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shared media raid – cheaper options – opinions wanted!
Hi there all,
I would love your opinion.
My main workplace have asked me for advice on upgrading their systems, and part of what we want is two MacPro’s sharing fibre channel storage. I have never done fibre storage myself, so I asked a local vendor to come up with a quote.I almost fell over backwards i saw the bottom line, it was an apple xsan 8gig setup and the quote was for close to $60k. I then asked him to provide a bare bones non xsan fiber network solution and it now costs only (pffft, yeah right) about $23,000.
i have roughly doubled the prices for converting to $$:
QLogic 4Gb Fibre Channel Switch with 8 active ports & Single PSU (1U) $3200
8TB RAID Video/Audio Storage – <7TB @ RAID 5 (3U) $12,000
SNS Storage Area Network (SAN) Software $1200x2
NMR Level 1 SAN/NAS Technical Support (12 Months) $3800
NMR SAN Testing, Delivery & Installation $1500
Does all this stuff seem necessary to you? Is there another way other than fibre? Would fibre need so much support, software, expensive switch etc???
Tx
Mark. -
26 Replies
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For true shared storage it looks about right. If you start squeezing the budget, then things will suffer.
There are a number of ‘san in a can’ options you could look at though.
If you are in the UK, give Root6 a call.
Peter
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Shared fibre storage is expensive which is one reason why we have not gone to that. We have 16TB of RAID 5 Storage running 500MB/s but it’s 8TB dedicated to each of 2 suites. If we need to move anything across from one to the other, we simply use our Ethernet network to move files.
The best solutions for Fibre Channel Shared storage for my money are from Ciprico and Facilis. Facilis makes the easiest SAN on the market where everything is hosted on the array. You simply have a single Fibre Channel cable coming off your Mac. Ciprico has been making Fibre Arrays for a long time and they have solid solutions for the Mac.
But as for your pricing, it all seems right in line. Cheaper alternatives are simply not out there for shared fibre storage or really for shared storage in the first place. it’s an expensive proposition.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR
The new Color Training DVD now available from the Creative Cow! -
Hi Peter,
Thanks, I called them and they will call back… it seems they have Facillis an DVS Products, so we will see if the prices are any cheaper.In my ignorance, I would have guessed there was a way of putting a fibre controller card into each MacPro, then put a bunch of 1TB SATA drives into a basic PC with a SATA Raid controller and fibre network card and then connect that to both MacPro’s via fibre cable…
but it seems not. ;-(
Mark. -
[mark palmos] “it seems they have Facillis an DVS Products, so we will see if the prices are any cheaper.”
Facilis is generally the most expensive, but they are the easiest to run and from what folks have told me who are using them, they are rock solid.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR
The new Color Training DVD now available from the Creative Cow! -
Thanks Walter,
Its pretty new, and shocking to me.
We will see what these Root6 people charge for the Facillis or DVS SANs.
Do you use the secondary Ethernet socket on the MacPro to gigabit-connect the two systems up directly? We would have to do something like that and avoid going through the whole network since our IT Dept imposes way too much security.
BTW earlier today i was rendering something and browsed off to the Cow and clicked on one of your tutorials (easy setups), and you had me giggling… so thanks!
Till later
Mark. -
hmm,
it seems we may have to do the separate raid5 / gigabit ethernet route for sharing.
tx
mark. -
[mark palmos] “Do you use the secondary Ethernet socket on the MacPro to gigabit-connect the two systems up directly?”
We just connect them up directly. We’re only using the one socket on the Mac Pro.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR
The new Color Training DVD now available from the Creative Cow! -
Hey There,
since you said you only want 2 stations connecting, you might want to take a look at this smaller product from editshare:
https://www.editshare.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=190&Itemid=189
its for smaller production houses based on their full editshare solution.
-Dave
hmm… I wonder what this button does…
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Mark,
You might be interested in this thread, starting with the fifth post:
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/98/869210#869210
Regards,
David -
hello you two.
thanks very much for the new (for me) ideas… i will check into both of your ideas/links and will report back… tx,
Mark.
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