Terrablock 24d vs ISIS 5000

[Josh Nikon]

Any experience at all?

[Bob Zelin]

with the low bandwidth that you need (35mb/sec from XDCamEX) – either system will work for you. With higher bandwidth – full res ProRes422HQ, etc. or even uncompressed HD – there is no question that the Terrablock 24d is a MUCH better solution – it is much faster. ISIS 5000 will only provide you with about 100MB/sec per client – which is perfect for your application, but not for lots of streams of higher resolution. Again, doing DNxHD145 with an ISIS 5000 works perfectly – it depends on your application. The Facilis is faster.

But there is a better way to choose – and you should find this to be the easy deciding answer for you. Call AVID support – try to get help. Now, call Facilis support – you tell me, who answers the phone quicker, who is there to give you support right now ?

You will find the answer to this, by making two phone calls.

Bob Zelin

[Shane Rodbourn]

Josh,
Thank you considering Facilis for your storage needs. Please call or email us at your convenience and we will be happy to discuss your requirements (workflow, bandwidth, capacity, etc…)

Sales@facilis.com
978-562-7022

We’re up for Bob’s challenge too. Feel free to call the Support line. Someone will answer directly or call you back during standard business hours; we also offer 24/7 emergency support as well. We’re here to serve our customers.

Thanks,
Shane

Shane Rodbourn
SVP & General Manager
Facilis Technology, Inc.
108 Forest Ave. Suite 200
Hudson, MA 01749
https://www.facilis.com

[Bob Zelin]

Hi Shane –
we all know what is going to happen when he tries to call AVID.

Bob Zelin

[Alex Gerulaitis]

Shane, Bob:

I saw that 24d offers a purely NAS functionality (e.g. TCP/IP over 10GbE) – are there any benchmarks on that, e.g. sustained bandwidth over a single 10GbE link, and aggregate throughput to multiple 1GbE clients?

Thanks!

Alex Gerulaitis
Systems Integrator
DV411 – Los Angeles, CA

[Josh Nikon]

lol.. well, being an AVID user for the last 10 or better years.. I know the tribulations of calling AVID.. never been so aggravated. I all but quit calling. About the only time I ever get any help is when I need a license activated for Media Composer… and even that was a 12 step process.. so if Facillis even answers with a hello on the other end.. they already won. That said I did have one guy that was helpful from Avid storage group.. got his contact info.. had another issue crop up and called his number.. “he know longer works here” was what I got.

[James Mckenna]

Hi Alex,

We work in video stream count, and although that may be a less popular benchmarking method for engineers that test hard drives for a living, we believe it is the more prudent method of determining the real-world performance of a SAN.

Having said that, a lot can be told by stream count. The best case scenario for optimized video storage is a single client reading as large a file as possible. Like 4K DPX, or even better, 4K streaming formal like QT. When doing that, we get into the 900MB/sec range. The best sustained throughput we qualify through published stream count is around 700MB/sec. So there is some head room there, which there needs to be since playback applications rely on memory buffering at a higher rate than the actual playback.

Switch any virtual volume into Single-user Write mode on a fibre channel client (we’re showing 16Gb fibre at IBC), and you can double that and then some.

Jim McKenna

[Alex Gerulaitis]

[James McKenna] “The best case scenario for optimized video storage is a single client reading as large a file as possible. Like 4K DPX, or even better, 4K streaming formal like QT. When doing that, we get into the 900MB/sec range. The best sustained throughput we qualify through published stream count is around 700MB/sec.”

Thank you, it’s really not bad for a 10GbE link.

Do you (plan to) offer purely NAS products? Seems that eliminating Fibre and the associated SAN functionality, will shave some of the costs off both the storage unit and the client’s investment into SAN? For 15 editors working with HD dSLR footage, it seems that 700-900MB/s aggregate bandwidth should be enough, even if everyone piles on to it simultaneously. (I am just guessing of course.)

Alex Gerulaitis
Systems Integrator
DV411 – Los Angeles, CA

[James Mckenna]

Sure, we sell systems that completely are Ethernet-only and have for some time, but like ISIS, we stop short of calling it a NAS. When a product is defined as NAS, the file system is one of the standard types (CIFS, SMB, NFS, AFP), and versions of these solutions can be built by any savvy engineer with a little IT knowledge. When a custom file system (or custom file system sharing) is deployed, it enters the world of SAN, regardless of connectivity type.

For example, iSCSI uses IP protocol but is actually a block-level device on the client, similar to fibre channel (they use the same SCSI underpinnings). Our shared FS isn’t iSCSI, we have our own optimized delivery of data though IP and/or FC interface which allows for emulation modes and a more linear scalability of bandwidth. The ability to connect via FC as well as Ethernet is a benefit even for all-network environments, because we can do things with FC that are nearly impossible for NAS (16Gb showing at IBC!).

Jim McKenna

[Josh Nikon]

ok. good info guys.. just need some info on what ( besides crappy support from avid) makes TerraBlock better than ISIS5000..

when you work in agencies like mine.. all the high ups want to know is bullet points.. it does this.. that .. the other.. while avid does that .. not this.. and won’t do that.

appreciate all the info! and if you have any personal reasons why you like Terrablock over AVID share away..