Globalsan iSCSI initiator vs Synology DS1511+ multipath I/O

[Bob Zelin]

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003DTLXKG/ref=asc_df_B003DTLXKG2081852?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=asn&creative=395093&creativeASIN=B003DTLXKG&hvpos=1o1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=8961336651238814190&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=

Hi –
feel free to tell me to go screw myself.
Above is the $499 Synology 1511+. It is a 5 bay NAS that has the capability of iSCSI.

You are never going to get a box like this to work for a shared storage envionment for what we do for a living. You want to have video shared storage. Get a Mac Pro. Run SNS GlobalSAN Xtarget on the Mac Pro – buy a REAL DRIVE ARRAY – anything you like, that you see advertised here on Creative Cow – nothing – not a single item – on Creative Cow is $499 – but get a real drive array, and plug it into the Mac Pro. Run GlobalSAN XTarget on this box. Now, put SNS GlobalSAN iSCSI initiator on your workstations (Premiere, etc.). Put SNS SANmp admin on your server, put SNS SANmp client on your editing workstations, and guess what – everything will work. And guess what – it will not cost $499. So how can you build a shared storage enviornment for $499 for video workstations – YOU CAN’T.

Glenn’s reply to me: SCREW YOU.
Bob’s reply to Glenn: SCREW YOU. You are not getting anything for $499 – Period. And the day that you can, I am not part of Creative Cow.

Bob Zelin
ps – yes, I read your post on the SNS forum. I read it all.

[Glenn Venghaus]

Ok first off all, thanks for replying at all to my post you holy emperor of know it all 🙂
I would never tell anyone to screw himself on a forum but hey that is just me. I was just hoping for a serious awnser on this (i thought) professional forum of people with much more experience on this subject then myself.

I do not have a video editing shop but just a small setup for producing art videos and smal documentaries for a very small audience. Have been working with this setup for a few years and sofar have never had a hickup with the DS1511 + extension bay solid 90 MB/s on average. Am already running iSANMP ( so you probably did not read it properly) and can easily edit 2k in this setup so i wouldn’t talk it down that easy. But of course feel free to spend 40k plus on an array if you need it. On my real job (that makes the money) in IT i work daily with arrays of petabytes in ginormous datacenter, butstill see the advantage of these affordable boxes as long as they get the job done.. I also have the money to buy huge arrays, but simple do not need it so why should i?
Unless you measure profesionalisme on how much money you spend to get the job done…..
I am just asking a simple question on getting advertised functionality to work. At least the guys at SNS take the question seruously.

So for anyone else that is still happy (or not) with their synlogy 2lan equiped array and does have mpio experience please let me know.

[Steve Modica]

You might try the Small Tree Initiator. We just got MPIO working and I’d like to see if it works with your target anyhow. (Not sure if we posted the driver but you can email me and I’ll send it).

I don’t think MPIO is going to help you. It will increase the bandwidth to the thing, but you could do that with 10Gb too (assuming it supported 10Gb). The issue will be the spindles. For $499 you could get maybe 1 spindle 🙂 That’s not enough for video latencies.

People go around thinking that the network is the problem or that ethernet is the problem. Ethernet ROCKS. Ethernet is superfast. Ethernet has flow control and the gigabit port on your Mac Book Pro can *kick your internal spinning drives paltry little 40MB/sec ASS*, yet, people think Ethernet is slow.

So, the issue is that disk drives are slow. Disk drives need to catch up to 10Gb now. (1GB per sec!) Bring it on.

Steve

Steve Modica
CTO, Small Tree Communications

[Glenn Venghaus]

That would be indeed an interesting test. Did not realise you guys also had initiators. Only knew about atto and sns. Will mail you. Asumme you are iSANmp compatible ?

Regarding 10Gb no unfortunately not but would also be rediculous if it had in this pricerange.
Spindels i have 10 , running this with one expansion cabinet ( the price quoted by the sensei was for the caninet and not the main unit btw) and should easily be able to do 200 Mb , to saturate 2x1Gb.
With that feeding one workstation at the same time you can do some nice work already (considering the budget of around 2k for the 2 cabinets and 10x7200rpm).

I am from the time that you had to write code of max 64 kb to fit in memory. So believe in maxing out your hardware by some smart usage, rather they buying of the shelve expensive stuff.
Not always works out of course but love experimenting. 🙂

So far doing pretty wel with a few crammed mac mini servers , macbook pros and imacs . Packed with reder cluster nodes, happily blasting away at my nuke projects. Full automated delivery of final edits from FCP to a massively customised final cut server. And still able to do realtime grading in 2k and editing ( if i dont go grazy on the trackcount.

Wanted to add a macpro to upscale but the current hilarious price/value upgrade does not convince me . So i will wait and see what happens there, while in the mean time trying to squeeze the max out of the current setup.

P.s. I have SNS and synology developers talking together and working on getting this to work. Have good hopes.

[Alex Gerulaitis]

Glenn (and everyone):

Since this is iSCSI (not a shared solution in itself), I assume you want to bond two NICs to a server of sort? Whereas said server also having bonded connections to a switch?

Just curious: wouldn’t bonding NAS’ ports direct to a switch be a simpler solution? (Theoretically, this avoids the additional bottleneck/ overhead of the separate server.)

(Practically NAS probably doesn’t have enough CPU power to handle multiple TCP/IP connections as efficiently as a dedicated server – is that the whole reason for iSCSI+server vs. NAS?)

(Bob to Alex: SCREW YOU! You get NOTHING but fries for $499! :))

Alex Gerulaitis
Systems Integrator
DV411 – Los Angeles, CA

[Glenn Venghaus]

Hi Alex ,

In fact we are discussing a solution wthout dedicated iscsi server. The synology device hosts the iscsi target and has therefore extra cpu power and memory compared to its smaller siblings.
Of course this solution has its limitations where it concerns multiple concurrent connections.
For that Bobs server attached storage in combination wth xtarget software sharing this storage via iscsi has much more possibilities.
Also the more professional solution could use a dedicated iscsi adapter, which takes care of the iscsi translation and saving lots of cpu on the host ( which can be signifficant).

Regarding bonding, keep in mind that that is something very different then what we are discussing and is something lots of people mix up.
In channel bonding you bind 2 network adapters together (switch has to support this ) to form a wider pipeline. The single sessions from host to target are still limited to the max speed of a single connection ( in my case 1Gb) but more connections at the same can use the wider pipe. Also this creates redundency in case one connection brakes
MPIO – multi path i/o, or MC/S – multimple connections per session, (both sligthly differrent) allow for a single connection to the target to gain more speed by using the 2 channels at the same time, limited to the theoretical maximum of (in my case ) 2Gb.
This is what i am trying to achieve here.

[Alex Gerulaitis]

[Glenn Venghaus] “Of course this solution has its limitations where it concerns multiple concurrent connections.”

Just to clarify: you will be using this setup just for one client system at a time? I.e. not for any sort of sharing (outside of sharing at a client level)?

“multiple concurrent connections” – only for MPIO purposes, i.e. between a single initiator and a target?

Alex Gerulaitis
Systems Integrator
DV411 – Los Angeles, CA

[Glenn Venghaus]

Well yes and no.
I am using iSANmp to be able to share with multiple workstations (as you need a special cluster aware filesystem, otherwise you corrupt it) , but in practice only a single workstation at a time will put a heavy demand on it eg editing etc. But this can be a differrent workstation every time depending on the task.

And yes mpio and mc/s talk about a single initiators connections to a single target but over more then one network connection at the same time .

[Bob Zelin]

Glenn writes –
“Spindels i have 10 , running this with one expansion cabinet ( the price quoted by the sensei was for the caninet and not the main unit btw) and should easily be able to do 200 Mb , to saturate 2x1Gb.
With that feeding one workstation at the same time you can do some nice work already (considering the budget of around 2k for the 2 cabinets and 10x7200rpm). ”

So you have 10 drives available to you, and you want to have shared storage. This is the reason I become such a smart ass in posts like this, and become so rude. This entire post is simply about money – the money you do not want to spend. You can simply get a Mac Pro on eBay, run Studio Network Solutions XTarget, and be done with this, and have exactly what you want, performing exactly the way you want it to. But you just won’t buy that Mac Pro on eBay – will you? – you have to use your $499 box. It’s more of a matter of principal to you than the money. Sorry, I can’t be polite in a situation like this.

Bob Zelin

[Glenn Venghaus]

No problem, be as rude as you want. That is your choice. I remain polite.
And again it was not 499 . that is only the expansion cabinet so add about 600 to it 😉 . (but of course that does not change your point which is valid)

You are right at least for the part that i do not want to buy a secondhand crappy old mac pro (my current dual 480GB 6G ssd’s 16gb 2012 macbook pro runs circles around it so why should I). I am still hoping for a better specced model . Yes i could go the windows route but dont want to.

So i just keep playing with my current ‘inferior’ toys if you don’t mind.

And iscsi on macpro has the same limitation on 1GB ethernet as my current setup (single connection to host still 1 or 2gb (if mpio)), so unless i go fiber or 10gb (which creates all kinds of problems with my mobile workstations not having the proper connection) there is absolutely no gain there.
So unless there is a ‘real’ gain and not an emotional , i rather spend my money on software or more ssd drives for local caches etc.
If you say fiber and only macpros as workstations yes they i fully agree with you. But thats just not my situation.

And also , i decide myself what this post is about and not you. The post is about getting a synology, in an aleade existing and proper working setup, to do mpio (as advertised ) to get the max out of the current setup and not about what is the best shared storage on the planet. Because forget about a macpro and xtarget if that is the question and budget is unlimited. I would then get some of the servers and petabyte SAN’s out of a datacenter i work.
Would be a bit overkill for the few small artmovies and docs i make , but het it would at least meat your stamp of approval 😉

Chill bro….