Best file sharing method??

[Bob Zelin]

your questions are pointless. Using AVID clients requires a metadata server. My solution (or solutions like XSAN, etc) will not work. Some server has to administrate the multiple .msm files created by each AVID client. If this does not happen, these files will be over written in a simple network. Companies like AVID (unity), Facilis Terrablock and Editshare have addressed the multiple database issue. I am told that Apace can handle this as well, but I have never seen anyone using multiple AVID systems on an Apace
shared storage system.

The bottom line, is that because of this “issue” – there is no “cheapo” shared storage solution for AVID. If have did not have this “issue”, then any hi speed network, from any of the companies that you see advertised would work. You can try this right now for your test. Setup a simple 2 AVID network – it doesn’t matter if your system is fast enough to play back the files. Open up AVID # 1 with media on the network share drive (it can be a folder on any PC or MAC). OK, it opened, even if you can’t play it. Now, open up AVID # 2 using the same shared drive. Look – it opened up. Now, go back and open up AVID # 1 again – it says MEDIA OFFLINE. Because you wiped out the .msm file of AVID # 1. This is why simple networks don’t work with AVID.

Bob Zelin

[Chuck Mcmakin]

I’d just like to chime in here to correct Mr. Zelin’s statement about Avid clients requiring a metadata server.

That is actually not entirely correct. Although most of my competitors must resort to using a file level approach to solving Avid’s needs for shared storage (and therefore they require spending $$$ on the server/meta data controller, dedicated metadata network, etc.) with CommandSoft’s FibreJet SAN solution, you get to sidestep all of that.

FibreJet is a serverless volume-level SAN manager that works great with Avids. Final Cut Pro, and Pro Tools workflows.

For Avids, FibreJet includes CommandSoft’s AV Enabler feature which essentially tricks the Avids into thinking they have write access to volumes which they are actually mounting with just read-only access. (My engineers can provide a much deeper technical explanation if you require it.)

CommandSoft’s FibreJet SAN solution has been serving thousands of Avid clients for many years now. Not a single one of those SANs has a metadata server on them.

Bob Zelin’s statements about there being no “cheapo” solution are basically accurate if you are serious about multiple edit bays served by shared storage though. Most of our clients are springing for 4Gb fibre infrastructure lately but we are seeing a growing interest in the lesser expensive iSCSI solutions too.

Feel free to contact us any time if you would like to discuss your options further.

Chuck McMakin
CommandSoft, Inc. /
Phone: (805)730-7772 /
Email: chuck@commandsoft.com

[Chris Blair]

No disrepect meant here…but in doing research on SANs last year, I about crapped my pants when I saw the price of FibreJet software. Licenses for 4 seats were nearly as much as the entire NAS based solution we ended up buying (which works great by the way).

I don’t doubt FibreJet does exactly what you say it does and that it’s fabulous software that’s worth every penny you charge. But the original post was asking about Bob’s DIY SAN solutions. I doubt he’s going to have the coin to pay for 2 FibreJet seats.

Fibrejet is just not an option for even medium sized post facilities. We have 8 employees and do well over a $1 million a year in revenue and it was simply not a viable choice for us because of the cost.

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

[Chuck Mcmakin]

Hi Chris. No disrespect taken.

We appreciate your confidence in our statements about how well FibreJet works for Avid workflows. It is true that we have learned a lot about real-world workflows by virtue of the good fortune we have had in providing solutions to several of the bigger studios and networks.

..but that isn’t the only segment of the market in which FibreJet SANs are viable!

Of course we understand that the total expense of the SAN (SAN client software included) needs to be taken into consideration, especially when we are talking about smaller shops and especially in such trying financial times. (Although I should mention that we have leasing companies constantly calling on us saying they are cash flush and ready to write deals into digital post opps.)

I can’t help but wonder if you are probably not aware that CommandSoft also offers iSCSI versions of FibreJet at less than half the cost of the versions for fibre channel infrastructure?

Using an iSCSI approach can help keep cost of both the hardware and the SAN clients down to a much easier-to-handle price point for some of the smaller shops.

We aren’t trying to say we are the only game in town that works. We’re simply requesting that you not write us off due to an outdated assumption about total cost. Our success in larger facilities has helped us continue to improve and innovate while also enabling us to push into more cost-sensitive markets.

Feel free to give us a call any time. We have a pretty generous evaluation policy for anybody interested in giving FibreJet a test flight.

Chuck McMakin
CommandSoft, Inc. /
Phone: (805)730-7772 /
Email: chuck@commandsoft.com

[Chris Blair]

Chuck,

I only read and heard good things about your products. So I wasn’t trying to sway anyone away from them. Far from it! For our shop, moving to a Fibre SAN was out of the question due to infrastructure cost (fibre switch, cabling, installation, configuration, etc.)

We looked at ISCSI and AoE, but I quite frankly could not wrap my head around the whole volume sharing model, with all it’s permissions and mounting and unmounting and read/write issues when dealing with NLE and editing and capturing etc.

It was just far easier for us to go with a NAS based solution with its familiar file-level sharing model… and frankly, it was all we could afford. We HAD to move to shared storage or we were going to lose our biggest client due to an inability to keep up with their demand. Turns out, they’ve become a casualty of the economic times, but moving to shared storage was the best investment we’ve ever made.

So hopefully people looking at SANs and ISCI will consider your products because I read post after post on AVID forums from people using it daily.

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

[Bob Zelin]

What I find funny about the majority of the posts on this forum (and many forums on Creative Cow) is that some “yutz” asks “how can I do this (for zero money), and then all of “us” race to respond with professional answers, with all of our mid priced to insanely expensive solutions. Yet the “yutz” just wants to know why he can’t do uncompressed HD shared storage with a Firewire 400 drive that he bought from Fry’s.

This is why you don’t see the original poster in many of these questions respond back to us. He doesn’t want to spend $60,000, he doesn’t want to spend $6000, and he doesn’t want to spend $600. Yet we can’t wait to tell him “the right thing to do” for only “$ xxx” dollars. Ramona Howard of SpecSoft is infamous for doing this (no disrepect here), but some yahoo will ask a rediculous question on how to do everything for zero money, and she can’t wait to tell him how here insanely expensive storage products can do exactly what he wants. Of course, if she gave it to him for free, he would be happy to use it.

Bob Zelin

[Chuck Mcmakin]

Yeah, I think we all see our fair share of inquiries from folks that aren’t actually in the market for professional solutions. (Not sure if that’s necessarily true with our OP in this case or not…)

We do try not to seize every forum posting as an opportunity to reply with an “infomercial” response but… we’re also all just trying to spread the SAN love, ya know? 🙂

Chuck McMakin
CommandSoft, Inc. /
Phone: (805)730-7772 /
Email: chuck@commandsoft.com

[Sean Oneil]

Bob, you wrote that article. The opening of said can of worms is your doing :).

Sean

[Seth Palenscar]

If you are referring to me Bob, I actually haven’t responded because I wasn’t getting notifications about follow-up posts. And you did write the article on building your own affordable SAN. You actually mention using Avid codecs in part of it, yet in response to my question you insist it can’t be done with Avid clients. As far as spending the money, I don’t know where you work, but some of us don’t have a silver spoon in their mouth. We simply can’t afford or acquire the funding to do it the way it should be done, so rather than giving up, we attempt to find an alternate method. Just so you know, the MetaLAN software you talked about in your article will indeed work with Avid Clients. A media directory refresh is required to see any new media captured on other systems but for the price point and shops that are not working on 20 projects at a time, this seems to work just fine. And for DV25 footage, a single GigE connection to the host computer will work just fine.

[Chris Blair]

Seth,

It’s good to hear you’ve got stuff working in a way that helps you be more productive. Keep posting and asking questions because people on here really do want to help. If they didn’t they wouldn’t spend the time posting and writing articles.

I think the frustration that Bob talks about isn’t just felt on this forum, but all across Creative Cow’s forums. Me and my partners are in our 13th year of doing business, and I was always looking for the “cheap” way to do things…so much so that I sometimes tried to “roll my own” so to speak.

What I slowly figured out was that most of the time, once I’d spent the time and gone through the trial and error, if I added up the money I spent on failures, re-do’s, and my own time…I usually spent as much as I would’ve spent had I just bought the professional solution in the first place and paid someone to install it! Rarely did I ever actually save more than a few hundred dollars.

Now granted, I learned A LOT going through all the trial and error and it made me more technologically saavy, but it did not usually save my company money, and it almost never made us more money. So while Bob did write that original article, if you read it closely, I believe you’d end up spending at least several thousand dollars, and that’s if you already have some decent Mac computers lying around.

What we repeatedly see on this forum (and I’ve only been contributing for about 15 months) is people who ask for advice and get really specific answers about hardware, software, configurations etc. Then they answer that they’re going to try it there way anyway…often when other forum members have already failed trying these methods.

So yes, you CAN build your own SAN or NAS appliances for video editing. But it still requires some expense. It’s nearly impossible to take parts that you have laying around (drives, switches, ethernet or fibre channel cards, old computers etc.), hook them up and expect them to work reliably.

So I don’t think the response was directed at you specifically…but more in a general sense that people don’t listen to the advice they get about how to do this stuff.

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