expanding 1 to 3 FCP systems and need shared storage

[Walter Biscardi]

[Rich Rubasch] ” I only wonder about the ProRes HQ on a Gigabit Ethernet network. “

Piece of cake here with 6 systems all running ProRes and ProRes HQ here. Been running since January and we’ve really been pushing the system hard the past two months with a new science series and feature documentary going on.

Full article here about the system:

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/biscardi_walter/media_san.php

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

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[Adam Polanger]

Saw on this post you guys had been mentioning SAN MP – My company is looking to sell off 4 licenses of SAN MP at a fraction of the retail price. We used this product happily for several years and no longer require them. Let me know if you are interested. Great shared storage option.

Adam Polanger
PB&J Television
Santa Monica, CA
310.396.3651

[Neil Sadwelkar]

ProRes even HD is fine over GigE. We use it as 1080p24 mostly. Also, machines that share storage need to be on a switch dedicated between the two. I have two MacPros connected with a direct cable between the two in Ethernet 2 and a cable from Ethernet 1 to the house network which has nearly 250 machines – XP, Linux, MacOSX.

Thes two happily share all the way up to 1080p24. One machine can even capture and layoff simultaneously.

Sharing media between Mac connected to each other directly over AFP through a dedicated network works better. And small 5-8 port GigE switches are quite inexpensive, and all MacPros have 2 Ethernet ports.

Neil Sadwelkar

FCP Editor, Mumbai, India.
Completely PAL.

[David Bogie]

Thanks everyone, fascinating reading. Problem for me with any kind of server (virtual or real) at my shop is that the IT geeks have the prerogative to run the thing.

Anyone want to put a price tag on your systems besides Shane’s estimate of US$15k?

bogiesan

[Ken Harper]

We currently have 3 FCP suites running independently using Quad Interface external drives, and SATA II internal HDs. Our procedure is to digitize to the internals and back-up on the externals. When moving or sharing the project we move the External and copy the media. The drives are really fast and while it seems less efficient then shared storage, you always have back-up copies of your media as part of the process.

Ken Harper
Sr. Editor/Director of Technical Operations
Moving Pictures, Inc.