Small video post production solutions

[Alex Gerulaitis]

What datarate do you need to have at each editing station?

When you say “too slow”, what are the symptoms?

Is it possible the bottleneck is in the network, not Synology?

Alex Gerulaitis
Systems Engineer
DV411 – Los Angeles, CA

[Bob Zelin]

I am going to reply to this one differently that my usual posts.
Alex owns a company called DV411.

https://dv411.com/nas.html

Alex can help you build a system that will resolve your problems.
Alex sells excellent equipment, and is very knowlegeable.
But LET ME ASSURE YOU that whoever told you that you can build a shared storage system with a Drobo as your drive array is lying to you, and it will NEVER work. Many products, like the ones that you see on Alex’s website, will work for you. And we have certainly discussed this countless times on this forum before.
When you say “whatever is suggested to serve the Drobo to the iMacs” – it aint’ gonna happen – not even with a 10gig direct connect system – the Drobo is not fast enough.
Your next question might be “what can I pick up from the local Videoguys or B&H Photo to build this myself” – answer – nothing.
Call Alex (or one of the other schmo’s that you see here on this forum, or one of the countless companies that are featured on Creative Cow).

Bob Zelin

[Alex Gerulaitis]

Bob, you never cease to amaze me.

How is this post different from the ones before? 🙂

My web site gotta be nuked – most of it is badly outdated.

[Stephen Cooper]

Thanks for the replies guys.
My current read and write speeds are around 90MB/sec and the problem is that when the two of us edit we get the dreaded spinning wheel. I assume that this is a lag in the data stream, but for what reason I don’t know. It is possible that my local network isn’t working to it’s potential.
We are currently using about 5TB every 6 months so it needs to be upgradable too.
What sort of solutions would you suggest Alex and what is the ball park prices we are looking at?

[Alex Gerulaitis]

[Stephen Cooper] “What sort of solutions would you suggest Alex and what is the ball park prices we are looking at?”

1. A NAS similar to yours except with 10GbE port and an appropriate switch, and someone behind it all to help you figure out if something is not right. E.g. buy one from me, Bob or other integrator. Except Bob will likely steer you away from an appliance like this one. He’ll probably say it’s an appliance, not a “pro” tool and he’ll be right, in a way. Price ballpark – $3-5K. Expandable.

2. GB Labs Mini Space (up to 4.5TB, $11K and up) or Midi Space (up to 13.4TB, $15-22K). 1GbE line speeds (100+MB/s for multiple clients simultaneously), 10GbE options. This is a “pro” tool, with full manufacturer support for editing and other high bandwidth applications.

Alex Gerulaitis
Systems Engineer
DV411 – Los Angeles, CA

[Stephen Cooper]

Thanks for the honest info Alex. I’ll have a read through some of the links and may well need your services. What is the best email address to use for you?

[Alex Gerulaitis]

ag at dv411 dot com – thanks.

[Eric Hansen]

hey Stephen

Alex and Bob can definitely line you out with some great options, but i wanted to address your “90MB/s” comment.

this is a common thing i hear from my clients. the Drobo (or any other external device), may be able to do 90MB/s, and ProResHQ is 25-30MB/s, so that means i should be able to share to 3 edit systems editing ProResHQ, right?

NO

90MB/s is a single stream of continuous data where the individual drives aren’t being asked to access more than a single large file. if you have 3 computers, the system all of a sudden is asked to access 3 different files at the same time, causing the drives to search all over their platters for those 3 individual files. they will find them, but not with enough quickness to supply 90MB/s total, and certainly not in real-time.

this is where RAIDs with massive speeds come into play. you need a system that’s fast enough to access all this media, no matter where it’s scattered on the array, and then supply it to the clients fast enough to support real-time editing requirements on each workstation. Drobo can’t do this. it has a very high overhead for its complex proprietary RAID scheme. it’s a storage and archive appliance. not a working volume. even the smallest shared storage systems i build have a burst rate of 600MB/s to handle just a few clients. but even storage with fast burst rates aren’t enough. many of the vendors here spend a lot of R&D time tweaking drivers and firmware to increase the number of real-time streams supported, even if this means dropping the burst rate.

so no, a Drobo can’t handle this use because that’s not what it’s designed for.

e

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

[James Mckenna]

Hi Stephen.

Our TerraBlock 8XS model is often overlooked because of it’s limited capacity. while it does have limited capacity internally, it does offer some scalability. The TerraBlock 8XS uses the same internal hardware as the 24 drive models, supports 10Gb and will easily manage your streaming requirements. We start at 8TB for $14K (16TB is $18K) with dual 10Gb Ethernet or 8Gb fibre.

Here’s the trick – you can expand this with the T8 drive array (RAID5 or RAID6) for an additional 16TB RAW (14TB/12TB usable) for $7K. The capacity expansion does not have the same functionality as the internal storage – including virtual volume creation, no speed degradation or defrag, etc., because it’s an external array and not internal virtualized storage. This is not a config I would recommend for larger shops, due to lack of overall bandwidth and the lack of PSU redundancy, but for your purposes it should be seriously considered. We have a lot of 8XS units out there and they’re a real value if you’re in the right situation.

Let me know if you’d like more info on this.

Jim McKenna
Facilis Technology
978-562-7022 x101

[Stephen Mckenna]

We (SNS) have a potential software solution for under $700 that would allow you to use all of you existing hardware and get the performance you need. You can try it all for free as well! Give us a call and we can discuss the solution in detail.

My contact information is as follows:

Direct Dial : 314- 775-8727
Email: smckenna@studionetworksolutions.com