new SAN in a box offerings

[Shane Sokolosky]

I would recommend them and EVO over Terrablock, with the terrablock solution your kind of tied to their hardware in a way.

With Evo you can chain an X Serve RAID, Promise RAID, or anything you want to it and it’s expandable in many ways, you can mix iSCSI with fiber channel expand iSCSI clients over Ethernet or add more through fibre channel.

With terrablock I don’t believe you have to pay for a per seat license which can save you a bit of money, but with SNS / EVO your not tied to certain hardware which can also save you money, potentially a lot more down the road….for example you can use an old X Serve RAID and a Newer Promise RAID and another 3rd party RAID (like https://www.activestoragelabs.com ) all in the same SAN.

Shane Sokolosky

Consultant / Systems Engineer

XSAN for Video Apple Certified Technician
Apple Consultants Network – Storage Area Networks
Apple Developer Connection

Office: 714-639-3767
Mobile: 714-599-1611

shanesky@santech.tv
https://www.SANtech.tv

[Martin Jaeger]

Thanks Shane!

I’ve heard others mention being “tied to their hardware” with the Terrablock, but they do have many high-profile installations and very responsive support to recommend them. They also are approved for many performance dependent applications i.e Scratch… The EVO is attractive for exactly the reasons you state. We would love to continue to leverage our XServeRaid. The NAS functionality is also a benefit. Just such a new product and, as you mention, requires per-seat licensing of software. I’ve not been able to find any case studies or user feedback. A SAN is a big ticket item for us and with the entire facility being dependent on it’s reliability and performance, we want to make the best choice within our needs and budget.

Martin

[Chris Blair]

You write:

So hard to get any field experience reports with these systems.

I think that answers your question. If you can’t get SNS to give you names of people using the product in the field so you can get “real-world” answers and feedback, then I wouldn’t even consider buying it.

When we bought a shared storage system, that was critical to us. Incredibly, almost none of the companies we researched would connect us with current users so we could ask them questions (including Studio Network Solutions).

Only Apace and Editshare were willing to do it, with Editshare never following through and providing the information. So you can guess who we bought from.

If you can’t talk to people out in the field using these systems and get an honest, real-world evaluation, I wouldn’t even consider their products.

Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com