[Steve Cox]

Unfortunately the question does not provide enough information to allow for an answer that can be genuinely effective. I am from CommandSoft, the makers of FibreJet and my suggestion would be to contact our technical support directly; email support@commandsoft.com or call 1-800-447-0144. Even if your support agreement is lapsed our support team will try and point you in a direction that will help you unravel the mystery…

Steve Cox
VP of Operations
CommandSoft, Inc.
610 Anacapa Street
Santa Barbara, CA 93101

URL: http://www.commandsoft.com
Email: steve_cox@commandsoft.com
Tel: 805.730.7772
Fax: 805.730.7779

[Steve Cox]

Hi Rick,

You can use FibreJet 2.8.2 for OS X with FibreJet 2.8.1 for Windows in a cross-platform capacity. You already own 6 FibreJet licenses and all that is required to make one of them work with the PC is to download FibreJet 2.8.1 for windows and insert the re-purposed usb dongle into the PC and run the setup detailed in the manual that downloads with the software. There is no additional FibreJet license purchase necessary unless you cannot re-purpose one of your existing licenses.

The best and most economic solution would be to buy a copy of MacDrive and put it on the PC so you can read and write to HFS+ file systems seeing that you have an existing SAN already formatted for HFS+. However, if your LUNs are over 2 TB and the PC is using Windows XP 32 bit , then you will have to redo your LUN sizes. If the LUNs have data on them, then this will destroy the data so you’ll need a backup. If you’re contemplating this, then you could consider adding more drives and make them dedicated NTFS disks just for the PC AVID.

You can either use Paragon NTFS for OS X to allow for writing to NTFS file systems, or you can use MacDrive for PC to write to HFS+ file systems. If the PC AVID system is using Windows XP 32 bit, then there is a 2 TB LUN, or Block Device, size limitation. An existing RAID could conceivably have NTFS and HFS+ partitions, in addition to the FibreJet database, which exists on a separate block device, ideally. With respect to striping a RAID, I would need more specific information. If you have made stripe sets using ATTO Express Stripe, then it will work for the PC if you use the Cross-Stripe product, which is for Windows XP and Windows 2000 only.

I hope this is a good starting point for you as you consider your implementation options. Please let me know if you have any further questions.

One last note; SAN configuration is always best done by those who have some level of genuine experience. This is almost always associated with some level of cost. The question in every business decision is ROI. There are a myriad of caveats that not having the whole picture can leave unsettled. That is why support agreements are worth there weight in gold. Our support team always stands ready to help as your configuration and business model evolve.

Thanks.

Steve Cox
VP of Operations
CommandSoft, Inc.
610 Anacapa Street
Santa Barbara, CA 93101

URL: http://www.commandsoft.com
Email: steve_cox@commandsoft.com
Tel: 805.730.7772
Fax: 805.730.7779

[Steve Cox]

Hello Brandon my name is Steve Cox and like all these other folks so eager to advise you I work for a company who has been supporting and building SAN’s for a long time… CommandSoft’s engineering team goes back more than a decade. They wrote FibreJet the application that aspires to make SAN management as painless as possible. Everyone talks on here about how expensive fibre channel infra structure is and huge the savings are going to be with ethernet and iSCSI or some layered approach. They leave out the cost to your bottom line when you have to give up or compromise performance and you have to retool because the next generation of video that comes out needs more bandwidth and greater and greater speed. FibreJet is hardware agnostic and will work in all there various topologies… Fact of the matter is you can build a solid 16TB / 4Gb FC SAN with four seats for under 20k without even doing a lot of research that will handle 2k no problem… and for under 30k you can go to 8Gb FC 16TB and have 4 to 6 fully licensed seats with unlimited scalability… if you want to talk about what your road map for the future is give us a call… if we can’t help you we will refer you to someone who can… Bob Z is consistently right about one thing on here, if you want to get this right you need to speak to a professional… maybe way more than one…

Steve Cox
VP of Operations
CommandSoft, Inc.
610 Anacapa Street
Santa Barbara, CA 93101

URL: http://www.commandsoft.com
Email: steve_cox@commandsoft.com
Tel: 805.730.7772
Fax: 805.730.7779

[Steve Cox]

Hi Dan,
Well as Bob Z has so aptly pointed out it is easy to get this wrong. Good council is worth it’s weight in gold. CommandSoft has over a decade of experience in SAN Management and design. We would be glad to put that experience to work for you. Our FibreJet software is working in hundreds of facilities large and small on a variety of proven hardware platforms. We have hardware partners that can help you achieve your goals and stay on budget as well. Please feel free to contact us directly.
Steve Cox
VP of Operations
CommandSoft, Inc.
610 Anacapa Street
Santa Barbara, CA 93101

URL: https://www.commandsoft.com
Email: steve_cox@commandsoft.com

Tel: 805.730.7772
Fax: 805.730.7779