SAN vs NAS

[Matt Geier]

Hi Eric,

Yes, you can (and would likely benefit more from NAS then SAN) for your Editing Needs.

SAN’s often require additional overhead software like you mention. Meta Data, and Redundancy are often required in addition to expensive cards, and other pieces you would not need with….

NAS, since it’s a lot more friendly for direct attach situations.

(You can direct attach to a Server, and run out to Gigabit or even 10Gb Mac OS Clients / PC Clients) — Creating Shared Storage shared over AFP etc, and boom you have NAS, and not SAN…

With regard to MAC OS + PC — I would recommend putting something like Dave Software (from Thursby) on the AFP server so it will properly handle SMB connections from the PC side.

(it’s not needed elsewhere)

My $0.02

Matt G.

[Bob Zelin]

I can tell you that we have setup a 10Gig ethernet shared storage enviornment between MACs ONLY for Creative Cow’s Nick Hasson – we are using Small Tree 10Gig ethernet cards, and he is moving 2K uncompessed DPX files between a couple of MAC’s, with NO SAN SOFTWARE. We also demonstrated this exact setup at NAB2010.

Is it “even possible” – why yes, it works fine. I have not personally tried using Thursby DAVE software to connect to a PC as Matt suggests, but this is the exact software that EditShare uses when you buy their system.

Bob Zelin

[Nick Hasson]

[Bob Zelin] ” can tell you that we have setup a 10Gig ethernet shared storage enviornment between MACs ONLY for Creative Cow’s Nick Hasson – we are using Small Tree 10Gig ethernet cards, and he is moving 2K uncompessed DPX files between a couple of MAC’s, with NO SAN SOFTWARE. We also demonstrated this exact setup at NAB2010.

Is it “even possible” – why yes, it works fine. I have not personally tried using Thursby DAVE software to connect to a PC as Matt suggests, but this is the exact software that EditShare uses when you buy their system.
“

Yes this setup works great. I have a smoke on one mac that does all of our editing on one mac pro, and apple color on the other. There is a small tree 10G ethernet link between the two computers. The smoke has the storage attached to it. When we color, its across the 2k link. We render and qc from the computer with no storage, everything is over a nas.

Nick Hasson
Smoke/Color
http://www.niceedits.com

[Pat Mcgowan]

Yes, it is possible as long as you use the right vendor. Do not attempt this with a cheapo solution. Or with disparate components thrown together. E-mail me at patm@inmotion.ca for more information from an end user perspective. I am not a vendor.

Pat McGowan
President, inMotion DVS Inc.
Ottawa, Canada
Sony PMW350K, 2 Sony EX-3s, Sony EX-1
Final Cut Pro (6 seats), CS5 (4 seats), C4D
Small-Tree GraniteSTOR 32TB RAID

[Mac Stevens]

You can also check out openfiler if you want to dedicate a box to this. I know it works well from the PC side but I haven’t tried it against a Mac.

Openfiler will give you both iSCSI (block based storage/SAN over ethernet) and NAS support.

One thing… Speaking from experience here, make sure you don’t cheap out on the Ethernet cards. If you run iSCSI, the performance is not so great without a TCP offload engine (TOE). NAS will probably have similar characteristics but I used to run iSCSI more than anything.

[Todd Jaspers]

Hey Bob and Nick,

I am interested in doing something like Nick Hasson. Do I have to be an official Creative Cow writer to get the inside scoop on how this setup works?

So I have the SMOKE station with directed attached SAS, and a 10gE card, then I have another MacPro with Apple Color/AE/10gE card, it sees the SMOKES SAS storage via thursby DAVE or via standard Apple Filing Protocol (AFP)? Or is thursby DAVE just for PC/MAC storage sharing?

Is AFP fast enough to read and write the 2k?
I love the idea of being able to have this setup now, and in the future be able to upgrade to a SAN when drives get faster and switches get a little cheaper.

I appreciate any help.
Thanks.

[Nick Hasson]

[Todd Jaspers] ”
I am interested in doing something like Nick Hasson. Do I have to be an official Creative Cow writer to get the inside scoop on how this setup works? “

Well you have the same setup I do. I have the two machines connected peer to peer over the 10g link. I use AFP and get 350MB read and write across this link. With 2048×1024 the link always give me realtime. With 2048×1556 I get realtime most of the time. It will stutter some times. But I just use color on one machine, render out dpx frames and pull those into the smoke. Most of the realtime needs are handled on the smoke.

As you know apple color is not realtime, so even with the bandwidth, you still will not get realitme anything with apple color.

Nick Hasson
Smoke/Color
http://www.niceedits.com

[Walter Soyka]

[Mac Stevens] “You can also check out openfiler if you want to dedicate a box to this. I know it works well from the PC side but I haven’t tried it against a Mac. “

I don’t believe Openfiler supports AFP. Has anyone even tried realtime video on a Mac with SMB or NFS?

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Chris Blair]

I’m not sure I understand the suggestions of using Openfiler…unless the original poster is primarily a Mac shop. His question was about setting up a:

NAS system consisting of an array with a 10GbE port, and a GbE switch with a 10GbE uplink port, that will give me SAN functionality in a heterogeneous (Mac & PC) environment, without needing SAN software.

Apace has 10GB systems like that available right now that use Linux based server arrays. No SAN software needed. Mac (Final Cut & Avid) and PC NLE systems see the files just fine without anything extra needed. You can’t do multiple channels of uncompressed HD, but you can do up to 20 DVCProHD, or 14 Apple ProRes or Avid DNxHD streams in real-time.

I’m not sure why Apace doesn’t get more attention in the shared storage arena. I can say from experience their systems just plain work, their marketing is 100% true with no bogus claims, and their customers service is the best I’ve ever experienced in 25 years. That’s saying a lot from me…because I’m pretty critical of companies in our industry.

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

[Todd Jaspers]

What 10gE cards do you have in the stations? Did you have to get a 10gE switch or hub?

Thanks!