Shared Storage for Print Design – Replacing Xserve

[Matt Stone]

Hi Jon,

There are a few companies on here that offer shared storage solutions, ours is called Final Share. We use a Mac Pro as a server computer, which makes it very easy to manage adding or deleting users, changing permissions, and so on… No learning curve trying to figure out a new OS. Inside the Mac Pro is a 10Gig Ethernet NIC that hooks up to our switch, and on the front of the switch you can connect up to 24 users via GbE.

We offer phone support, remote support, and have some of the best customer support in the business.

As Eric said most of these systems were created to share video, so these should be more than enough for your needs.

Give us a call for more details, and pricing on a Final Share System.

Matt Stone
Maxx Entertainment Digital
3189 Redhill Ave. Unit B
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
Telephone:(714) 374-4944
mattstone@maxxdigital.com

[Jon Krainak]

Thanks for the info, Maxx/Final Share is on my list. I’m located in Omaha, NE.

[Jon Krainak]

Poking around a bit about Final Share led me to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XASadab_IGE

wherein Bob mentions this setup not being a “rendering system”. I know nothing about video, but I’m wondering if this limitation would somehow also affect editing in Photoshop? e.g Editing a large PSD and applying effects or tweaking colors, etc. I’m guessing this is not the same thing?

Final Share seems to be a newer/faster way of doing what we do now – which might be a good thing given it just uses afp and normal mac sharing.

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[Eric Hansen]

[Jon Krainak] “Final Share seems to be a newer/faster way of doing what we do now – which might be a good thing given it just uses afp and normal mac sharing.”

Yes. It’s the same setup you’re using now, but with updated computer, storage and networking.

I emailed Bob with your question about rendering, so hopefully he’ll chime in soon.

e

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

[Bob Zelin]

I have hesitated to respond to this post because this person is looking for a simple solution for a non video application. While Final Share will work with you, so will everything else that you have been told in this thread. I bet even your Drobo would work in this application if it was configured properly.

Do you know what you need, no matter what you buy – you need SUPPORT from the company. Maxx Digital, Small Tree, ProMax, Studio Network Solutions, QNAP, Synology, and even Drobo will ALL work for you – but not without the help of someone like Alex from DV411 or myself (or support from one of these manufacturers).

You have a very easy application – you are not doing HD video editing. Everything mentioned here will work.

Bob Zelin

[Jon Krainak]

Thanks for your response, Bob. I had a good conversation with Matt from Maxx today. I very much agree that what i would like to purchase is great hardware but also a partner to help us figure this stuff out. Our tech needs are indeed simple, but of huge value.

[Steve Modica]

Hi John

You should take a look at Small Tree TitaniumZ-8. You can start off with a relatively small amount of ZFS storage and we can grow that on the fly if you need to without rebuilding the array. We’re kernel guys so when it comes to figuring out how an app works, we’re good at it. TitaniumZ-8 is running FreeBSD (which is like OS X’s big brother) so we can use a lot of the same tools and performance enhancements to get things working very smoothly.

Steve Modica

Steve Modica
CTO, Small Tree Communications

[Adam Hatch]

Hi John

If you have a moment I would check out the ProMAX Platform and Platform Studio in your research. You will find great solutions and I am sure there is one that will spark your interest. Platform allows clients to start with networked storage and expand as they need. For example, if you need transcoding, rendering, archiving, etc in the future, this all lives on the Platform.

Good luck with your search!

Adam Hatch
Sr. Workflow Specialist
ProMAX Systems
Direct- 949-861-2716

Adam Hatch
ProMAX Systems
Direct- (949) 861-2716
Professional Video Editing Systems
“Your Cure For Complexity”

[Steve Modica]

Hi John
For print, usually the tuning requirement is just to go as fast as possible. The apps behave differently, but there’s usually no realtime component (IE you won’t drop frames. You just want your file copies to be fast).

The Small Tree team was doing this back with SGI in the late 90s and early 00s before becoming Small Tree, so we have a lot of experience in print. We also are using ZFS now so we have huge expansion potential without doing raid rebuilds. Check out the TitaniumZ line. We showed it off at NAB. We have the portable Z5 all the way up to the Z16.

Steve

Steve Modica
CTO, Small Tree Communications