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Current SAN software options
Aloha everyone,
I am just pondering an eventual upgrade to our current 4Gb FC SAN. Our hardware will definitely need an upgrade, but what I have never seen is a good comparison of the “simpler” SAN solutions. MetaSAN has hit it’s EOL, so I am at least going to look around before I upgrade to “Tiger Series” software.
MetaSAN, SANmp, HyperFS, FibreJet, ProMAX – who am I missing? Not trying to leave anyone out, those are just the ones I can think of. They all seem to be capable, mature products.
Any major benefits to any of these? Cost per client/setup? Has anyone done a performance comparison on similar hardware? Platform support? Spotlight Search support? File level sharing? Block level?
Personally, I think we would stay with a simple, no project management solution. Just a fast, big-ass shared volume with everything on it we need.
I have also seen this RAIDIX stuff – looks like an in-box processor/software is running the SAN? Is client software still required (OSX available)? Would it serve an HFS+ volume? I can’t seem to figure this one out. It would be cool to have a RAID box that handles SAN activity and serves an HFS+ volume, putting all loads on itself.
On a hardware note, I am anxiously awaiting more news on the shared Thunderbolt storage from Accusys. Anyone else announced something like this?
And just to shake things up, can anyone weigh in on a NAS solution that could compete with 8Gb FC? Would 10Gb ethernet and iSCSI do it? Would their be any cost benefit for 4 clients or less? With shared Thunderbolt storage around the corner, it seems unlikely.
Wow thats a lot to cover! Thanks for any info and discussion!
Mahalo,
Mike Peele -
4 Replies
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Unfortunately I don’t have too much to contribute as far as your questions go, but just wanted to add a couple additional thoughts in case anyone popped in and happened to have any relevant info… Has anyone here had any experience with HyperFS specifically? I’m currently looking after a 32TB SAN that we have been using FibreJet with, but if there aren’t any huge drawbacks in doing so, I’d love to get away from FibreJet.
I know (or assume, I guess) file-level versus volume-level is a big leap, and it would take me getting a hearing from someone that uses this is in a Adobe CC type environment before I’d jump on it, but I’m of the opinion that it’d really help out workflow in terms of how we use our shared storage to go with HyperFS.
All our editors have loathed using FibreJet of late, which may have to do as much to do with the state of the SAN as any fault of FibreJet, but it’s often that volumes just won’t unmount, (although, to answer your question, Spotlight is typically the cause of this, and it can be turned off by volume, but it does work much of the time), or just random program hangs/crashes when starting it up, or when trying to unmount all the volumes, or simply trying to refresh to the volume to see changes someone with write access has made. Also, if you want to try to use it on Windows, don’t bother. I want to say new seats of FibreJet run $1300/seat, to answer your question.
If anyone happens to have any experience with HyperFS, I’d love to hear about it.
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Thanks for the response. Sounds like our experience with MetaSAN. It has been okay for us, though not without issues. The “Master” machine definitely enjoys better performance. Restarting a SAN client often forces a restart of the Finder on our other client, some applications handle this better than others (FCP 7 does not handle it well).
I can’t remember the cost of new MetaSan licenses, and that product is EOL’d anyways. Our last upgrades were ~$500/client.
Out of curiosity I looked a bit more into HyperFS. And although the creator of HyperFS is FalconStor, the top google links go to ScaleLogic. The FalconStor website has no HyperFS on their product list and searching their website brings up no mention of HyperFS since 2010. Has FalconStor moved on? Will ScaleLogic provide the support?
I’m not saying any of that has or is happening but it doesn’t inspire confidence. I would expect the software developer to have the most up-to-date information about their products. In addition, I really wish these companies were more transparent in their licensing prices. I understand they have resellers and hardware partners, but they could at least show an MSRP.
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Side note, I just setup a Synology 8-bay (8x6TB drives) NAS for backing up our SAN. I installed all the drives (no tools), booted and (self) updated the system, created a RAID 5 volume with an AFP share and added a DropBox app within 45 minutes. I’m getting about 80-100MB/sec writes on average for large files on a single Gigabit connection. It was amazingly painless (besides a pesky ethernet cable that would only give me 100Mb/s speeds).
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Last quote I received was a HyperFS client seat at $1265/per and an initial server-like license depending on how many seats you’re using (8 and under is only $375). Not sure of the details on the actual development of it, but ScaleLogic is definitely the “go to” on it at this point. But, you’re right, doesn’t inspire confidence. Pretty sure ScaleLogic does do full support on it though. Planning on finding out more at NAB.
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Hi Mike,
This is Crystal from Accusys, it’s glad to see you are interested in our new product A16T2-share.
I would like to invite you to join our product release conference on NAB Show.
The press conference will be taking place on April 14th 2015, 11:00 AM, at Las Vegas convention center-NAB Show press briefing room-N242 (3150 Paradise Road Las Vegas, NV USA 89109).
Welcome to join us and find out more this 1st ever thunderbolt sharing storage next Tuesday.
Or check our latest video of this storage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFMlwWBoIvsSome contents or functionalities here are not available due to your cookie preferences!This happens because the functionality/content marked as “Google Youtube” uses cookies that you choosed to keep disabled. In order to view this content or use this functionality, please enable cookies: click here to open your cookie preferences.
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