Eric Newbauer
Forum Replies Created
-
Hi Glenn,
Just wondering if you’ve made some progress on the sharing aspect of your SAN. Since you mentioned SANmp I wanted to point out that we have a pretty lengthy trial “period,” which, hopefully you can put to good use if you’re still working on rounding out your system.
SANmp will handle both FC and iSCSI, and the trial works for both.
Here’s a direct link to grab the trial if you want to kick the tires:
https://www.studionetworksolutions.com/sanmp/download/
As far as price it’s about $500 MSRP, available from lots of resellers around the world. Most people seem to agree that the best thing about SANmp is that it’s incredibly easy to setup, and once it’s setup it just works. Here are a couple videos showing the quick setup process:
https://www.studionetworksolutions.com/sanmp/features/
Give us a shout if you need any help.
Eric Newbauer
Studio Network Solutions (SNS)
https://www.studionetworksolutions.com -
Alex/Bob, thanks as always for the mentions!
Trevor, in addition to our EVO storage system (now also available in an 8 bay, which might be perfect for you), if you already have some direct-attach RAID storage you could try our software-based solution, which turns your existing RAID and a Mac into an Ethernet/iSCSI SAN. I’m suggesting this because you can try it all for free just by downloading it to see if it meets your needs.
Here is the software that turns your Mac into a SAN server (Xtarget):
https://www.studionetworksolutions.com/globalsan-xtarget/And here is the software you use to share the SAN storage (iSANmp):
https://www.studionetworksolutions.com/sanmp/Eric Newbauer
Studio Network Solutions (SNS)
https://www.studionetworksolutions.com -
[Craig Alan] “Your solution is definitely‎ networked : so are you using volumes within the server storage instead of sparse images with software to assign ownership to a volume? Are sparse image speeds compromised?”
Hi Craig, we (SNS) have a few different ways of tackling FCPX workflows with our storage products, but the one Caspian mentioned is based on using our SAN volume sharing software (SANmp), and because of that we don’t have to deal with sparse bundles. It’s very simple this way, and as Caspian pointed out it’s a very popular solution for schools.
[Craig Alan] “Could we use the thunderbolt raids in such a system? Maybe daisy chained together as a large network storage. They are pegasus raids with four hard drives each.(8TB total, but can be changed out).”
Yes. We also have a product (Xtarget) that will enable you to take Thunderbolt storage and present it over Ethernet as SAN storage. You can then use your Thunderbolt storage with our SAN volume sharing software that I mentioned earlier.
[Craig Alan] “What would be a ballpark figure for this type of package for a 20 seat computer lab?”
There are several different ways to solve the problem you’re describing. We could do it all in software and you can use your own storage, or we could put together an entire solution: hardware and all. I’ll add some links below so you can try out our stuff for free, and if you like it please give us a call and chat with one of our reps about costs.
Here’s a link to our volume sharing software (SANmp):
https://www.studionetworksolutions.com/sanmp/Here’s a link to the software that enables you to present direct attach devices as SAN storage (Xtarget):
https://www.studionetworksolutions.com/globalsan-xtarget/Eric Newbauer
Studio Network Solutions (SNS)
https://www.studionetworksolutions.com -
Hi Ian,
Yes, usage can affect the performance of your sparse volume. Counterintuitively, the performance problem can be caused by fragmentation. (This is something we’ve seen in our lab and can reproduce easily by just using generic stuff.)
FWIW, I’d like to point out that our EVO storage server also provides NFS. Please have a look if this is of interest to you:
https://www.studionetworksolutions.com/evo/features/
Eric Newbauer
Studio Network Solutions (SNS)
https://www.studionetworksolutions.com -
Hi Neil,
The key word in your question is “big.”
The world is still defining the problems that object storage will solve. However, most object storage vendors are positioning the technology to be a solution for certain kinds of big data and long-term archives. When I say BIG, I’m talking about minimum 1/2 petabyte environments — extreme scale — places where a single, “traditional” file system like those you mention fall short of such large requirements. New scale brings new problems that require new solutions.
I think this technology will not be relevant for the *typical* video editing needs and workflows that are discussed here on the Cow. (There may be some developments that make object storage applicable to our world, but I think it won’t happen for at least a couple years.)
Eric Newbauer
Studio Network Solutions (SNS)
https://www.studionetworksolutions.com -
Hi Morten,
In addition to ProMax (and my company, SNS) there are a number of companies here on the Cow — Maxx Digital, Facilis, EditShare, ProMax, SmallTree, SNS, and others — who build shared storage solutions that were created to do specifically what you want to do.
One of the major benefits to going with a purpose-built solution from companies like us is that we’ve pretty much seen it all before, meaning, we’ve already come across or anticipated problems that are specific to video storage, and the answers to those problems are already baked into the products. (We happen to know things like “which model/firmware of drives work best with FCP” because we’ve already done the testing…) The other major benefit is that if you come across new issues with our products, we’re far more likely to be able to drill into the problem because we have labs setup with the same kinds of hardware/tools you have.
That being said, here’s a shameless plug for our EVO SAN/NAS shared storage system. 🙂
https://www.studionetworksolutions.com/evo/
Eric Newbauer
Studio Network Solutions (SNS)
https://www.studionetworksolutions.com -
Ian, do you see such a dramatic slowdown with a new and unused sparse bundle?
Eric Newbauer
Studio Network Solutions (SNS)
https://www.studionetworksolutions.com -
Hmmm… I think you might be referring to this statement FTA:
“In practice, RAID-Z exists only as a piece of software, not as a plug-in card, and it may outperform the sort of cheap RAID-5 that’s often advertised as a feature of desktop computer motherboards simply through better software engineering.”
In fact, it is possible and common to setup systems where the RAID creation/processing of any given level – RAID 0, 5, 6, 10, whatever – is done entirely in software. If the implication is to use RAID 10 w/o a controller and leverage that cost savings to compensate with more drives, then that math would only make sense up to a very small number of drives.
Eric Newbauer
Studio Network Solutions (SNS)
https://www.studionetworksolutions.com -
I can’t wait to see what’s in the can of worms you just opened! 😉
If you look at it from just an academic perspective it’s hard to argue against RAID 10 being the optimal way to go for video editing… if your most important two factors are reliability and speed. (Similarly, if your most important factor is only speed, then the underappreciated RAID 0 is the optimal way to go.) Unfortunately, most companies don’t have the luxury of making a buying decision solely on just those two factors, and of course, the balanced solution of cost, speed, and reliability (in that order, until things go wrong) wins out, which is why RAID 5 is still the dominant level.
There’s one statement in that article I believe *is* inarguable: “RAID is not backup.”
Eric Newbauer
Studio Network Solutions (SNS)
https://www.studionetworksolutions.com -
Chris, the kind of recordings you have – the priceless/irreplaceable kind – need not just a backup solution, but an archiving solution as well.
Many shared storage systems will include some kind of sync/backup/nearline features that can be used for backup (and unfortunately, some folks still lull themselves into believing RAID is enough of a backup plan). But legitimate long-term archival is definitely a different animal and should be looked at as something that should play nicely with, but not be solved by, your shared storage solution.
We give the nod to Cache-A for our customers with long-term archival needs.
Eric Newbauer
Studio Network Solutions
https://www.studionetworksolutions.com