[Nate Cooper]

Yes, the sync feature is per volume, you can have sync enabled on a single volume and not on any others. This can be set at whatever interval the admin chooses. The SANmp Client application also has a ‘sync’ button which allows user to force a sync command if the admin has not set up auto sync.

As far as performance hits, it is generally on the workstation that has the volume mounted Read Only. I have had several customers that ran the sync command during captures on other workstations with no dropped frames.

However, that being said, it of course depends on your hardware. In other words if your running the capture on an old G4 with a single JBOD drive, you’re much more likely to have issues than if you have a Dual/Quad G5 with a FC to SATA array behind it.

[Nate Cooper]

Hey Chirspy, the Sync feature automatically updates mounted volumes. This is accomplished without unmounting/remounting a volume, allowing the user to keep applications like Final Cut Pro open while sycing.

As far as performance hits the OS takes, it depends on many facts such as how many files are on the drive and the size of the drive and what kind of computer you have. In general it takes up processing resources for half a second to three seconds. So when an editor runs a ‘sync’ feature, by the time they are back in their main application the sync has completed.

[Nate Cooper]

I work for SNS, makers of SANmp, so I guess you could say I have a biased opinion ;). But, I’ve used PictureReady with SANmp many times before. It works great with our Sync feature which updates read only volumes without the need to unmount and remount the volume. In fact if you have the PictureReady clip in a time line of a FCP project and use the Sync feature, FCP will auto update the file with the newly captured infomation. Pretty sweet.

[Nate Cooper]

Bart,

We do not have a specific date on the delivery of Universal Binary. As of right now, the most accurate timeframe I can estimate is late October. This is a priority that we are working on right now. We will keep our clients informed as the time comes closer.

n a t e c o o p e r
cell: 818/209.1331
IM: natecooper@mac.com
ncooper@studionetworksolutions.com

[Nate Cooper]

Ben,

I assume you are talking about uncompressed HD and SD. If so, for a stream of uncompressed HD you will need to do a single RAID 50 of the entire Xserve RAID (2 x 7_disk RAID5’s striped as a single volume), any other configuration will most likely not handle uncompressed HD. Adding SD onto the same RAID will not happen, you’ll be dropping frames like it’s going out of style. For the SD Xserve RAID with 7 x 500GB drives, you should be able to get about 3 streams of 10 bit SD to playback. Here is my recommended configuration:

Xserve RAID 1: 2 x 7 disk RAID 5’s striped as a RAID 50
Xserve RAID 2: 1 x 7 disk RAID 5 with 2 slices

When all is said and done you should have 3 volumes in SANmp Client.

[Nate Cooper]

Hey Jeff,

There are a few ethernet based SAN solutions out there. I’d encourage you to check out our globalSAN product line. It’s all iSCSI (SCSI commands over gigabit ethernet connections), with complete SAN packages starting at 7k. If you have any questions feel free ask. Thanks.

Nate Cooper
https://www.studionetworksolutions.com/content/products/globalsan/
ncooper@studionetworksolutions.com

[Nate Cooper]

Phil,

After speaking on the phone we need to do a few things:

1. We need to re-initialize the globalSAN unit, using a supported configuration.
2. We need to check all cables that are being used.
3. Compare your benchmarks to ours, using the same benchmark utility.
4. Benchmarks aside, we must test the supported configuration with Video, looking at actual performance not just benchmarks.

I have a tech contacting you to help get the system set up with a supported configuration. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to let me know, thanks.

Nate Cooper
ncooper@studionetworksolutions.com

[Nate Cooper]

Andrew,

There are a couple of key things to check here. First launch Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities). This will show you if the volumes are presented to the OS or not. If they are presented to the OS, then install SANmp Admin, log into the Admin application and see if you see the drives in there. If you do, double check your user name and password, and try logging in through the client application again. Don’t forget to go to https://www.studionetworksolutions.com for the latest versions of software.

More often then not though, when you can’t log into SANmp, the OS just doesn’t see the disks. If the OS doesn’t see disks then SANmp has nothing to log into. If you do not see your FC disks in Disk Utility then you the OS is not connected to the storage and you need to start checking your connections/hardware.

Here is a list of things to check if that is the case
1. Is the card getting a link?
2. Is the switch (if you are using one) getting a link? Is it linking to the card and the storage?
3. Have you tried a different port on your switch (if you are using one)? Espcecially good to try the port which you know sees the storage.
4. Is there any zoning in the switch?
5. Is your RAID controller a dual channel RAID controller? Apple changed how LUNs are seen by the OS quite a bit between 10.3.4 and 10.3.6, were you upgrading from one of these OS’s and have you asked your storage vender about compatibility?
6. Have you checked the FC cable?

This should make it clear wether there is a software or hardware problem, and will give you a few things to check out if it is a hardware problem. If however it is a software issue, drop me a line and I’ll make sure it is resolved.

Nate Cooper
ncooper@studionetworksolutions.com

[Nate Cooper]

Have you tried capturing to the same volume as a non-SANmp partition. I ask this because the removed kext file is the only extension does anything out side of mounting and unmounting a volume. Because of this SANmp effecting performance is very unlikely, and outside of the removed kext impossible. Here is some info that would greatly help.

1. Have you tried downgrading to the old version to see if performance goes up?
2. What is your hardware set up?
3. What is the version of SANmp you are currently using on Tiger?
4. Have you tried this on the same storage initialized as a standard OS volume (not using SANmp)?
5. What is the codec you are trying to capture? Is it just with this codec or any codec?
6. Have you checked the integrity of your RAID? Have any disks failed?

Let me know and we’ll get this figured out. Thanks.

[Nate Cooper]

This is most likely related to a kext file that installs with SANmp. We put this in about 2 years ago when many clients were still using JBOD drives. The reason we designed this was that OS X spins down fibre channel JBOD drives down after 10 minutes of no use (even with all power save settings turned off). So we designed this kext to prevent unused FC JBOD drives from spinning down. This kext file seems to interfere with some codecs in Tiger. I have a script I can send you that will remove this kext file and should take care of the issue. Send me your email and I’ll get that out to you.

Nate Cooper
ncooper@studionetworksolutions.com