John Mcclary
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I have to say that the “duct tape and glue” statement is rather biased. The Terrablock is both OSX and FCP friendly, especially when setup for Mac clients exclusively. It is one of the only systems that plays well with Final Cut, Pro Tools, and Avid at the same time. Because of the overall speed of this Fibre Channel system, dropped frames should be a thing of the past for you.
It is simple to administer, has NO client licenses at all, NO metadata server for fewer points of possible failure, and there are no XRAID-like disk failures because it is totally mirrored. For shops under 24 edit suites it can the most cost-effective solution.
John McClary
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The systems tops out at 19.6Tb for now (that’s two severs) and it runs 24 offline clients. If you worry about the bandwidth – it can run two uncompressed 10bit High Definition clients at the same time.
John McClary
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If you’re considering SanMP, you really need to also consider Facilis Terrablock. It runs OSX and Windows, has NO client license fees, and almost administers itself (rare for a Fibre Channel system). With 2Gb and 4Gb clients, it is very fast. To speed up digitizing we use three clients at a time.
Cons: (1)volume based system so only one can write to a volume at a time. We keep our projects locally so we have few limitations from that and you can switch writing permission at any time. (2)creating a new volume can take about 2 minutes. We create our volumes with the original project so we have few problems. (3)the volumes seem to perform best with 1,500 to 1,800 files (limit is 2,000 per volume). We keep all our dissolves and titles on the local machine so again, no problems. Last, the system tops out at 19.6Gb capacity.
John McClary
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Those are the limits at this time, as far as I know. The guys at Facilis love to answer questions though so just ask them. The biggest plus (I think) is that they are very easy to administer. I use the 12D server every day.
All the specs are on http://www.facilistech.net along with sample configurations.
John McClary
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The 2Gb FC cards we are using cost about $600. Even the 4Gb is only $1200 – probably less by then. The switch is about the same price as an effective (but not enterprise class) FC switch. Plus the FC hardware is proven. As well as the protocol.
Can you find a drive array to deliver 300Mb per station anyway? (just curious)? I may be misunderstanding – do you mean per server?
John McClary
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With FC you get throughput of 200 (2Gb) to almost 300 (4Gb) megabytes a second. The “catch” is that with most FC systems (XSan, MPSan, etc) the system also needs a metadata server by ethernet – basically running two networks to achieve the highest speed and interoperability. This is why they are more complicated and usually cost more. Systems like Facilis Technology don’t need the metadata network because they don’t try to keep track of who last wrote to every sigle file, just by volume. This keeps the speed up and cuts down the cost premium.
When you’re looking at network speeds and costs you should look at total costs. Most companies aren’t wired with the Cat 5e cable needed for iSCSI (ours isn’t) so network cabling costs are much closer than they first appear (and optical cable is MUCH easier to string up).
The iSCSI system prices I was quoted a year ago were more expensive than the Terrablock solution was for the same capacity. Plus the Terrablock setup procedure was (1) string one optical cable per client and add the FC card (2) take the server out of the box and bootup, then (3) start digitizing video.
And I had no FC experience. If your workflow supports it, Terrablock is a great solution.
John McClary
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It doesn’t have to be complex for a smaller number of clients. Terrablock servers (Facilis Technology) don’t run a metadata ethernet system (less complexity) but still runs on Fiber Channel (4Gb or 2Gb). There are no client licenses per se but all clients share a small volume that contains the “client software”. The downside, of course, is that without a metadata server only one client can have permission to write to a volume at once. But paying $600 for a HBA is better than $1200 for client software per user.
Not the perfect solution but for smaller groups it’s inexpensive, very workable, and system administration is kept to the bare minimum (creating/deleting volumes, adding users).
Just depends on your workflow needs.
John McClary
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At the same price range you might want to look into the Terrablock server (www.facilistech.net). It comes as a tested system in one box (first switch is built into the server) and runs on Fiber Channel so the speed is surprising. We can digitize into it with three (probably four) clients without a hiccup. Many iSCSI vendors could only promise me one because of speed issues. Each client needs a $600 Fibre Channel card but client licenses are free (instead of $1200).
We have been happy with its performance and are buying an additional Terrablock server within the month.
John McClary
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You can also use Studio Network Solutions client software.
John McClary
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You might want to check out Terrablock by Facilis Technology (facilistech.net). They run on 2 or 4Gb Fibre Channel and 6 clients can do dual-stream uncompressed SD (or 2 clients at 10bit uncompressed HD). Storage is from 2Tb to 19Tb. Plus, there is no charge for client licenses – just a add a FC card and you’re online. And with no ethernet metadata network needed, it almost administers itself.
We’re about to add another one here.
John McClary