from Bob Zelin, a true battle-hardened expert:
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/8/986858
Relevant quote:
“You want a central server. This is the #1 “can of worms” in all of your questions. Let me start off by telling you one thing – your school IT computer department knows NOTHING about shared storage for video editing systems, and if you get them involved, you will FAIL. You need a dealer or contractor that can help you, and if you won’t do this, get Apple Enterprise Group to assist you with a shared storage solution (they have a special educational division). I am not recommending Apple shared storage, but unless you can find someone that can help you setup a Facilis Terablock, EditShare, Apace VStor, MetaSAN, or similar shared storage solution, and teach you how to use these, you will FAIL. “
Video SANs are a highly specialized niche technology that require a depth of experience that is simply beyond that of most IT professionals. You owe it to yourself to get a professional SAN integrator on board to help assess your needs and plan out the best, most cost-effective solution.
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Another great Bob Zelin piece on building an affordable SAN:
https://magazine.creativecow.net/article/build-your-own-affordable-san-that-iworksi
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[Alan Okey] “This is probably the best post ever on the subject from Bob Zelin, a true battle-hardened expert: “
And I’ll note that Bob Zelin is the guy who configures the Final Share systems for MaxxDigital. He’s the one who set up our system. He really does know this stuff backwards and forwards.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
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Go to the apple page and do a search for “X-SAN”.
In your situation, “X-SAN” would be a very flexible, capable solution.
Most traditional IT departments do NOT understand the unique requirements of video SAN storage and try to leverage their existing storage and infrastructure
into your media system. As Bob points out… you will fail!You really do need professional advice on something like this. For the size of your installation, the small
“SAN in a can” solutions will limit your flexibility and ability to scale the network to a larger size.Mark
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Yeah, but how far away are your stations? This might work in an office/studio/single classroom (i.e. local) environment, but not for students all over campus.
Jeremy
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Yea, I’d need a solution that would take advantage of the already existing infrastructure. We have multimedia labs on multiple campuses, roughly 1-2 miles away. And I don’t even know where physically the storage would be located, but it would likely be not near the labs themselves.
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I always show people this great diagram on the Terrablock website that shows just how complicated a fibrechannel SAN (like the XSAN setups) to run video actually is.
Trust me – even if you get a pro reseller in to sort it – have a SINGLE shared storage system that not only handles video (which has pretty unique access requirements) but also all data requirements is madness, and will lead to the premature balding of everyone who is involved with it.
Set up a good system seperate in your media labs – and add 5 years to your life…
Ben
Edit Out Ltd
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FCP Editor/Trainer/System Consultant
EVS/VT Supervisor for live broadcast
RED camera transfer/post
Independent Director/Producer
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