SAN Storage Solution for Volumes larger than 8 TB

[Elan Dassani]

Davinci Resolve on Mac OSX
Avid Symphony on Mac OSX

both purchased in the last 3 months.

[Caspian Brand]

What OS are your client computers?

[Caspian Brand]

Our EVO solution does not have an 8TB limit as we’re using HFS+ volumes for the Mac.

You can read more about it here:

https://www.studionetworksolutions.com/products/product_detail.php?pi=12

Best Regards,
-Caspian

Product Specialist
Studio Network Solutions

[John West]

Elan,

You may want to consider the 10 gig shared storage system. You can expand the drive arrays up to 128 drives. Feel free to contact me directly for more details at 714-374-4944.

John West

[Bob Zelin]

Hi Elan –
are you sure that the Facilis Terrablock has a maximum volume size of 8TB ? That does not sound correct to me. Have you called Facilis ?
T.: +1.978.562.7022

or emailed them –
support@facilis.com

Our shared storage system can have a single large volume (like a single 48TB volume), but I am pretty sure that every company can do this today. I would call Facilis first, and if they say “no” – reply back here, and we will all give you the “hard sell” about how wonderful all of us are.

Bob Zelin

[Elan Dassani]

Called Facilis yesterday, they do not technically support volumes larger than 8 TB.

The software will let us create one, but we get Read/Write speeds below 200 MB/s on that volume, insufficient for uncompressed workflows.

[Nathaniel Cooper]

As much as I love AFP and 10GbE, I have yet to see a client sucessfully impletement this type of set up for Smoke/Symphony running uncompressed resolutions. If anyone has any real world clients doing this please correct me. Yeah yeah yeah, I know it can be tested and might ‘work’ in a tested enviornment, but actual end users is a different story.

As far as what fits the criteria of volumes larger than 20TB in a shared enviornment that can handle these resolutions.

Cheapest – Fast FC storage with SANmp, $30k range if you cheap out on storage.
Mid Range – EVO, uses SANmp propably $50k range
High end – Xsan $80k+

Since it’s only 3 workstations volume locking with SANmp is pretty solid and easy to use, especially nice with Avid since there aren’t database worries.

I’m trying to get ahold of the facilis guys to, that does surprise me about the volume size limit.

Nate Cooper
nate.cooper@promax.com
949.375.2738

Scuba Dive? https://www.postproductiondivers.com/

[Jason Myres]

SAN MP with 8Gb fibre arrays will be the easiest, most affordable route to scale that large and handle uncompressed HD. Later on, if you add several more bays, or need file-level locking, all of your arrays can be re-purposed for use with Xsan, StorNext, or ActiveSAN.

JM

[Michael Kammes]

Why not have multiple volumes on the Facilis? Is it because you just want one big ‘bit bucket’ to use?

Facilis can scale MUCH large than 8TB, you just need to create multiple volumes.

~Michael

.: michael kammes mpse
.: senior applications editor . post workflow consultant
.: audio specialist . act fcp . acsr
.: michaelkammes.com
.: twitter: @michaelkammes
.: facebook: /mkammes

Hear me pontificate: Speaking Schedule .

[Elan Dassani]

a typical episode of the tv shows we work on have 4 to 6 TB per episode of master media. Therefore we have to create a single volume per episode to make it work.

In order to store all of the visual effects shots, pickups, etc, some episodes have to be split between volumes to store all of their media, which is kind of annoying. A 2 hour feature film shot on RED would have to have its media probably split between 3 to 4 volumes. Again, not a big deal, but it would be nice to store it all on one volume for organizational purposes.

Thats not that big a deal, it just get a bit annoying long term. It is possible we can’t use larger volumes than 8 tb at the pricepoint of Facilis/Editshare/EVO, etc, we were just trying to get some guidance going forward, as I’ve gotten a lot of differing opinions from a lot of different people.

All of the posts on this forum, however, have been very informative.