Looking for hard drive that will serve 3 computers digital video

[Bob Zelin]

It’s called a SAN ! And guess what, in addition to being real expensive, you are going to have to hire someone qualified to install it for you , and train you on it’s operation (and probably have someone on staff to administrate it). Of course, there is Apple XSan, and others include EditShare, Terrablocks, MetaSan, VStor, and others. By the time it’s all said and done, you are going to spend a minimum of $35,000 – $40,000. No, there ain’t no FW800 drive for 400 bucks that will let you have shared storage between your 3 MACs. And no matter what you research, you must accept the fact that you are not just going to take this out of the box, plug it in, and go to one of these forums, and say “hey, how do I get this SAN thing to work” – it’s complicated, and you are going to have to HIRE SOMEONE to help you.

Bob Zelin

[Walter Biscardi]

[Michael Pierre] “I’m looking for some kind of a harddrive raid solution for 5000 or under that can serve 3 macs digital video simultaneously.”

Does not exist for that price range. $10,000 minimum to do what you want to do, I’ve done the research and for setting up three workstations here with 5TB of storage it was around $25,000 minimum for the equipment.

For $5,000 you can set up individual hard drives and simply have the logging person copy their media to the appropriate drive.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
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[Jeremy Garchow]

[Michael Pierre] “All three computers would be working on the same project…. this is possible correct.”

With all the cool technology that’s out there today, I don’t think this is possible with FCP. I could be wrong, but I don’t think FCP is ready for a setup like that.

You all can swap timelines/XMLs as long as you are sharing the same media, but having the same project open and working on it does not work without some major caveats. Also as everyone has mentioned it’s mighty expensive to get it working properly.

If you need this type of functionality, I’d start thinking of a different workflow that involves something like what Walter said. Duplicate the media across all drives and then swap XMLs.

Jeremy

[Ron Thompson]

I just picked up a CalDigit drive to help with workflow over here. I am now running to systems for a show I’m doing. (LH and IO)
I would suggest, for $5000, pick up a couple of S2VR HD Raids and swap footage that way. Big Storage! They Work! They’re Mobile! and Inexpensive!
Not to mention you can configure them for various protection levels if needed. Setup a copy overnight if needed to duplicate footage–or as someone mentioned, project file or XML swapping.

For 2 systems I was quoted $12,000+…so a SAN was not an option for me, for what I do.

As a Medea and Huge owner, I can say the CalDigit is right up there.

Ron