2 degress frost

[Bob Zelin]

David writes –

I received this from 2 degrees Frost.
And I am wondering if anyone could tell me if this is a good way to running running three edit suites and 4 laptops or iMacs. I have a diagram of the following if anyone would like to see it.

REPLY –
is this a trick question ? You want to run THREE edit suites, and their proposal on the top line says FOR 2 EDITING SUITES. Is this a typo from them, or you ?

I have more comments below which I will comment on – you will see my comments when you see REPLY –

2ºFROST SATA-SAN NETWORKED VIDEO STORAGE SOLUTION FOR 2 EDITING SUITES
PLUS MEDIA OFFICE

VLAN’D SWITCH -ONE MAC PRO PER VLAN +

XSERVE FEEDING BOTH GIG-E PORTS ON SATASAN STORAGE
REPLY – so are you providing the Apple XServe ?

VLAN 1 VLAN 2 GIG-E SATA-SAN STORAGE AREA NETWORK – RAW ETHERNET
WITH NO IP NO.’S IP GIG-E NETWORK FOR FINAL CUT SERVER AND MEDIA
OFFICE FILE SHARING
REPLY – so are you providing Final Cut Server software ?

2 degrees frost Xserve running 2ºFrost Software Stack feat. MetaSAN, FC Server + Appleshare SATA-SAN TS15000 10TB RAIDED TURNKEY STORAGE

REPLY – so I assume (I ASSUME) that they will use MetaSAN software as well as Final Cut Server software for this application – is this what you asked for ?

Mac Pros running 2ºFrost Software Stack feat. MetaSAN > 100MBytes/sec wire speed into storage each VLAN

REPLY – it sure looks like their AoE SAN system, using MetaSAN as the user interface, but what the hell do I know. Does this look right ? I don’t know – have you called 2degreesfrost and asked for an explanation. I ASSUME that this will work, but ultimately this is the responsibility of 2degreesfrost. I don’t know anyone that is using their system, and there are no press releases on their website of their success stories with video clients, so I don’t know. I would sure love to hear about someone using this AoE system.

Bob Zelin

[Chris Blair]

I’d have to agree with Bob’s assessment here. The setup sounds unnecessarily complicated. I think the first question that needs to be answered is if this is a setup someone is recommending? If so..who?

Or…is this a setup you’ve configured? I know 2 Degrees Frost has pre-configured, turn-key solutions for video editing so I’d be curious as to why you’d need a custom configuration like this.

We spent 2 months researching low-cost shared video storage systems, and there’s an incredible amount of confusion out there…with a lot of it being created by the manufacturers themselves. Most of them throw around terms like block level, volume-locking, file-level, stacks, and layers…which means absoutely nothing to most facility owners or production managers tasked with buying and implementing these systems.

Another important distinction is SAN vs. LAN. The lines are blurring between these two transport methods, especially with 10 gigabit ethernet becoming affordable. That said, there are still advantages and disadvantages to the various transport protocols (LAN, iSCSI, Fibre Channel, and AoE which is Sata over Ethernet). One of the most popular low-cost shared video editing solutions is EditShare, a gigabit, LAN based system. And we use a 4TB, LAN based Apace vStor system. So before you go with a certain transport method, it would be good to figure out if it’s the best method for your facility.

We do virtually no HD…so our needs were for a system that could support 4 edit stations using multiple channels of DVCPro50 SD video.

A lot of the systems out there were serious overkill, and we couldn’t afford them anyway. The only ones that worked the way we wanted and that we could afford were EditShare and Apace’s vStor. Apace guaranteed it would work with our edit system (VelocityQ), and EditShare wouldn’t. We bought a vStor.

Using multiple disk-speed and data rate software utilities…the vStor tests at roughly 50-60MB/second sequential write speeds and about 60-70MB sequential read speads. Random access speeds are through the roof. But those speeds don’t tell the whole story. We consistently get 4 channels of real-time SD video across 3 edit systems with video at DVCPro50 and higher resolutions. We can capture uncompressed all day long, and also play back 2 channels of uncompressed in real-time across 2 workstations simultaneously. Some of this performance defies explanation, since 10-12 channels of DVCPro50 video SHOULD require at least 75-90MB/sec data rates, which the vStor has never shown in tests. And that’s not taking into account some of the overhead needed for the OS (Linux) and TCP/IP. So performance is about more than just raw data rates when it comes to video editing.

The best thing about it is that it’s simple to install and cable, and relatively simple to setup and configure via software. They help you every step of the way, and once it’s setup, it’s pretty much transparent.

The bottom line is the setup you describe sounds really complex. From our experience…it doesn’t have to be that way.

Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com

[David Groves]

This set up was recommended by 2 degrees frost. It seems quite complicated. I have started to look at EditShare, and EditShares workflow seems to be quite simple.
David.

David Groves
Alpha International

[Bob Zelin]

you will find that the best system for you is strictly based on ONE THING – the support you get from the company that you purchase from. You have seen that we have had good experience with Tiger Tech (MetaSAN), and Apace. I am sure that Andy and the team at EditShare will do a great job. But please do NOT base your purchase on how “cool” the system is. None of these systems will just plug in and work – they all require setup, and the ability to ask a lot of questions. If you find that you can’t find this kind of support from no matter what product you decide on – then you are buying the wrong product. Editshare and Facilis are both known for excellent support. But no matter what reputation you “hear about” – it means nothing until you can get someone on the phone to actually ask questions – because BELIEVE ME, when the big expensive box arrives – you will ABSOLUTELY have questions – and if there is no one on the other end of the phone, you are screwed.

Bob Zelin

[Sean Oneil]

I bought a license from 2 Degrees Frost a while back. They’re very nice and accommodating people. I believe it’s a family run operation.

I only bought it to test their AoE initiator with the Linux “vblade” software (which turns a Linux server into an AoE storage device). It worked, but it was slow and they don’t support it. So I passed. I was a bit annoyed because 2-degrees didn’t offer a demo version. So I had to buy something I ended up not using.

Back then, the only SAN hardware they supported was only a system from a company called Coraid. Those systems were very expensive, only held 12 disks, and only had two ethernet ports (and no way to expand). I thought it was a crappy deal. Two clients max, and only 1gb each.

According to the email you posted, it looks like things have changed. I guess now they’re selling their own version of “vblade” that runs on OSX Server. But rather than sell it separately, they are just packaging everything as a turnkey system. I don’t know the pricing so I won’t inject an opinion on that. All I can say is that like all ethernet SAN products marketed towards video editing, if it costs almost as much as Fibre, then why bother? Fibre is cheap now. You can get used Qlogic 2gb adapters (which work on a Mac) for $150 or less.

Sean

[David Groves]

The latest bit of news is quite interesting. Our organization decided to go with the solution from 2 degree frost. Since the order was placed, delivery of the 12 terabyte storage took over two months to arrive. And once the system was configured and we spent a considerable amount of time to get the system working with leopard, is when we find out from 2 degrees frost that the whole system is not compatible. (I wish they had been honest enought to tell us that in the first place) Well 2 degrees is now trying give us an updated solution that will work with the lastest Mac software. Fingers crossed…..

the support from 2 degrees is very slow, it takes almost a week to get an answer from their tech support.

David Groves
Alpha International

[Chris Blair]

Wow…that’s inexcusable in my book. Why would they sell you something that didn’t work with your setup?

When it comes to something as critical as your video/audio storage, making sure it actually works and that the company can provide support is critical.

It took less than 10 days to get our vStor from Apace after overnighting a check to their reseller. Then only a couple more days to schedule the installation & configuration with Apace’s tech guys. Within 14 days of ordering it, it was up and operating. We’ve only had one issue with it since. One edit suite was aborting on captures above about 10MB/sec. Within an hour or two of an email to Apace, they sent a detailed, step by step configuration change for the Jumbo frames settings in the vStor and our edit PCs (done through the PC’s web browser), that increased playback and record speeds by about 25% and solved the problem.

When we were researching systems last January, we couldn’t get anyone at 2 Degrees Frost to return emails or phone calls. So that was an indication to me that they didn’t have all their “ducks in a row.”

Hope you get it working though. But if it were me, I’d be demanding my money back and looking for another system.

Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com