Alex Gardiner
Forum Replies Created
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Hello!
While a response from somebody on the development team is no substitute for user feedback, I thought I could at least provide some background.
We have been publishing this utility on the General Public License since early 2013. Over this period it has come through numerous iterations, becoming increasingly stable with each release.
Our source code is openly available from github, but most people simply use the pre-built packages, which are actually very easy to install.
You should know that indiestor is not really intended to compete with the features available on high end products like ISIS, or EditShare. Similarly the likelihood that you can deploy our software on the same scale pitches you against problems that have taken the best storage engineers in the industry a long time to solve.
So what is it for?
Indiestor is suits small to medium sized teams of Avid editors with realistic expectations. Yes, there is a DIY element to it – but we pride ourselves on our support.
Workflow wise, the system is not a replication of Avid’s proprietary sharing environment, instead we have our own approach. You won’t have any issues with silly database conflicts and can share projects/media between users without issue.
What about deployment?
As already pointed out, you’ll need a box running Debian (or Ubuntu), although neither are especially hard to install.
On the storage side of things, you’ll find that Linux actually has native support for a surprising number of RAID adaptors. That said, I’m a massive fan of’ ZFS on Linux’ (zol), which has turned from the ugly ‘FUSE-based’ duckling into what I believe is one of the leading Open ZFS publications.
Should anybody want to know anything about indiestor, please don’t hesitate to get in contact. We’re friendly folks and would be happy to help. If you’re a system integrator, we should probably talk!
Cheers,
Alex
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With 96GB of memory its pretty much gotta be a ZFS box 😉
The hardware is always going to be your risk – such is DIY.
However, from what I can tell IX Systems (the FreeNAS people) will readily sell support for their software – which is a big safety net. Also, they’ll know how to optimise/configure the pool for a post production workload… if not the tuning is not especially difficult to do yourself.
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+447961751453
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indiestor.com – “Avid project sharing, shared!” -
We have been working with ZFS (on Linux) on the indiestor project for some time.
I would recommend using the dedicated ZFS mailing lists because they move quickly and are run by really good folks + the actual dev team.
Beyond that you don’t provide much analytic data, other than the use case.
I find Bonnie++ very handy for digging deeper into what your pools are actually doing, as well as some of the scripts that can show you how effectively you are using the L2ARC. Alignment/ashift are also very important, but I suppose you already know that..
In my circle lots of people rate Illumos (which you could look at). That said, I work with Debian (because thats what indiestor is packaged for) and get very good results using ZOL 0.6.3.
Not sure how much help I’ve been, but I wanted to chip in as I drop past here every so often.
Have fun!
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+447961751453
github.com/indiestor
indiestor.com – “Avid project sharing, shared!” -
Hi Stepan,
What kind of storage controller does your r270 have? Also what OS is it running?
AFAIK some of the Dell Perc stuff is usually rebranded LSI kit… but not all! Its not impossible that the bottleneck is on the storage side of things… although with modern kit it really shouldn’t be.
What I’d do:
– Benchmark the storage at the server end (if its linux use Bonnie++)
– If you are confident this issue is on the network side of things, use something like iperf for diagnostic and go from there.The trouble is that there are lots of possible causes here!
At the end of the day if you’ve paid somebody for setup, get them back! Sounds like they need to come back and finish the job 😉
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+447961751453
github.com/indiestor
indiestor.com – “Avid project sharing, shared!” -
[Bob Zelin] “you cannot run Thursby DAVE with OS X Mavericks. Thursby DAVE worked up to OS X 10.8.5. That’s it.
“Thursby do Dave version 11 for Mavericks. I’m running it in right here 😉
https://www.thursby.com/products/dave
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indiestor.com – “Avid project sharing, shared!” -
If the instructions are to be believed you have to create nsmb.conf in Mavericks. Indeed my laptop didn’t have it out of the box. As such I imagine reverting should be as simple as removing it again:
rm ~/Library/Preferences/nsmb.confIts a bit of a hack in my opinion.
At least with Dave SMB the machine should behave itself in a predictable manner.
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+447961751453
github.com/indiestor
indiestor.com – “Avid project sharing, shared!” -
Dave is a third party SMB/CIFS client for Mac. Its a good suggestion because it will no doubt clear up any issues you are having with the native implementation of this stuff. Apple seem to really trip up on this.. have done for years.
Version 11 is now available for Mavericks, which I use it all the time over here. Also they do a free trial, so you don’t need to spend anything to test it out.
That said its not quite as responsive as AFP, but it should be close.
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indiestor.com – “Avid project sharing, shared!” -
Yes you’re right. I’m pretty familiar with the inner workings, but misinterpreted the issue!
Which apps are you having problems with?
EDIT: I wonder if there is any milage in going down the ‘add network location’ route rather than mapping a drive? Bit of a long shot though.
Overall the chances are your app is bumping its head on an annoying difference between the two operating systems.
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+447961751453
github.com/indiestor
indiestor.com – “Avid project sharing, shared!” -
[Chris Tomberlin] “So, when moving projects from one platform to the other, media goes offline (except for Avid) because the paths don’t match. Does anyone know of a work-around for this issue?”
Hello Chris,
In my impression the drive letter vs letter-less issue is fairly common for Avid in a mixed environment.
A similar issue is covered here, although not in a networked environment:
https://community.avid.com/forums/p/106107/615424.aspxWhile I’m not sure if the OP got a fix, the late Larry Rubin was one of the top people for this stuff.. so I’d say try that first.
The short version is that it may be necessary to ditch the “msmFMID.pmr” and “msmMMOB.mdb” databases, which will force the PC Avid reindex. Then again, as an Avid guy I suppose you knew that already 🙂
Hope that helps a little.
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+447961751453
github.com/indiestor
indiestor.com – “Avid project sharing, shared!” -
While you could cook something yourself (if you are careful), I wonder if you already saw a product called Vidsharx?
This is a convenient option if you want to use your existing Mac hardware as a small Avid storage server ‘come’ edit machine.
Failing that you could run indiestor native on a linux box, but the learning curve is steeper. On the plus native is open source and probably more scalable. Also, the development team and community behind it are still active.
All considered, I think you should check out vidsharx because it seems like a good fit.
Its worth saying Small Tree kit is awesome, but something tells me if your budget won’t stretch to an EditShare Ultra or Field, then this might be out of reach too…
There were days when this sort of thing was not possible on a shoestring budget. Today its arguably a thing of the past, at least when you only need a few low bandwidth streams to a couple of editors. However, this is a double edged sword: as in you’ll be living by your own testing and backup strategy, so be very careful with your data!
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+447961751453
github.com/indiestor
indiestor.com – “Avid project sharing, shared!”