Apple Xsan Any Good for Us?

[Bokir]

Anybody can help explain, whether it can be any help in multiple room audio post facilities?

It works for video editing:
http://www.apple.com/xsan/videoworkflow.html

Can it do the same for us? Can we share project across multiple rooms? I mean, we don't really need to simultaneously access the session. But at least we need a centralised storage solution that can be accessed and used for work directly from anywhere.

Well, hopefully you can understand what I really mean ;-)


Thanks.

[Mark Reis]

Currently we are running a FIBRE solution at work that uses Astera cards and drivers to communicate to a SCSI based Hitachi storage system. While others at work do not trust this system, I use it exclusively whenever possible. I've been able to run 76 tracks and Quicktime DV off of Fibre without problems.

We are hoping to switch to XSAN in the next fiscal year in order to gain cross platform access to Fibre and file lockout, as opposed to our current volume lockout (only 1 person can have write access to a given volume at any time). It is quite nice to put away a volume in my office, go into the main studio, record some Foley or Sound Effects, put the volume away in the studio, and then open it again in my office. If that's what you want to do, XSAN should be able to do it.

We are ahead of where I'd like to be on the Tech Curve for Fibre. Version 1 of XSAN is not quite so far ahead. I think we'll be waiting for 1.2 before switching over to XSAN. Our current solution has some quirks and I expect there will be some in XSAN until there's been a revision or two.

Let's hope that Digi chimes in here, as they do not use standard OS X file access in ProTools.

[Tiago Silva]

We installed 6 seats of SNS SANmp six months ago because we have both Wintel, MacOS9 and MacOSX, and it works. Unfortunately it's not being very helpful in terms of our workflow because we still have other machines that can't be put in the SAN shared space and we have to keep compatibility. But after they're in, we can acess the files from anywhere, export to a shared disk, import, move from room to room (from edit room to ADR to Foley room) without carrying the disks around, etc. One use is to export referenced OMFs from the Avids, carry them to the ProTools, and then open the (SAN) Avid disks in the ProTools and import the OMF with "link to audio files". The Avid guys can continue working.

As for the cross-platform part of Xsan: the price of the ADIC StorNext software required to acess the SAN in each Wintel seat is not online, but it's supposed to be used to grant acess for servers, so it must be expensive. The MacDrive license needed to give Wintels access to a SANmp volume is 49.95 for 1 license, 59.95 for 2 licenses.

Cons: SANmp provides only volume-based locking, and since it's based on regular HFS+, they have a difficult task ahead of them if they want to go to file-based locking. But hey, one guy is recording foley on one disk, but the other guys can read the same disk and each time a reel is finished, the other guys syncronize themselves, import the tracks to a session on another disk and can edit (or mix) the foley that was just recorded. The file-management functions of ProTools6.x were a godsend for these jobs.

However, since producers around here don't pay to have two people working on the film at the same time (that would mean paying for two ProTools), the editing is done afterwards...

[Bokir]

Thanks for sharing guys.

I've been able to run 76 tracks and Quicktime DV off of Fibre without problems.

So, is this a total track count accross the network or for each seat?

We are ahead of where I'd like to be on the Tech Curve for Fibre. Version 1 of XSAN is not quite so far ahead. I think we'll be waiting for 1.2 before switching over to XSAN. Our current solution has some quirks and I expect there will be some in XSAN until there's been a revision or two.

Could you please explain this in more details?

Let's hope that Digi chimes in here, as they do not use standard OS X file access in ProTools.

What exactly the impact about this issue? Sorry for being clueless on this.

Thanks.

[tsd]

Hay yeah,

and what about building a supercomputer for protools with a couple of G5 Xserves? I really dont understand how it all works...

[Tiago Silva]

When we finished installing, we made some tests and we were able to record 52 tracks to a SCSI 15k drive attached to Fibre. Our sound drives are individual 15k SCSI drives over Fibre and not an array of disks. I never benchmarked the 2TB array we also have for video, but it has been quite happy supporting 2:1 and 10:1 Avid video media and sound files being accessed by four workstations at the same time (so far), all the while serving as platform for our sound library and a scratch disk for project and file interchange.

The 2TB array consists of 2 seven-drive RAID5 arrays, each split into 6 volumes. Since we were migrating Avid QuietDrives into it, we split it with rounded SCSI sizes. The end of the arrays has been configured to serve as shared storage, not project storage, because it's slower.

What exactly the impact about this issue? Sorry for being clueless on this.

Thanks.

Well, I thought that Digi used standard OSX file access. The ability to import CDs directly from the "Import Audio" dialogue in PT 6.x came from OSX, not from Digi. At least, our SANmp system has been working faultlessly as soon as we installed it properly.

[Soundworks UK]

We'd like to know a definitive yes, no, or maybe sometime in the future about ProTools and XSAN.

Digi? Thanks.

[doctorsunshine]

Hi, i am having a llok on the GLOBANSAN solution from SNS. It's based upon the iSCSI protocol (something like fibrechannel SAN but with ip network). it uses the same SAN software, called SANmp , as their fibre system.
I made some tests with iscsi softwares, which we can try for free on pc platform only (microsoft provides iscsi initiator for free, and we can try some scsi targets (servers) for a few days). It seems quite poqerful ! but as it's on pc only and my pro tools are on os X plateform, i could see how protools would run with this solution. SNS is the only developper (as far as i know) to provide an iSCSI initiator for os X.
I hope i could have some time this week for testing a pro tools pc with an iSCSI system, witch could give some clues about the SNS GLOBALSAN perfs.

I had a look too on the Xsan, but it's quite awful not being able to mix pc and mac stations on the same SAN. I think too, as someone said this before, that the pc software used to be compatible with Xsan might have a quite huge price... as it's a server product initially.

Nayway i an having a serious look on all these products, as now we could have a real alternative to AVID Unity, witch is for now not ready for pro tools and os X.

Best regards,

Jérome (from france, so sorry for my english).

[CLee]

The upside of a Fibre SAN is it's a serverless network, you never get the server crashing and other computers are isolated from studio crashes. Because there is no server only one user can have write access to a drive at a time, altho all users can read it. I think the tradeoff is worth it. We went from a server network to Fibre SAN and thought volume lockout would be much more of a problem than it's turned out to be.

[The Chinese]

Interesting thread-

I Actually have experience with all 3 of the systems that have been discussed here-

XSAN- Not able to run many workstations bangwidth runs out. Keep in mind that it uses I.P. based computers to hit the XSAN server. Fibre channel is used to link the XSAN to the clients, but then I.P. based computer then hith= the XSAN servers... not fast snough for Seek intensive audio, but great for banndwidth intensive video. Time will tell...I think it could ge really good in a couple of years. We have a Dual 2.3gHz G5 Xserve which is running XSAN and a couple of clients that hit it via fibre. Keep in mind also the extra Gig switches needed to run the Metadata streams, as they are separated form the Fibre links.

Fibre- Probabaly the best system in existence today, if setup and run correcty. Currently only SNS has an off the shelf system that works really well. We have had this system in pllace for 5 years and it can easily run 128tracks with 9 fr. edits without even breaking a sweat...the people here who are only getting 70 tracks aren't getting the whole advantage of Fibre's speed and power.

ISCSI- the newest technology- so far, works reallly well. With a dual 2.0 G5 Running SANmp (SNS) i was able to put 96 tracks into record on an HD1 system, then create 10 fr edits. It played. the networking is really easy, standard Gig-E switching. Plays nice w/ ProControls, C24's and ICON. at 20k for a 1.5TB system, it's also hard to beat....

Hope this helps-

-Todd A.