Do I really need a SAN?

[Bob Zelin]

Do you really need a SAN? Do what everyone does that doesn’t want to spend the money for one. Setup a network, and try to feed all of your “client” workstations off of your one dedicated “server”. See if it’s fast enough. You will see.

Now, if you put FC cards in all your computers, how will you tie this to your server ? Have you looked at the connections of FC cards? Are you familiar how these hook up? Even if you have just ethernet, how do you think that you connect multiple computers together to one server – even with simple ethernet ? Do you need a switch ? Do you know ?

If you dont’ know, may I give you some advice. You are either going to start learning about computer networks (or perhaps Fibre Channel networks), or if you are too busy, you will hire someone that does networking for a living. Or perhaps you are at a larger company, that has an IT department. Their computer people can point you in the right direction.

If you think that you are going to get a crash course on how to setup a fibre channel network on an internet forum, you are dreaming.

Bob Zelin

[Christian Betong]

-Do you really need a SAN? Do what everyone does that doesn’t want to -spend the money for one. Setup a network, and try to feed all of your -“client” workstations off of your one dedicated “server”. See if it’s -fast enough. You will see.

Like I stated in my first post I have a NAS and two clients and no, it is not fast enough.

-Now, if you put FC cards in all your computers, how will you tie this -to your server ? Have you looked at the connections of FC cards? Are -you familiar how these hook up? Even if you have just ethernet, how -do you think that you connect multiple computers together to one -server – even with simple ethernet ? Do you need a switch ? Do you -know ?

What I have right now is the two clients connected straight to the server on different ports with double aggregated gigabit ports.

What I am asking about is point-to-point fibre channel topology, meaning: Having four ports in the server and two ports in each client, no switch or hub.

Also I am asking if I need a SAN, or if NAS is enough for speed on typical HD video streams.

-If you dont’ know, may I give you some advice. You are either going -to start learning about computer networks (or perhaps Fibre Channel -networks), or if you are too busy, you will hire someone that does -networking for a living. Or perhaps you are at a larger company, that -has an IT department. Their computer people can point you in the -right direction.

-If you think that you are going to get a crash course on how to setup -a fibre channel network on an internet forum, you are dreaming.

Ha ha, no I was just asking for some advice on what routes there is for me to explore. As you know there is a budget on these things, I dont want to spend money on features I dont need. And what I need is a common pool of data accessible at high speed from two clients, and lower speed over normal ethernet.

Thanks for your advice on stating my mission more clear. At least that is how interpret your response.

Christian Berg-Nielsen
Sement&Betong
postproduction
Norway

[Bob Zelin]

Christian –
If you are using Fibre channel, and want to do this cheaply, get a QLogic 1400 switch, and ATTO 42ES cards. This is a “cheap way” of making a fibre network happen.

If you want to use Ethernet for your SAN, you can use a managed gigabit ethernet switch (like Small Tree Edge Core ES4524D), a multi port ethernet card (like the Small Tree PEG4), and aggregate these ports, to feed your other computers. If you want great inexpensive SAN management software, nothing out there is like Tiger Technologies MetaLAN.

bob Zelin

[Shane Sokolosky]

Think of it this way….

SAN = All Computer have a direct and fast connection directly to the storage.

NAS = All Computers go though a server then to the storage.

SAN = Faster, NAS = less expensive solution that will share.

The real question is, how much speed do you need to each client, what kind of video are you editing?

We’ve setup an Apple X Serve NAS system that could had about 7 clients editing HDV from it over ethernent with FCP, it does have it’s limitations though. The only way to tell is by how much bandwidth you need and will need in the future.

Cheers

Shane Sokolosky

Consultant / Systems Engineer

XSAN for Video Apple Certified Technician
Apple Consultants Network – Storage Area Networks
Apple Developer Connection

Office: 714-639-3767
Mobile: 714-599-1611

shanesky@santech.tv
https://www.SANtech.tv

[Christian Betong]

I need at least 300MB/sec to one client on around 200MB/sec to the other one.

Also being XSAN for Video Apple Certified Technician, do you know if theese cards work i boot camp?

https://store.apple.com/us/product/MB355G/A?fnode=home/shop_mac/mac_accessories/networking&mco=MTA4NjQx

https://store.apple.com/us/product/MB356G/A?fnode=home/shop_mac/mac_accessories/networking&mco=MTA4NjQz

Christian Berg-Nielsen
Sement&Betong
postproduction
Norway

[Shane Sokolosky]

Sounds like you do then, and to achieve those speeds, you’ll need storage that can handle that seed as well, if you plan on having both users simultaneously having that speed, there are a couple ways of doing that XSAN is one of them

https://www.apple.com/xsan/

as for the fibre channel cards, being an “Apple Certified Technician” I would say “Apple doesn’t support their hardware with windows”.

But if you must use windows and I’m just talking as a tech then perhaps these drivers on the windows side might help,

https://www.lsi.com/storage_home/products_home/host_bus_adapters/fibre_channel_hbas/lsi7204eplc/index.html

Shane Sokolosky

Consultant / Systems Engineer

XSAN for Video Apple Certified Technician
Apple Consultants Network – Storage Area Networks
Apple Developer Connection

Office: 714-639-3767
Mobile: 714-599-1611

shanesky@santech.tv
https://www.SANtech.tv

[Christian Betong]

We have a box with 16 disks in a RAID 5 array running windows. Disk speed is around 600 MB/s. Currently we only had this connected on a 1GB ethernet.

Since Apple doesn´t support their hardware on windows we were thinking of this card in our windows box:
https://www.qlogic.com/Products/SAN_products_FCHBA_QLE2464.aspx
(seen at as cheap as $900-1000)

How would it work with this card connected to our RAID machine, and then use Apple´s dual channel 4Gb cards in each our two Mac pro clients?

We hope to manage without a fibre switch, and hope this setup is possible.

Any thoughts on this setup?

Christian Berg-Nielsen
Sement&Betong
postproduction
Norway

[Sean Oneil]

Christian,

You need to read up on the difference between a “Fibre Channel Initiator” and a “Fibre Channel Target.”

Putting a fibre HBA card (like that Qlogic) in a storage server will not make it a Fibre Channel target device. HBA cards are initiators which designed to connect to external storage (targets) – not “become” the actual storage (hope that makes sense). You don’t just plug them into each other like you do with ethernet networking.

That said, there are special drivers and software that can turn a regular server into a FC target using certain HBA cards (particularly the Qlogic cards). But I warn you it is very complicated and unconventional. Here is one example:

https://opensolaris.org/os/project/comstar/
https://developers.sun.com/openstorage/articles/opensolaris_storage_server.html

Another option is to get something like this:
https://www.areca.com.tw/products/fiber_to_sata_ll.htm

Sean