Shared Storage for Print Design – Replacing Xserve

[Eric Hansen]

If they liked the performance of the Xserve but thought the Drobo was too slow, then yes, they’re right in the video editing NAS sweet-spot.

Are they looking to keep LTO going? if so, is it Fibre Channel, SCSI or SAS? If not, what are they replacing it with? Do they use any features of Mac OS X Server?

If no more LTO, then a Mac Mini with Thunderbolt storage and Thunderbolt to PCIe Multi-port Ethernet card could work. It definitely wouldn’t be able to handle 8 video editors. But 8 designers is probably doable. You could also look at self-contained units from Small Tree like the Titanium 5 and Titanium 8.

If they want to keep LTO, then a Mac Pro with SAS storage would probably be your best bet because it can handle more PCIe cards without needing Thunderbolt adapters.

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Eric Hansen
Production Workflow Designer / Consultant / Colorist / DIT
https://www.erichansen.tv

[Jon Krainak]

Thanks for your message – I just did a sort of simple test by copying a 1000mb file to and from the server from a workstation. Both read/write were about 70MB/s.

The xserve is only used to share files – not using any other services (DHCP, Apache, DNS, etc)

The tape library (Magnum 1×7) is connected to Xserve via scsi – using an old copy of Retrospect to backup. They swap a new set of tapes every week for 1 week of data offsite. I think they would be happy with just being able to copy everything to a big ole usb drive rather than mess with tapes.

The only reason I mentioned the DROBO is because when I mentioned to them that maybe they need a super duper NAS, they wen ewwww. I said I thought the solutions found around here must be pretty good to handle vid

[Eric Hansen]

Does the Xserve connect to the office switch with just a single ethernet connection? or does it have a multi-port Ethernet card?

if it’s only a single connection, then a Drobo 5D should have plenty of performance for what they’re doing.

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Eric Hansen
Production Workflow Designer / Consultant / Colorist / DIT
https://www.erichansen.tv

[Jon Krainak]

Just the onboard NIC.

[Alex Gerulaitis]

[Jon Krainak] “I would like to give him a good, better, best scenario – budget would be between 5k-20k. My main concern is not taking a step backwards.”

Given no hard video requirements (such as, “sustain 300MB/s for five clients”), I’d look at two options, in addition to what Eric said:

1. A NAS appliance from Synology or QNAP – some can handle aggregated bandwidth of over 1GB/s with dual 10GbE ports. These aren’t expandable or upgradeable beyond manufacturer specs.

2. A multi-purpose NAS/SAN box such as Enhance Tech UltraShare NS. Those are highly expandable and customizable, can wear multiple hats (DAS, SAN, NAS), and are still significantly less costly than a dedicated purpose-built video NAS.

Alex Gerulaitis
Systems Engineer
DV411 – Los Angeles, CA

[Jon Krainak]

The Enhance products look similar to many of the offerings from others, e.g. SNS Evo, Small Tree, QNAP, Synology, etc. I’m wondering if any of them are easier to manage? They do not have an IT person on staff.

[Alex Gerulaitis]

[Jon Krainak] “The Enhance products look similar to many of the offerings from others, e.g. SNS Evo, Small Tree, QNAP, Synology, etc. I’m wondering if any of them are easier to manage? They do not have an IT person on staff.”

They’re easy enough to manage but don’t come with the level of support of SmallTree and SNS. The Enhance product is fairly easy to configure and manage, but it’s more for IT people already familiar with Linux and network storage. Synology and QNAP products are appliances: I wouldn’t expect much support from them for hard-to-troubleshoot scenarios. Replacing a drive or a component – easy. Figure out why the bandwidth drops to 20MB/s in certain scenarios – you’d need good support for that and in that case, I’d go with SNS and SmallTree.

Did I make it easier or harder to make a decision? 🙂 I hope easier.

Alex Gerulaitis
Systems Engineer
DV411 – Los Angeles, CA

[Eric Hansen]

If you purchase from Small Tree, you will get installation phone support as part of the package. I believe SNS provides this too.

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Eric Hansen
Production Workflow Designer / Consultant / Colorist / DIT
https://www.erichansen.tv

[Jon Krainak]

Thanks Alex – I appreciate the help. I’m shying away from QNAP, Synology for the exact reasons you mention. I would like them to purchase great hardware, but also great support. The problem that I’m having is really just never seeing any of these devices in action, having a change to play with the OS, etc.

I did speak with Small Tree today after reading about them for the first time here. To be honest, our non video needs seemed to catch the salesman a bit off guard and he had a hard time coming up with a solution. We were kind of doing that thing where we are both asking what I need.

Do you guys think it’s ok to assume that if ppl are doing video with these systems, then opening/editing PS files, etc. over ethernet should be just fine?

[Eric Hansen]

with video, the priority is low latency and the ability to serve multiple streams of video to different clients without dropping frames. this makes them over-built for your needs. which means they will work exceptionally well.

Where are you based Jon? Maybe someone would be able to give you a demo in-person.

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Eric Hansen
Production Workflow Designer / Consultant / Colorist / DIT
https://www.erichansen.tv