We need a server - what to look for?

[fuussmuuss]

this is not the average vj question, its more aimed towards our production company.
Actually we are working alot with HD footage in video, and we are in need of a big storage space, where we can fit most of our projects. The thing is i am not an IT manager and i have no idea about what to look for.
I suppose the best solution would be a system with Raid HDD's (raid 5?) but im not sure what would be the best/safest option. should i go for an option that keeps a "mirror" of my data, or should i go for the most storage space option?

if anyone could recommend something it would be very nice!

thanks. fuuss.

[Rovastar]

How much stogare are you talking?

Does it all have to be available all the time?

A RAid system for the HDDs is recommended. And you will probably be looking at a SAN system for really large reliable network storage.

You probably need SuperDLT II tape drive systems too.

This stuff isn't cheap though and I would advise getting a consultant in your area to set it all up and give you quotes, etc.

[many2]

What Rova said.

[fuussmuuss]

at the moment i have 1 Terra of storage space. but its getting close to be full, and i need more. so i was thinkin of having at least 1.5 Terra available. At least for the files we are working on for a certain period of time. Im also thinking of having an external HDD Tower in Sata where you can "Hotswap" disks for backup purposes, so once a project is done...hop onto the HDD and i can store my different bakup HDD somewhere else. I don't like the idea of using DLT tapes, cause when you need to access those, you'll need to have the space somewhere to restore them (am i right on this one?).

I already own a SAN/NAS system from Netgear but its incredibly slow to copy/work with data, so i guess thats really not the best option to work with video!

Talking of Raid... what is the "best" option for raid? Raid 1 does mirror your data on another disk so when it crashes you can restore it on another one, right? so i'll loose half of my storage capacity?

sorry for asking dumb questions, but i never got that far in planning to use/setup a server...

For sure i will talk with a local IT company to setup and maintain the thing for me, as i don't want to have ANY trouble wtih this system... i was just looking for what would be the best, and not to expensive, solution for this!

[many2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

[Rovastar]

I wouldn't worry about the RAIDs too much. Really you will need approx double the storage when using RAID.

Do you always use the 1+TBs?

I mean do you have that many projects active at any one time - 1TB worth. Surely you archive off some.

If you are dealing with really large files then there isn't really a good solution when moving it around a network.

Maybe have a local hdd of the active projects on your desktop machine all the time and copy back every night to the san.

The SuperDLT II is for backups and probably the most reliable storage as opposed to HDD. And that will be multiple tapes. They are the biggest available and up to 600GB with compression I think. True you will need the HDD capacity to store.

Having critical backups on HDD isn't the best solution. Short term fine but if you need to keep the data then tapes are the best way.

You really should have at least the same amount of storage space available as you use just incase.

[alangeering]

If you need rapid access to large current projects across a network you might want to look into an iSCSI solution.

[johnnylocust]

Originally Posted by alangeering

If you need rapid access to large current projects across a network you might want to look into an iSCSI solution.

There's also ATA over Ethernet which is much faster than iSCSI due to less overhead, but it's nowhere near as flexible.

[visualove]

What applications are you using? File locking and workflow are good to think out. Ask your hardware vendors for reference customers that have the same production environment before you buy.

[alangeering]

http://www.open-e.com/data_storage_s...erver/?lang=en
The products in this link can make things easier should you not want to play with linux yourself but just want to plug things in!