Douglas Learner
Forum Replies Created
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You’ve also got metaSAN as an option to Xsan, though I don’t know if you consider such a change ‘upgrading.’
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Check out BRU from Tolis Group: https://www.tolisgroup.com/
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It’s hard to purchase storage now for use 2-3 years down the line because you know prices will come down and technology will advance. Your purchase cycle makes it difficult to wait, though, and there’s always that fear the budget won’t be there next year when you need more storage. If your organization is accepting of medium- to long-term IT planning you may be able to lay out a plan that gets you the capacity you need now and sets up benchmarks to trigger additional storage purchasing in the future. One strategy to consider is getting archive storage now and perhaps the next purchase is a replacement for your current production storage, which can be re-purposed to additional archive capacity. That leaves you the flexibility, and hopefully the budget, to take advantage of new technology in a year or so.
Douglas
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BreadBox, Inc.
douglas [at] breadboxstorage [dot] com -
David,
Sounds like you’ve had some good conversations with Nexsan and are comfortable with their solution and their support. That’s great!
As for generic questions, I’ve found few, if any, companies that fit a generic mold, especially in the video production world. You stated it well: “generally more clients require more speed…but…our need for more storage has outgrown our need for more clients.” Celebrate your uniqueness and use it as a guide for your plans.
It sounds like you have a pretty sophisticated setup, so if you called me for a solution I’d ask about capacity needs, timing for the capacity, and where you expect to be in 6-9 months and 18-24 months. Do you need all the capacity now, or can you add capacity over time? At what point might you need more clients? Do you plan to stay with FC for the next few years, or do you anticipate upgrading your infrastructure in that time? Have you thought about options to FC you might want to integrate into your system now so you have more flexibility in the future? How does the end of the Xserve and the possible discontinuation of Xsan fit into your plans?
And why don’t you think LTO is a good thought? 😉
Douglas
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BreadBox, Inc.
douglas [at] breadboxstorage [dot] com -
The drives mounted vertically look like the now-discontinued Sun Thumper.
David, are you going to have editors working from this storage or is it going to be an archive that is accessed occasionally to move assets to a production system? (Or perhaps something else?) I ask because the Nexsan site describes the energy-saving technology for the SATABEAST as unloading the drives and possibly also slowing them down or putting them to sleep. The ‘recovery time’ for unloaded drives, the best-performance/lowest-savings option, is described as “sub-second” (recovery is 15 seconds from slowed drives and 30-45 seconds from sleeping drives). The latency you need for your video production system is measured in milliseconds, so I would check with the folks at Nexsan to find out how the energy savings mode(s) affect performance. Ideally, you can get a test system or talk with someone using it in a video production environment.
Good luck!
Douglas
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BreadBox, Inc.
douglas [at] breadboxstorage [dot] com -
David,
All else being the same, I can’t come up with a reason to spend more money for ‘killer speeds’ you’ll never use.
It sounds like your underlying question is whether it’s better to have high-capacity or low-capacity drives. That really comes down to how much capacity you need and how many editors you have accessing the system. A 24-bay system with 1TB drives, for example, will support six editors, while a 12-bay system with 2TB drives gives you the same raw capacity but only enough spindles to support three editors.
Ron makes a great point about green drives. Not only are they slower, they’re constantly spinning down to save energy. That adds latency when the system has to wait for them to come back up to speed.
Finally, I’m not sure about getting ~200TB in 8U. The largest single array we’ve installed has 48 drives in a 9U enclosure. Even with 3TB drives that would be ‘only’ 144TB.
Douglas
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BreadBox, Inc.
douglas [at] breadboxstorage [dot] com -
Simon, no URL yet. Thanks for asking. I’d be happy to chat offline about what we’re doing: douglas macguynetworks com
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Allen, if you’re coming from ‘sneaker-net’ you probably want to look at shared storage designed for video production rather than a SAN. Less cost, less complexity and will likely integrate better into your existing infrastructure. What’s the difference between SAN and shared storage? SAN, or Storage Area Network, requires sophisticated software to manage a network of data storage devices with the SAN software typically running on the server as well as on each computer that accesses data from the server. Shared storage is a simpler process that lets many users access data stored on a server. In a shared storage system designed for video production you will be able to edit directly over a Gigabit Ethernet network.
Some of the benefits:
– availability of files for editors without having to move external hard drives from Mac to Mac
– editing over the network rather than copying files to local Macs
– centralized files helps promote standard workflow, naming convention, organization, etc.
– centralized data for security and backupWhat’s a shared storage system look like? Start with a storage array, which is a collection of hard drives in a single enclosure that are designed to work together as one drive. This array is connected to a Mac Pro that will function as a dedicated server. This Mac Pro has a SAS Controller installed in one of its internal slot to manage the array and a multi-port Ethernet adapter installed in another slot to connect to a Gigabit Ethernet network. The ports on this multi-port Ethernet adapter are connected to a Gigabit Switch, which in turn connects to your Mac Pro edit stations with Ethernet cables. File sharing is enabled on the Mac Pro Server, the multi-port Ethernet adapter and Gigabit Switch are configured with a network protocol called Link Aggregation, and another protocol called Jumbo Frames is enabled on the switch and each edit station. All this will then let your editors access video files on the storage array with data transfer speeds of up to 80MB/s or so. That’s enough bandwidth to let you edit two streams of ProRes (HQ) at 1080p30 at each edit station.
The specifics of the storage array, the multi-port Ethernet adapter, the switch, and so on will be tailored to your specific editing needs by the vendor you choose. Considerations in designing your system will include the number of edit stations, the amount of storage you want to have available on your network, the format you edit in and how many video streams your editors typically work with at one time. These factors are important in ensuring the system meets your editing needs.
There are a number of companies that provide these types of system. Your best bet is to start with Small Tree Communications, which makes the multi-port Ethernet adapters and sells storage arrays, switches, etc. The folks at MaxxDigital have their own line of storage arrays that use the Small Tree Ethernet Adapters.
Here’s my plug. I work for a new storage company called BreadBox that takes a different approach to implementing the above system design. Our storage arrays are purpose-built computers running the ZFS file system, which is highly-regarded for data integrity and management flexibility. We also integrate the multi-port Ethernet adapter into the array rather than requiring a dedicated server. The result is a shared storage video production system that matches the performance of SAS-based systems at a lower cost and with more upgradability.
Douglas
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Lance, those are all great questions. I’d suggest talking to the person who manages your Windows Server, someone at ProAvio, or the folks who are setting up your system. Perhaps all three.
You should really try to get all those answers in hand before you start putting everything together. Figuring this out can suck up a lot of your time, and you run the risk of production coming to a halt while you try to figure it out. At a minimum, make sure you have a plan to keep things running if nothing works initially.
Good luck!
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Guthrie, sounds like you may need to have your metadata controller running on an Intel Mac. Quirky doings with Xsan. Send me a note — douglas [at] macguynetworks [dot] com — and I’ll try to get you more specific information.