Migrating from Avid Unity to a NAS

[Bob Zelin]

But you already know how to do this. Unless someone is going to write software as a metadata server, migrating from Avid Unity to a NAS creates limitations that the original AVID user was not used to – working in a semi restricted volume based enviornment – even if there is no software controlling this.

Small Tree has already setup a 4 partition volume. One editor works on one partition. Other editors can read from that volume, but only one person can write to that volume (or you create havoc). There are variations of this.

Today, I installed the new WONDERFUL Studio Network Solutions GlobalSAN iSCSI target, along with the SanMP software (Small Tree has iSCSI target software too!). This software allows me to create a volume based shared storage enviornment – how is this different from what Small Tree does ? It prevents “idiot editors” who don’t want to pay attention to these rules from writing to a volume that someone else has assigned write access to. If edit1 assigns write access to their volume, and edit2 tries to mount that volume, it is impossible for them to get write access to this volume until this control is released from edit1. Now, you can say “just go into file sharing and change the permissions” – but this requires administration, or user interaction. SanMP prevents a user from making a mistake – where as in an unmanaged system (like what we are familar with) – if someone writes to that volume that the other guy has write access to with AVID – you go into media database scanning hell.

But a Small Tree solution works wonderfully with AVID IF editors follow the rules – as Small Tree has proven.

When you buy an AVID ISIS system, and spend your $55,000 for a 32TB ISIS 5000, you get an OS that requires no thinking, or button clicking. The metadata server manages all the users, so anyone can write to any damn thing they want, and no user suffers from this. You see this capability from Editshare as well (and recently Facilis) – and of course our friend in Sweden with xmCore software.

So, if a facility is willing to “follow some rules” – the migration from Unity to a NAS (like Small Tree) is very simple. But knowing many AVID users – they don’t want to change anything – they want it to work, just like they are used to – with no new rules. that’s the problem. Getting Media Composer to work on a NAS is not the problem.
It’s the mindset of the editors.

Bob Zelin

[John Heagy]

Take a look at Ardis Dynamic Drive Pool. They claim to precisely mimic an Avid Unity among other file systems. They created their own filesystem called AVFS with it’s own simple permissions mamagement.

https://www.dynamicdrivepool.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=85&Itemid=104