Shared Network Storage

[Orange_METaL]

With more and more of the audio & Video world digital the need for storage is greater... the need to access files is greater... and I'm getting sick of looking through magnatitudes of HD's.... Anyone have any information on this subject?? Your studio running network hard drives???

We are a medium size facility and have 3 rooms.. Always running around moving firewire HD's and copying session to and from drives... (Many LaCie FW 800's/G5, 10.4.8/PT 7.3 HD 2)

Wondering if anyone has setup a network in their studio where anyone can access and rec/edit/modify files on a network drive, and the other rooms still access the drive and files??? Is it even possible to have 2 or more copies of the same session open in different rooms???

Looked into the LaCie Ethernet Disk Raid ( http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10877 ) and it seems that would be a really good thing if it even worked the way that I was hoping that it could/would...

Any info on this subject would be helpful... Thanks

[terminal3]

apple xserve?

you can't work on the same stuff at the same time without weird stuff happening but everyone can access the drives (a RAID), and it's fast.

[soundguydave]

Whatever you do, stay away from Lacie products, nothing is more unreliable than lacie. As far as an ethernet disk, I don't believe you can run a session off it. You'd have to transfer the files to your local machine each time, which will be a hassle. What you want is a something like an xserve with fibre channel cards, eventhen, I am not sure of protools compatibility with that. Plus, thats a pretty serious investment.

[KingDaddyO]

Originally Posted by Orange_METaL

Wondering if anyone has setup a network in their studio where anyone can access and rec/edit/modify files on a network drive, and the other rooms still access the drive and files??? Is it even possible to have 2 or more copies of the same session open in different rooms???

Disclaimer: I am not a MAC or a Lacie user. This is general advice from an IT perspective.

If your budget allows, a good strategy would be to implement a system where each process (archive storage, online storage) had it's own disc i/o resources (i.e., it's own disc controller and storage). You can accomplish this on a single server with properly configured controller subsystems & drive arrays (somewhat costly), or by simply setting up 2 reliable computers to act as network storage servers (less costly & time consuming). If you were to try and make this work with a single, standard desktop system (which typically contains a single disc subsystem) you run the immediate risk of introducing latency where you can least afford it (during real-time disc i/o operations).

Regarding the concurrent opening of a file on multiple computers: In any scenario besides playback (where RO mode is sufficient), allowing a data file to be opened in edit mode, in multiple locations, would be a recipe for disaster. The obvious analogy to make is that of a business document: In a properly configured business network, the network OS & the applications software will only allow one user to open a document for editing purposes. All other access attempts will result in one of 2 options: a) Would you like to open the file in read only mode?, or b) File is locked, please try again later.

It is helpful to list exactly how you intend to work with the files, when you are laying out the network infrastructure and determining the file access permissions.

[LK7]

Originally Posted by Orange_METaL

Wondering if anyone has setup a network in their studio where anyone can access and rec/edit/modify files on a network drive, and the other rooms still access the drive and files??? Is it even possible to have 2 or more copies of the same session open in different rooms???

We just installed a SAN network at my work(mostly for video). So far so good, but it does take a while to work out the kinks.

We have a G5, MacPro, and 2 2TB Medea Arrays connected thru fibre channel and networked using MetaSan and a common router for networking it.

So, basically both Macs can read/write from both drives simultaneously and its very fast(uncompressed HD video). Something to think about also is that if both machines are reading and writing to the same disk then you cut your bandwidth in half(theoretically), but I wouldn't think any amount of audio is going to choke it this kind of setup.

Pretty costly, but you probably don't need 4TB of storage for audio. Maybe you do, I don't know.

[georgia]

Originally Posted by LK7

Pretty costly, but you probably don't need 4TB of storage for audio. Maybe you do, I don't know.

We have 22.5 TB of audio storage here and it seems i'm always buying more....
Our sound library is 4 TB all by it self...
We're planning a Fibre channel system with a s/w implementation that allows file management providing for appropriate RWD access by user/system/project etc... There are a few out there... I haven't really dug around for a few years so i'm currently getting back to speed on this stuff. The last time I designed one of these was for Howard Shore's studio in Tuxedo NY...
Right now everything we have is glyph with gigbit ethernet or good old sneaker net..


cheers
geo

[Audion]

Hi

Our facility had Studio Network Solutions install a Fibre Channel system two years ago. I had to spend about a year debuggin it. I eventually reformatted the system and now have a 40 TB archiving system. It was just too unstable for a production enviorment. We had eight studios and 40 post systems running Pro Tools on OSX. We always had one system or the other that could not access data or the system would need a reboot. Imagine taking close to 50 workststions offline for a 3 minute reboot while clients are present. I had to comp many hours. I could not take the risk any longer and for now we use sneaker net and a basic networked Glyph system. We haven't had a problem since until this is posted of course.

[matmi]

Hi, we successfully implemented a fibre-channel workspace in our facility.
An Apple X-Serve RAID was configured to provide sound effect storage and audio/video recording/playback to four Apple G5 running Pro Tools HD3 Accel workstation (expanded with Avid Mojo).
1000 base-T ethernet was used to connect Macintosh and PC computers on LAN to enable fast cross-platform files sharing. It works great!

Matteo Milani
Sound editor
www.greenmovie.com

[Orange_METaL]

Thanks for all the replies..
sorry about the first post.. I'll explain in futer detail what I mean..

I didn't really mean to open the same session file itself... but say 2 different session files (one called X and one called Z) within the same song called ABC

1-Can someone be editing music in the session file X - and someone is editing dial in session Y with the ABC song @ the same time... Then when everthing is done I would just import the X session file (just what I've edited) into the Y session file... I really hope that this makes sence...
1.1-Are the audio/fade files in protools ready only files??? and can I create audio & fade files with the other session open???

2-X-Server would be great... but we are on a budget... :( I guess whos not..

3-fiberchannel seems like the way to go if you have the $$.... will a 1000 base-T network allow enough through put (data transfer) to even allow access to serve from 2 or 3 rooms working all @ the same time???

[Orange_METaL]

Originally Posted by LK7

Pretty costly, but you probably don't need 4TB of storage for audio. Maybe you do, I don't know.

I think that we have about 2TB of data storage right now... would continue to use the FW drives as backups for really important info

would use the 4TB of stoage for day to day stuff but in Raid 1+ 0
so it would really only be 2TB of data with almost 0% chance of looseing anything...

[Orange_METaL]

Originally Posted by soundguydave

Whatever you do, stay away from Lacie products, nothing is more unreliable than lacie.

Been running LaCie HD's for a few years now on a daily basis with ZERO problems
seen 3 Glyph drives crash in the same time span???

My vote is with LaCie
(the also have great tech support if-sent a DVD writer in for warranty and got a replacement back the next day)

[KingDaddyO]

Originally Posted by Orange_METaL

I didn't really mean to open the same session file itself... but say 2 different session files (one called X and one called Z) within the same song called ABC

1-Can someone be editing music in the session file X - and someone is editing dial in session Y with the ABC song @ the same time... Then when everthing is done I would just import the X session file (just what I've edited) into the Y session file... I really hope that this makes sence...

If I understand you correctly, until you import the X session file, you are still dealing with 2 unique files ... therefore they should not interfere with each other if both are in edit mode (workstation & software application limitations aside). Whether you can do this on a single workstation without introducing gltches is a different matter, and that is something that you should be able to ascertain from testing these operations.

Originally Posted by Orange_METaL

1.1-Are the audio/fade files in protools ready only files??? and can I create audio & fade files with the other session open???

2-X-Server would be great... but we are on a budget... :( I guess whos not..

Sorry, I don't have anything to add here, as I'm not a PT or an X-server user.

Originally Posted by Orange_METaL

3-fiberchannel seems like the way to go if you have the $$.... will a 1000 base-T network allow enough through put (data transfer) to even allow access to serve from 2 or 3 rooms working all @ the same time???

Fiber channel's great if your budget will go there, but 1000 BaseT (or Gigabit ethernet) is plenty fast for any of these operations. The limitations almost always come down to a) an inappropriate device, b) a malfunctioning device, or c) an improperly configured component on the network. This will then be your weakest link in the chain a.k.a., the bottleneck. Using best of breed network components, properly configuring your workstation's on the network, and researching your application software for known issues regarding network environments, will go a long way toward minimizing any latency issues. For reference, consider that many small to mid-size business networks, serving 50 to 100 workstations, can easily handle the amount of traffic generated by that number of concurrent users. Now that isn't to say, that one or more of those users couldn't launch some resource-intensive operation (like downloading an uncompressed movie) and negatively impact the overall network bandwidth ... but you should be able to get an idea of what range your data transfer needs will be, by doing some basic research or speaking with the vendor's tech support. I think it would have to be an extremely busy day, if you could saturate a properly functioning Gigabit LAN with only 2 users.

[gsilbers]

Originally Posted by Orange_METaL

Thanks for all the replies..
sorry about the first post.. I'll explain in futer detail what I mean..

I didn't really mean to open the same session file itself... but say 2 different session files (one called X and one called Z) within the same song called ABC

1-Can someone be editing music in the session file X - and someone is editing dial in session Y with the ABC song @ the same time... Then when everthing is done I would just import the X session file (just what I've edited) into the Y session file... I really hope that this makes sence...
1.1-Are the audio/fade files in protools ready only files??? and can I create audio & fade files with the other session open???

2-X-Server would be great... but we are on a budget... :( I guess whos not..

3-fiberchannel seems like the way to go if you have the $$.... will a 1000 base-T network allow enough through put (data transfer) to even allow access to serve from 2 or 3 rooms working all @ the same time???

there is a way and we where thinking about it here in the studio but its wayyy more expensive. we needed it for video editing for the shows we do which are in HD so each episode is like 200gb or something like that and there are like 160 episodes.
so it made sense gettoing a networkdrive that you woould be able to work on the same project at the same time with 2 diferent computers. but the price was waay to high so we went with teradata storage. thats for video, for audio... we just bought like 30 rocstor drives and each one of us does a session names it "X" and the mixer imports session data from those sessions. i recomned doing "save as" and then importing the session data of the edits or changes youve made only. but it can get messy. if you name the tracks of the new session the same as the tracks on your old session when u import session data itll give an option to import it to that specific track instead of adding and them to new tracks and then removing.
i hope i got what you where trying to say.

[Orange_METaL]

does anyone know if a 100base TX ethernet be fastenough to handle the workflow of a 4 computer system?

[KingDaddyO]

Originally Posted by Orange_METaL

does anyone know if a 100base TX ethernet be fastenough to handle the workflow of a 4 computer system?

Fast Ethernet (100 Base-T) is usually what you will find in most small-mid size businesses that haven't upgraded their topology in some time. It's plenty fast and could very well be sufficient for your needs. But again, depending on the specific load that those 4 workstations will place on the network, proper 'gain staging' can only be determined by targeted research.

As far as basic connectivity is concerned, 100 Base-T is more than sufficient for 4 workstations. Now if you decide you also want to edit video across your LAN, then the available bandwidth is going to shrink dramatically. Your audio requirements are likely to fall somewhere in between these 2 extremes, towards the lower end of the scale.

Here is a quick table for reference
There are 8 bits in 1 byte. Dividing each technology's maximum Mega bits per second rate by 8, will give you the theoretical maximum transmission rate available on that wire (in Mega Bytes). In reality, you will never achieve this transmission rate, as there are many loss factors that come into play. Still, this chart should give you a ballpark idea of how to gauge your network's throughput capabilities.

10 Base-T (10 Mbps) = 1.25 MBytes per second, like standard DSL
100 Base-T (100 Mbps) = 12.5 MBytes per second, like really, Really fast CABLE
1000 Base-T (1000 Mbps) = 125 MBytes per second, like drinking from a fire hose

[JesseJ]

You might want to take a look at these:

http://www.infrant.com/products/prod...S%20NVPlus

You definately need a gigabit lan if you are going to do 'network renderings' or work with HD.
Also spend money on a good router and have a pro configure it properly.

MetaSan looks interesting! Thanks for the tip!

[Geert van den Berg]

At WPP, the company I work for, we have a Rorke Data server and it's used in conjunction with Fibrejet software from Commandsoft. Works great!

http://www.rorke.com/av/fibrejet.cfm

It uses volume sharing, we have partioned it and once a workstation is logged into a partion it is still readable by others but they can't write to it.

[octatonic]

I have 8 LaCie firewire enclosures- they have never gone down on me.

[The Chinese]

Originally Posted by Audion

Hi

Our facility had Studio Network Solutions install a Fibre Channel system two years ago. I had to spend about a year debuggin it. I eventually reformatted the system and now have a 40 TB archiving system. It was just too unstable for a production enviorment. We had eight studios and 40 post systems running Pro Tools on OSX. We always had one system or the other that could not access data or the system would need a reboot. Imagine taking close to 50 workststions offline for a 3 minute reboot while clients are present. I had to comp many hours. I could not take the risk any longer and for now we use sneaker net and a basic networked Glyph system. We haven't had a problem since until this is posted of course.

Audion-

Wow, I'm very surprised to hear this. SNS is a top flight company and that Fibre system worked Extremely well for us when I worked at Technicolor (formerly Vidfilm International, the first install of the SNS Fibre System!!!). If you want some help with this rig, PM me and I will et you in touch with the guys from SNS, who I still have a great relationship with (occasional beta tester too...).

-Todd A.

[The Chinese]

Originally Posted by Orange_METaL

Thanks for all the replies..
sorry about the first post.. I'll explain in futer detail what I mean..

I didn't really mean to open the same session file itself... but say 2 different session files (one called X and one called Z) within the same song called ABC

1-Can someone be editing music in the session file X - and someone is editing dial in session Y with the ABC song @ the same time... Then when everthing is done I would just import the X session file (just what I've edited) into the Y session file... I really hope that this makes sence...
1.1-Are the audio/fade files in protools ready only files??? and can I create audio & fade files with the other session open???

2-X-Server would be great... but we are on a budget... :( I guess whos not..

3-fiberchannel seems like the way to go if you have the $$.... will a 1000 base-T network allow enough through put (data transfer) to even allow access to serve from 2 or 3 rooms working all @ the same time???

Orange Metal (and I love that handle)

OK, first off, all the files within PT are read/write when a session is open. That being said if you are very careful you could open two session that look at the same media, although you would get assertion erros if you modified any file that was common between sessions. You are better of copying.

As for the Xserve, you can buy on Ebay or used a DUal G4 Xserve with 2 Gigabit NICs for about $1000. Then you can load it with up to 4 500GB hard drives. Conversely you could also buy any computer and turn it into a server.... So it's not as expensive as you might think...

A gigabit network, with a proper gigabit switch (think 40gig backbone) will easily handle a small facility such as yours (and Mine for that matter!!)

-Todd A.

[georgia]

FWIW,
I posted a couple replies about RAID that I put together a while ago on my sticky thread... it might be interesting based on this discussion...

cheers
geo

[thebri]

I put in a SNS GlobalSAN here and concur with Georia's assesment. It's nice, but ya really have to shake the bugs out. I was skeptical about the system working at all, really. I mean, 4 workstations on 1 box with ethernet cables? And they call it SCSI!

Support has been mostly good, and performance seems good. But the systems sometimes gives us Disk too slow errors in Pro Tools, when we have like 2 tracks going in a VO session. ENough to make my stomach drop to the floor. Then, we run HD video on it into FCP with no probs. Quite something.

On the two stations opening a session at the same time comment. I don't even think you can do that with Microsoft word on a server can you? Maybe I misunderstood.

We do work on the same project all the time here, it just takes some communication and orginazation. We will setup a PT session. Copy it to the other partition, work on it in bother rooms, and then do the "Import Session Data" thing and merge the work.

[KingDaddyO]

Originally Posted by thebri

On the two stations opening a session at the same time comment. I don't even think you can do that with Microsoft word on a server can you? Maybe I misunderstood.

An earlier post (#4) addressed this topic.

Yes, more than one user can simultaneously open a document ... but the second user can only do so in Read-Only mode. There are obvious benefits in being able to view, or print (or listen to), the contents of a file while someone else has it locked for editing (in Read-Write mode). This functionality may be more prevalent in the business environment than in the professional audio market, but the concept is the same.

Generally speaking, file access is a function of the operating system. All modern operating systems provide a default configuration, that will not allow a file which is locked in edit mode, to be opened for editing elsewhere. How any vendor (Microsoft, Digidesign, Magix, Sony, etc.) interacts with the OS from within their application can vary widely. So this is one area you may see variances in the stability of one application over another (rock solid operation normally, as opposed to crashing when I try to do *this*).

[thebri]

Originally Posted by KingDaddyO

An earlier post (#4) addressed this topic.

Yes, more than one user can simultaneously open a document ... but the second user can only do so in Read-Only mode. [/i]).

Sorry, I was not clear enough. I was responding to the poster that said, "Work on a project at the same time" and that is what I was responding to, not just opening and reading.

So yeah, for having a second person opening a session, SNS can allow this.