-
Storage advice needed
We are small studio which works on postproduction. We do not deal with video stream footage, but we work on sequences of files, which come from photography and 3d renders. We use network rendering from AE and 3dsmax, only PCs are in the network.
We have two machines which used as fileservers, each has raid5 8 hdds inside. At best, when disk are just formatted, we get 50-60Mb/s at best. Local transfer rates start from 300-500mb/s and end up with 200 and down mb/s when raids are 70% full.
The composer seat number is 3 and goes to peak of 8 in the midle of the project.
we are facing the upgrade and the only suitable option which is on the market is Maxtronic EXASAN W4 kit with extra connections if needed. But the budget of 20 K is very tough. What could be the alternative for a half of the price?
-
5 Replies
-
you write –
We have two machines which used as fileservers, each has raid5 8 hdds inside. At best, when disk are just formatted, we get 50-60Mb/s at best. Local transfer rates start from 300-500mb/s and end up with 200 and down mb/s when raids are 70% full.REPLY – I assume what you are talking about here, is that you have a local network setup, and you get 50 – 60 MB/sec at best ACROSS THE NETWORK – is this correct ? But the local drive speed tests are between 300 – 500 MB/sec – is this correct ?
50 – 60 Mb/sec is all you are going to get with standard ethernet connectivity. Even with jumbo frames enabled, even with the super duper JMR chassis that will 1200MB/sec, you will max out at about 90 MB/sec (maybe 100) with jumbo frames. Ethernet is not fibre, ethernet is not 10GigEthernet. 90Mb/sec is more than enough for most people doing FCP editing. If you want to have hi speed data moving across your network, so you can increase your render times, and access, ethernet is not the solution for you.
So, what is your cheap fix – there is none.
I am anxious to see all the vendors jump in and say “we have a great solution for you”, when this gentlemen’s total budget is $20,000 for 8 seats.Bob Zelin
-
Apace may have solutions in that general range for 8 seats based on doing the type of work listed. He doesn’t mention the amount of storage needed, so it’s tough to know if 20k is enough for their solutions. But you could probably get 6-8TB for that and serve 8 edit stations reliably IF you’re doing SD. If you’re doing HD, it would have to be using something that uses really efficient compression like Cineform or DVCProHD or something similar.
Bob’s data rates are dead on though for Gig-E based file sharing. Roughly 90MB/sec is what we get across 4 seats when the Apace vStor is about 20-30% full. When it gets up around 70%, those rates fall to around 65-70MB/sec. But that’s still plenty of speed for us to edit mutliple channels of SD footage (at roughly DVCPro50 compression), along with a single channel of Cineform or DVCPro compressed HD on a 4th system.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com
Read our blog http://www.videomi.com/blog -
Guys, thanks for the comments.
https://www.maxtronic.ru/exasan.files/ExaSAN.jpg – this solution will come about $24K with hdds and metasan licenses, 4 seats. In US this brand name is Arena. I also noticed that many solutions that are under discussion on this forum are just not in local market and import makes no sense.
I would say that 60-90MB per seat would be enough for me when lets say 3 seats get that speed and network rendering goes on (15 machines of AE network rendering) . But again, we only work with frames’ sequences, where each file size is smaller comparing to footage from camera, so data tranfer rate i assume to be smaller.
Also what is the issue with multiple simultaneous access? If the product promises 600Mb/s does it mean that 6 workstations will get 100Mb/s at a moment?
Note that in case of maxtronics $12K is just the price of drive array. Is there a solution like PC server with multiple network cards each connecting a workstation and one for the global switch? That would be a cheap fix as i imagine.
-
EVO Storage Server is compatible with MetaSAN and can utilize direct GbE connections between the Server and your workstations without having to purchase a specialized PCIe connection card or switch with Fibre Optic cables. EVO can also be equipped with multiple GbE ports, Fibre Channel ports and 10GbE ports. You can read more about EVO here: https://www.studionetworksolutions.com/video-san.php Feel free to contact me if you would like to discuss more details about this solution.
Caspian Brand
cbrand@studionetworksolutions.comProduct Specialist
Studio Network Solutions -
HI,
Just trying to revisit this two-year old link 🙂
Ok, we’re a small team, non-profit facility with 2-video editor/2-audio/graphics/office trying to use whatever is available basic server components we have.
I’m not a tech dude. I know we have a terabyte network facility, some hard drives, a server…
Please respond to my post>> Economy Shared Storage
More power!
——
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up