Shared Storage

[Michael Kammes]

Wow, that’s a REALLY open ended question. There are a ton of solutions, so I’ll briefly name a few…with some personal observations.

Avid Unity (Fibre) will give you storage as well as the ability for native Avid project & media sharing. Large file counts, however (over 500,000) are a problem. If doing multiple streams of uncompressed, you may be limited in bandwidth – it is on the slower side of 4GB Fibre. Unity is file level locking, as opposed to volume level locking – meaning, everyone can read and write to the same workspace at the same time(with permissions). Unity has been around for quite a while and is probably the most mature solution out there.

Avid ISIS 5000 – Avid’s newest offering – will also give you the ability for native Avid project & media sharing. It’s over Ethernet, so typically your bandwidth is a bit less (100MB/s, unless bonding connections) – but if you’re just doing Compressed HD or graphics, it’s fine.

Facilis is another option, and is Fibre. It’s traditionally faster than Unity, however, the project sharing and file level locking across all platforms is not as robust as Avid. I like to use it for RAW throughput for finishing / uncompressed systems.

Rorke has HyperFS, which, thus far, has had great results. I cannot personally vouch for it, but I have yet to hear anything negative about it.

Apple XSan is another large solution. Like Unity, it’s file level locking. It’s Fibre as well. It’s Mac only, and traditionally requires a bit more tech knowledge on the backend than Unity / ISIS / Facilis.

Depending on budget, you may want to look into Isilon. It’s not the least expensive out there, but is rock solid in terms of backup, and reliability.

Apace is a unique SAN company, in that it has built in asset management. I’ve seen great success in smaller shops.

You also have the option of buying your own hardware and using something like SAN MP or metaSAN.

I highly recommend that ANY SAN you decide to try, look into what technology is behind it. There are a lot of SANs, and many use the same technology as others, and just sell it with cheaper hardware – and less support. This is, of course, bad.

Any reseller worth their salt should be happy to provide you with clients of theirs you can contact to get feedback on the SAN, how they use it, and how the install went.

Good Luck!

.: michael kammes mpse
.: senior applications editor . post workflow consultant
.: audio specialist . act fcp . acsr
.: michaelkammes.com
.: michael A T michaelkammes.com

[Paul Harrington]

Wow Michael,
Thanks for your time, that will give me a number options to look into.
Once again thank you..Paul H