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Shared storage suggestions
I’m post manager at a small(ish) production shop doing long form docs for broadcast.
Increasingly the need for shared storge accessable to all three of our suites is presenting
itself more and more.What sort of fibre options are you guys using? And price range if possible.
Thanks in advance.
p2
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6 Replies
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XSAN…EditShare…SANmp…
XSAN requires a good amount of IT knowledge. Editshare…hearing mixed reviews on that. SANmp…heard good things, with minor hiccups…as all SANs tend to have.
Oh, yeah…and Unity works with FCP too…iffin you can afford that.
Shane
Littlefrog PostGETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD now for sale!
http://www.lfhd.net -
We are using FiberJet from Command Soft.
Pretty reliable, the problems we are have I think are do to the fact that our installer configured the raid improperly.
The program itself is very easy to use and set up.
Steve Cohen
Editor
O2 Media Inc. -
Don’t forget Facilis TerraBlock…extremely easy to setup and administer. You can get it up and running literally within an hour.
Check it out at : https://www.facilis2.com/
-chrispy
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We’ve just put in an EditShare system, and I’m really impressed so far.
We have both Avid & FCP (11 total edit stations) – the Avids have been on Unity for years, and we tried the new version of Unity 5 (supposedly supports FCP) – and didn’t work at all for us. Captured media (files created by the Unity) was fine, but any media copied to the Unity, then IMPORTED would go offline every 20 minutes or so.
The Avid Sales Rep & Tech support had no clue at all how FCP worked – they suggested capturing everything through Log & Capture – audio, graphics, quicktimes, etc… Yeah, that’s a good workflow!
We also looked at Facilis/Terrablock – but decided Volume Level SAN didn’t fit our workflow. It’s great for high-bandwidth, but we needed a file level SAN.
Anyway – we just installed a 24TB EditShare system that works with BOTH FCP & Avid – and it rocks. Not only is it shared media, they’ve even developed a way to share FCP projects almost as seamlessly as Unity.
We even have some systems running both platforms – FCP-KONA and AVID/MOJO on the same Intel Mac, with the same SAN connection! (different start up disks)
It’s Gig-E based, not fibre based, so Uncompressed HD is not an option, but we’re using DV, Uncompressed SD, DVCProHD, ProRes HD – and 1GB Ethernet is consistently delivering 60MB/sec to a dozen workstations. We have one system set up as an HD finishing station with SATA Raids for Uncompressed work, but all of the other stations can do SD finishing or HD compressed . (Actually – they do have a 10GB E-net option, if you need to share Uncompressed HD, but that gets really expensive.)
It’s not cheap (at least for 24TB & 11 users) – but it works. The Admin tools & server organization take a little while to wrap your head around, and there is definitely some workflow adjustments, especially with sharing FCP projects – but it is SO worth it.
And their tech support is outstanding. The president of the company wrote me back on a Saturday morning answering in-depth tech questions. And for normal weekday support – I’ve gotten e-mails returned within the hour, and even follow ups – “hey, just checking to make sure that solved your problem.” I’ve never had any other company do that.
If collaboration in FCP is your goal, EditShare is the best thing I’ve seen.
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Just what I was looking for.
p2
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If you’re gonna use a gigabit NAS you can also use APACE.
If you want something you can plug in, turn on and be ready to go, then Apace is great. We have used it for DV, DVCPROHD, ProRes and even 2k RED proxy, we have had no problems at all with it for the last 3 years for up to 6 systems on a V1000 1.5TB. They are also really well priced.
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