What do you do in terms of HDD ?

[Lee Cardan]

Here's what I'd like

* A storage solution that I can track to and mix off
- I usually run at 96Khz, don't usually get as high as 100 tracks but I'd like to support at least that
- Several hundred TB
- Must serve as 'network storage' ie, accessible from multiple computers at any time - no compromise
- Auto backup / redundancy storage
- Support remote access


The first point is a matter of convenience, not necessity
I could easily track to an internal HDD, dump the session in full to the storage and access in another room, ie copy from the storage to the internal of another computer. But wouldn't it be nice if this was seamless.. and sessions can be loaded and ran directly from this storage system

The idea is I'm looking to support a dedicated overdub / mix room and am really getting sick of external USB/FW drives (people inevitably start running sessions off them, new files get stored to HDD, messy)

[heathen]

In my opinion windows 7 does all this just fine. If you were running it on all the PC's in the network you could drag and drop files anywhere on any computer in the network. Also stream audio/video to and from any other machine in the network, works great doing it all on wifi too. Simple and probably cheap.

[Wiz]

I can do this, on my mac at home.. with two exceptions. The several hundred TB ( I only use a few) and 96Khz (as I only bother with 44KHz (oh and my track count is way smaller)

The two problems I see are the several hundred TB all accessible (if thats what you want, immediate access to all several hundred TB at the same time) and track count (throughput across the network)

if, you dont have to access a 100plus track count song, across the network and play in real time, and are happy to copy the project from one place to the other. If you dont need access to several hundred TB online at the same time. Then this is how I do it , be it a smaller scale. Those other requirements if you needed them, might require a commercial solution (perhaps involving a proper computer room, raid, backup power etc)

For me

I have my project drive on my studio mac (lacie firewire)that contains the songs I am working on. I make two copies locally on my mac one on its internal drive, one on a USB drive hanging off it.

I also have time machine (backup) running on my mac, it doesnt back up the project or that External USB drive, but it does back up the internal copy.

So I have 4 copies of the song, on my studio machine at any given time.

I also have a public folder on my wifes iMac, in the house, shared on the network, which the songs get copied to as well. It also is backed up via time machine. Thats 6 copies of the song in two locations.

All as easy as a drag of folders at the end of the session. Takes less than a minute. Done and dusted.


I also, make carbon copy clones of my system disk. Before each instal of something like a plug in. So if its unwanted I can restore the system.


Sure windows does something similar.

Macs also offer network backup storage via something called "Time Capsule". All machines could be backed up to it, but its only a few TB.

Personally, I would have a mac in a computer room in the studio complex somewhere, basically operating as network storage. Make it publicly available. Copy the projects off that to the studio computer you are working on at any given time. Discipline across multiple machines, rooms, backups etc will be the issue, if there is more than one person accessing them.

[Sammas]

Is it even possible to read and write audio in a session to a network attached drive?

I read somewhere that is it possible in PT10 because the cache feature basically loads it all into ram.
The thought of jamming not one, but potentially multiple sessions down a network cable to various computers boggles my mind.

I just record straight to a local SSD drive, then backup the sessions to a pair of drives on a NAS.

[heathen]

Just boils down to how much you want to spend on computers really.

[Paul Maybury]

Hi Software choice might make a difference too. For example, we use Reaper and PT Le 8.01. Reaper has no problems working to and from network drives. PT Le wont do it. Hates it.

[audioio]

Is it even possible to read and write audio in a session to a network attached drive?

Supposed to be with 10. Interestingly, at the TAFE I teach at we have an OSX Server with XSAN that students and teachers use to backup to and move data around between workstations. Installing PT10 made no difference to its being listed as a Transfer drive. I can find no reference in the PT manual explaining how this works... whether it's just through the cache feature in HD and CPTK, or whether PT somehow tests the network connection to see whether audio can streamed directly, or whether there is some setting on network drives which prevents them being seen as read or write devices.

I just record straight to a local SSD drive, then backup the sessions to a pair of drives on a NAS.

Steve Massey had a free plugin which would to a background copy to another drive. It was released around v7; don't know if it works with v10. It doesn't appear on his current website, though I did recently stumble across another URL (not on his stevemasseyplugins.com domain) where it's available for download. Can't remember where that is now.

But to Lee's original question: how about RAID drives with removable caddies? Maybe with an eSATA connection you might use a couple and purchase additional caddies to mount the drives in for a quick swap. Backing up is another issue, but Sammas' suggestion might be viable although it wouldn't necessarily be a read drive.

I also remember talking to a guy at a post house in Sydney. They'd tried a well-known Fibre Channel SAN system but found that while it could serve multiple clients, it wouldn't allow multiple clients to write simultaneously, so they fell back to FW RAID boxes and a cataloguing system to keep track of it all. Admittedly they were working at 48k and most of the work they did was 24 tracks or less so Firewire worked for them.

[Lee Cardan]

ok! interesting, interesting.. thanks for the thoughts David and others

Firstly, Windows is out of the question, sorry

The two systems will be HD Native on current and 2009 Mac Pros

Yes it does seem like a bit of an ask, ie up to hundreds of 96khz tracks all reading and writing at the same time, but the aim of my whole post is to take out the human element of copying, working locally, consolidating, backing up again etc... if that's the case I may as well just stick with externals (i'd go nas anyway, but you know what I'm getting at)

Anyway, eSATA, gigabit ethernet, fiber if it came to that.. surely I'm not asking too much?

[audioio]

Yes it does seem like a bit of an ask, ie up to hundreds of 96khz tracks all reading and writing at the same time

My discussions about SANs was a couple of years ago. Things might have improved. You can buy dedicated appliances such as this or use an extra computer and a software-based solution. As an alternative to SNS, Dynamic Drive Pool would be worth a look. Note that I haven't used any of these.

Anyway, eSATA, gigabit ethernet, fiber if it came to that.. surely I'm not asking too much?

My feeling is that, even with a 15k FibreChannel drive, the drive itself might be the limiting factor. It seems from the claims made by those companies that the transport mechanism (FC, iSCSI) handles the bandwidth OK. But if you had 3 people working with large projects that just happened to be stored on the same drive...

[Lee Cardan]

You're most defintely right David

I've been thinking about it and I don't think there's any way you could ever guarantee that two people wouldn't need access to two parts of the same disk at the same time

Unless, you had an elaborate software system where you request access to a session and it gives you your own hard disk with a copy on it. So, that would likely be a custom job, and get messy as the user still has to do some mucking around just to access something.. anyway, I'll keep thinking about it

[smash]

I'm running a Facillis Terrablock 24D - http://facilis.com/products.html

Works brilliantly,100% reliable, not cheap, but for us it paid itself off just by the efficiency savings alone.

I purchased ours from Videocraft in Artarmon, Andy Liell or Rob Flouro will be able to help you out.

If you're in Sydney, you're more than welcome to pop in and check out our system and how it works for us.

Simon "Smash" Ashby

[Lee Cardan]

Hi Simon

Thanks for that, looks like an interesting unit
but would I be correct if I said price is somewhere around $50k ??

[smash]

Yep...

Good for facilities/teams, not so much for smaller places.

Simon "Smash" Ashby.

[Lee Cardan]

geeeez yeah that's a little out my price range for this purpose
Bummer.. I really Hope I can sort something out, I think realistically the best way to approach it would be a customised software layer running the show.. and if each computer could be assigned their own drive it should be enough, i guess it comes down to whether it's worth it or not

Thanks Simon

[smash]

Maybe have a look/chat with the guys from small tree communications.

http://www.small-tree.com/About_Pro_Tools_a/244.htm

I've only seen their solutions running once, and that was just in a single session, but it was at a high end post house - and I'd assume they wouldn't use if it wasn't reliable.

Not an endorsement, but probably worth looking at.

Apparently really really cheap (comparitivly) too.

Simon "Smash" Ashby.

[Lee Cardan]

Hey Angus

Thanks very much for asking the question,
That really seems to be where it's headed (ie, expensive)

Ultimately it's looking like it's just not feasible / necessary from a price/payback perspective