[Dylan Robertson]

Since 2003, that’s back in the days of G4 and G5 systems! My hat is off to you. Seriously. That is really cool. We have done HQ, but usually we stick that on our fastest raid drives before we share.

Actually, I do have one question for someone who shares over ethernet. For our longest running projects, FCP sometimes forgets the directory if a clip goes online. If a clip goes offline it says, searching for file name (blank) in directory (blank) We manually enter the name and force it to find the file. But we have to manually enter several files before it comes back on. Have you had a similar issue?

Best,

Dylan.

[Dylan Robertson]

Yes, I have heard that they new imac’s have dropped jumbo frame support, Which is LAME.

I also don’t online 8 bit or 10 bit uncompressed HD over the ethernet. Or, if you are pulling 444 uncompressed, for that I use direct connection. PRO Res 422 HQ Does work. However, our system has been very rock solid. Worked for IFC commercials and PBS specials. Both extremely deadline driven. Just posted 6 commercials.

Also, this will be less efficient than small tree. Don’t get me wrong, small tree is great. But when I started with this system three years ago, small tree wasn’t a viable option for us. (I remember looking at them and the costs several thousand dollars.) Also, you can buy this to start off, then scale into a small tree system by adding their card.

Yes, the XSAN is going to be better. If I were cutting a reality TV show, I’d get an XSAN. But I cut television and feature docs plus commercials. But, the XSAN is $20,000 ours cost $6,000.00 So this way, we can buy a MAC PRO, 20TB of hard drives – and a VW Jetta! Or, for $20,000 you could get something in the neighborhood of 106TB of storage. E

The reason I posted this is this system really just uses hardware that people have.

The people I work with, they usually have one edit station and an imac. They work on one project, but sometimes have to double up during crunch time. So they are doubling their drives. This works like a charm to get them into the sharing world.

[Dylan Robertson]

Go for it. Good luck.

[Dylan Robertson]

That’s the thing, no issues. Rock solid.

We upgrade our ram from time to time, but I have never had any real issues. The only thing that we do is run permissions repair weekly. Also, we don’t have drop frame issues. Just had this system set up on a PBS American masters – they loved it. Set up a project for a company that works for IFC, they are really happy. This system has worked for full on professional production companies – not hobby enthusiasts.

But the genius of the system is that there are no proprietary parts. (hence I can’t sell anything.) Since Day 1, I plugged in the router and it worked. Need to expand a computer, just buy another computer and FCP and were done. Need more hard drive space, just add another drive to the computer.

However, seven computers is a lot. We haven’t pushed this system quite that hard. So I can’t vouch that this would work for you. However, if you have seven workstations I imagine you have the $100.00 to try it pretty easily. I work mainly with productions that need 2-5 edit stations. For these people, this setup is simply a game changer.

Dylan Robertson.

Plus someone asked about this vs a xSAN. We are currently running 20 terabites on the server.
server cost $3000.00 for the mac, plus 4x8tb quadra raids @ 1200 each is 4800. So its $7300 with a computer vs $16,000 is way cheaper. (And scalable!) Buy a mac pro comptuer and add 3 internal drives. Next project, get a sata card and some raid drives. you get the idea.

Oh, and we can use our server to edit, compress, run photoshop, word. That’s what we love about it, we aren’t throwing thousands of dollars for a piece of hardware.

[Dylan Robertson]

Actually the way you put it out the cost is the same. Either way, yours or mine, if someone wants to share media with multiple computers, they are going to have to have multiple computers.

So in your case, they are buying a drive + multiple computers, and a probably switcher (many NAS drives only have one or two ports) My way its multiple computers, drives in any configuration, and a router. So its a wash.

Also,
Have you used NAS enclosures to cut video? I have used NAS enclosures and I have never any luck. For me, they were never fast enough to cut video, plus the interface was always really wonky. However, maybe that has changed. Have you served media over a NAS Drive to several computers for editing? Curious bout that.