is there a solution to turn my Promise thunderbolt RAID into a SAN/Server?

[Andrew Richards]

[Tyler Henry] “What’s the advantage to installing sanMP if it’s not necessary? Is it only necessary for larger bandwidths?”

SANmp is used for fibre channel storage area networks (SAN). SANmp manages volume locking so that multiple users of the same fibre channel RAID do not stomp on each others storage transactions. One user can read and write, everyone else can only read any given volume. You would not use it for Ethernet-based network-attached storage (NAS) like Final Share or Small Tree, which use protocols like AFP, SMB, or NFS to connect.

Best,
Andy

[Josh Thomason]

The benefit to SANmp is that volumes show up as locally attached storage to the OS, in effect there is really no difference to the OS/applications with a SANmp volume vs a local hard drive. There are a few applications where this still matters, it used to be mainly for Pro Tools users; but if you’re running Pro Tools 10 or later this won’t make any difference. It doesn’t matter for most applications (FCP 7, FCP X, Adobe, Avid, etc.). The website say’s it offers ‘SAN’ connectivity, which is true from a technical standpoint; but I don’t believe (and haven’t seen) any data showing that this is any faster than setting up a network share with the same hardware.

Keep in mind, I work at ProMAX, so I am partial to platform; that said we do offer a complete turnkey storage solution that is all in one box and very easy to manage. Price wise it will end up about the same as if you do it all yourself with a mac mini, thurnderbolt storage and all the extras you need. Here is a little demo of how it works https://www.promax.com/s-238-platform-manager-software.aspx

If you have any question please let me know.

[Eric Newbauer]

Hey Luke,

In fact, we created Xtarget so you could do EXACTLY what you want to do, and since it’s an all-software solution you can download it and give it a whirl for free.

https://www.studionetworksolutions.com/globalsan-xtarget/features/

There’s a quick demo video on that page that does a good job explaining the solution. Hit us up if you need anything!

Eric Newbauer
Studio Network Solutions
https://www.studionetworksolutions.com

[Steve Higdon]

[Andrew Richards] “SANmp is used for fibre channel storage area networks (SAN). SANmp manages volume locking so that multiple users of the same fibre channel RAID do not stomp on each others storage transactions. One user can read and write, everyone else can only read any given volume. You would not use it for Ethernet-based network-attached storage (NAS) like Final Share or Small Tree, which use protocols like AFP, SMB, or NFS to connect.”

I’d like to set the record straight on SANmp, as Andrew’s comments are not entirely correct.

SANmp is a SAN volume management software that can be used to manage not only Fibre Channel storage, but also iSCSI volumes. That’s two different connectivity modes, both of which are block level. Fibre Channel can provide very high performance over optical cable. iSCSI can typically provide about 100MB/s over gigabit ethernet, and significantly higher speeds over 10GbE.

Andrew IS correct when he points out that SANmp is not required to manage NAS protocol volumes such as AFP, SMB, and NFS.