My dad's business needs help

[Andrewf]

My dad owns a small production company, Spectrum Films. They do commercials, and documentaries for things for the city, and for the church, etc. I used to hangout there often, I know everyone there. They do tons of editing, and what not. I recently asked what sort of NAS they do, and who manages it, my dad didn't know what that was, so I asked who manages the storage, he said he thinks this one guy. I was like, well, okay. When he came to visit my in college, I was telling him about how my computer needs more storage and I'm running out quick. This is what he said.

 

"Just get an external hard drive. That's what we do, we have them all lined up and yeah we spin them every month or so, you shouldn't just get more internal."

 

I was like, are you kidding me? I didn't realize how absurd that is until now. This is running growing business since like 1990 and he tells me this disappointing crap. He's a hard-working guy, and he also directs/produces stuff, but this is beyond me. 

 

I'm just now realizing that he would benefit so much from a NAS, because they obviously don't have any central storage that I know of. How can I convince him to do this, I need solid arguments, and points to make, as well as a plan that would hopefully convince him. In terms of size, I'm not sure. LMG's 100TB NAS is pretty huge, I don't think that's what they need, that's kind of overkill I think. I need help. My dad needs help, his business needs help. AMERICA NEEDS HELP.

[techguru]

leave them alone...old folgees are set in there ways

its pointless to try to convince them of anything

[Sumsar]

Tell him that it will lower the risk of losing important data.

[Umzipumzi]

Honestly, if it's working for them, let them be. 

 

 

It's pointless to have them change their ways if what they have is working just fine.

[ForsakenLive]

There is quite a bit of people that work that way. Then they pay the price when they loose something.

Just let them be, stubborn people learn the hard way, or never learn.

[Guest Kloaked]

Show him what a NAS is, tell him the benefits of one and show them how it works.

 

Sounds like you didn't even try to explain anything based on what you've said, only indirectly complain on this forum.

[Nuluvius]

It's not really that clear what you are trying to say however I interpreted it as follows; your fathers business employs an IT technician who has provided the business with a number of distributed hard disks that they use for storage. They are regularly cycled in order to keep data decentralized? In your opinion they should abandon this methodology and centralize their data onsite/in a single location.

 

If I have understood this correctly then it is definitely your opinion that is flawed. While having centralized data in a business is good it is also very important to also decentralize that data i.e. keep it offsite usually in the form of a backup (for obvious reasons).

 

Perhaps the technician is doing the best he can given whatever budget constraints have been imposed.

[CostcoSamples]

Yeah I think you need to gather more info.  If the external drives are intended as backup that can be taken offsite, then it's a good idea.  But if his primary storage idea is to just keep adding more external drives... well that's a recipe for disaster.

 

A NAS will give him more capacity, more speed, and most importantly, redundancy!   Depending how you set it up, you can have a great combination of capacity, speed, and redundancy so that if any drive fails, it can be easily swapped out with a replacement without any down time.  External drives can then be used to take data off site periodically, for additional redundancy.  Offsite storage is needed incase of a fire, flood, earthquake, vandalism, theft, etc.

[Nuluvius]

A NAS will give him more capacity, more speed, and most importantly, redundancy!  

 

Also throughput/bandwidth if you were to get/build one with a number of network interfaces and configure it for link aggregation (LAG). Of course you'd need a decent smart (or better yet, fully managed) switch.

 

Moreover iSCSI can be very useful for hypervisors and the like.

[Captain_WD]

My dad owns a small production company, Spectrum Films. They do commercials, and documentaries for things for the city, and for the church, etc. I used to hangout there often, I know everyone there. They do tons of editing, and what not. I recently asked what sort of NAS they do, and who manages it, my dad didn't know what that was, so I asked who manages the storage, he said he thinks this one guy. I was like, well, okay. When he came to visit my in college, I was telling him about how my computer needs more storage and I'm running out quick. This is what he said.

 

"Just get an external hard drive. That's what we do, we have them all lined up and yeah we spin them every month or so, you shouldn't just get more internal."

 

I was like, are you kidding me? I didn't realize how absurd that is until now. This is running growing business since like 1990 and he tells me this disappointing crap. He's a hard-working guy, and he also directs/produces stuff, but this is beyond me. 

 

I'm just now realizing that he would benefit so much from a NAS, because they obviously don't have any central storage that I know of. How can I convince him to do this, I need solid arguments, and points to make, as well as a plan that would hopefully convince him. In terms of size, I'm not sure. LMG's 100TB NAS is pretty huge, I don't think that's what they need, that's kind of overkill I think. I need help. My dad needs help, his business needs help. AMERICA NEEDS HELP.

 

 

Hey Andrewf,

 

Having everything on external drives is not a bad idea as they are not all connected to the same system and are safe if one of them fails. 

However, having them backed up and still using a central NAS for everyone to access it and store everything, keep track of data and manage it is even a better idea. How much storage does your father use/need? 

I could suggest that you check out WD's NAS devices and see if any of them meets the company's requirements: 

NAS: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=qrCPkf

Servers: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=ao1Nk9

 

Your other option would be to build one on your own, but it has its pros and cons over pre-built NAS.

 

Captain_WD.

[Nuluvius]

Hey Andrewf,

 

Having everything on external drives is not a bad idea as they are not all connected to the same system and are safe if one of them fails. 

However, having them backed up and still using a central NAS for everyone to access it and store everything, keep track of data and manage it is even a better idea. How much storage does your father use/need? 

I could suggest that you check out WD's NAS devices and see if any of them meets the company's requirements: 

NAS: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=qrCPkf

Servers: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=ao1Nk9

 

Your other option would be to build one on your own, but it has its pros and cons over pre-built NAS.

 

Captain_WD.

 

Of course because you are not bias in any way towards Western Digital right.

 

I happen to think WD NAS units are crap but that's displaying my own bias opinion.

[Captain_WD]

Of course because you are not bias in any way towards Western Digital right.

 

I happen to think WD NAS units are crap but that's displaying my own bias opinion.

 

Everyone is free to express their own opinion.  

As you can see in my nickname, profile description and signature, I am a Western Digital representative and I have no intention of hiding it. I do not work for a marketing or selling departments and do not get any benefits from sales whatsoever. I see nothing wrong in suggesting an alternative. OP is the only person that will decide if and which option will they chose. The more options there are, the better variety of choices and opinions can OP collect to make their final decision. The more users' feedback on the different options OP gets, the better, won't you agree?

 

Captain_WD. 

[Andrewf]

Those of you who actually took the time to really give me your thoughts and provide something of use, I thank you very much.

 

 

Sounds like you didn't even try to explain anything based on what you've said, only indirectly complain on this forum.

I suppose I didn't really explain much, but I did ask for wide open, broad suggestions of what you guys think I should do about possibly helping a potential loss of important data.

 

Yeah I think you need to gather more info.  If the external drives are intended as backup that can be taken offsite, then it's a good idea.  But if his primary storage idea is to just keep adding more external drives... well that's a recipe for disaster.

As far as I know, that seems to be the plan. He also told me that what they do is just buy more externals when they need them. I should have mentioned that in my first post.

 

 

Hey Andrewf,

 

Having everything on external drives is not a bad idea as they are not all connected to the same system and are safe if one of them fails. 

However, having them backed up and still using a central NAS for everyone to access it and store everything, keep track of data and manage it is even a better idea. How much storage does your father use/need? 

 

Captain_WD.

 

Yes, I agree. The argument between me and him came up when I told him I needed more, and wanted internal, and he said it's better to have external, and just buy more when I need it. I don't think that it's very future proof. I couldn't tell you exactly how much they use, but they do plenty of high quality filming, sound, and other things that require very much storage. I would say definitely not as much as LMG uses.

 

Everyone is free to express their own opinion.

As you can see in my nickname, profile description and signature, I am a Western Digital representative and I have no intention of hiding it. I do not work for a marketing or selling departments and do not get any benefits from sales whatsoever. I see nothing wrong in suggesting an alternative. OP is the only person that will decide if and which option will they chose. The more options there are, the better variety of choices and opinions can OP collect to make their final decision. The more users' feedback on the different options OP gets, the better, won't you agree?

 

Captain_WD. 

I have a WD blue and a Seagate barracuda in my computer, both 1TB. I use the WD as my primary, and the Seagate was formatted, split in half, and used to boot a hackintosh a OS X. Yosemite. They are both fine drives, although they're mass consumer, so for that purpose, they're both HDDs and I don't really have much else to say about that. I'm more likely to lean towards WD though because they are more common and I've heard more positive things about them.

 

I apologize for a terrible first topic post. If I could sum this all up in one or two questions it would be this. What would you guys recommend for a small production company, that is also quickly growing, and has been growing non-stop for 20 years now, in terms of a NAS, if they were to get one? I would like specific estimates, just take a guess as to how much storage, and where I should get started. More business, more storage needed is how I see it. So tell me what you guys would do, if you owned a small production company!

 

I don't know exactly how much they would use an easy access, centralized storage system, but I have to say, they could only benefit from one, even if it be minor. I really appreciate the suggestions so far. I've also never actually done RAID myself, despite all the research I've done. I really would like to in the future, especially something like 2 SSDs in Raid 0, and more HDDs in Raid 10.

[CostcoSamples]

I'm not an IT guy, just a computer enthusiast with a bit of business experience.  From what I understand, you need something to store a lot of drives and something to control them.  A desktop PC with lots of storage bays will work, but for future expansion a proper server rack is better, as it gives more expansion bays and more racks can be added later.  Pre-built all-in-one type NAS solutions are a good value and easy to setup, just add drives and setup the software etc.  These can range from a few hundred to a few thousand $$$.  For a small business, a good all-in-one NAS may be sufficient (likely in the $2k to $5k range).  For the larger system, a full size server chassis is needed, then you add the individual rack components you want.  A HDD rack may or may not include the control hardware, depending on the size and setup.  A proper server rack type setup is likely to cost $5k to $7k and up, I would guess.  Perhaps you could get started for as little as $5k, but that would be pretty bare bones.  Expect more like $10k+, especially if you hire and IT professional to install it.  I recommend talking to a local IT guy to look at the needs and design a proper system.  

 

From there you could present the business case to your father.  Do some business calculations, looking at the cost of installation and maintenance over the next 5 years for each system.  Calculate the cost of a drive failure with this current system (include things like lost clients if data is lost and deadlines are missed).  If you can quantify the cost of failure, and the probability of failure, it's a lot easier to make the case.  Risk = Cost of failure X Probability of failure.  Compare the cost (including installation, maintenance over 5 years, and risk) for each system to decide which is better.  It could be that his current setup is best, but you won't know until you run through the math.

[MrSuperb]

A NAS will give him more capacity, more speed, and most importantly, redundancy! 

 

 

not necessary.

 

more capacity? not really. same drives.

more speed? depends, there are some pretty fast DAS solutions, that will be similar priced NAS.

redudancy? what if I tell you that it is safer to store the same file on two separate hard drives, then on one mirrored one?

[Thorium19]

I would have thought a small onsite server connected to a switch linking all the computers that need the large storage would be a better idea than a NAS or loads of external hard drives, similar to what LMG previously had. especially if there are empty bays in the server thus giving more room to add more storage.

[CostcoSamples]

not necessary.

 

more capacity? not really. same drives.

more speed? depends, there are some pretty fast DAS solutions, that will be similar priced NAS.

redudancy? what if I tell you that it is safer to store the same file on two separate hard drives, then on one mirrored one?

sorry, a NAS can give him more capacity, speed and redundancy.  one word can change the meaning.  thanks for the annoying correction.

[Jaybird]

its a sad fact that companies do not allocate more money to technology. in the construction industry alone. only 1% are using modern technology. that being tech that has come out in the last 4 years. of the 99%, those companies only allocate less than 10% of their revenue or general conditions into technology. the 1% on the other hand allocate around 45% of their general conditions into technology. todays technology is remarkable for the construction industry as nearly everything can be automated or prefab to reduce the amount of time a contractor spends on a specific site. 

 

you have to adapt or you will be bought. 

[Nuluvius]

Everyone is free to express their own opinion.

As you can see in my nickname, profile description and signature, I am a Western Digital representative and I have no intention of hiding it. I do not work for a marketing or selling departments and do not get any benefits from sales whatsoever. I see nothing wrong in suggesting an alternative. OP is the only person that will decide if and which option will they chose. The more options there are, the better variety of choices and opinions can OP collect to make their final decision. The more users' feedback on the different options OP gets, the better, won't you agree?

 

Captain_WD. 

 

Rhetorical questions aside. In my opinion it is Synology that sits at the forefront of the NAS market. Moreover I think that WD drives are a complete gimmick. For instance this 'IntelliPower' offered on some of the lower end/specialist drives is nothing more than information hiding for the fact that the drive is limited to very low RPMs. When attempting to actually find out what the RPMs are it is very difficult to find any information of worth explaining the feature. If one were inclined to be pragmatic about the endeavour it would likely be far cheaper and more declarative to buy a different brand with no ERC.

[MoonSpot]

@Andrewf centralizing data in an editing environment requires a fairly large investment in a more advanced network and support systems/devices strictly for the network.  I would assume that if they're running a sneaker net it's because its faster than 10/100 MBit / 55mbit WiFi home user tech and what the budget allows.

If the network isn't quite fast a NAS could be a monstrous pain in the arse for even 1 editor to use.  Anything more than dumping completed project on it for storage/backup may not be in the cards.

Centralizing data for small to medium sized companies generally introduces single point of failure risks.  One virus. one raid controller card, one network switch, one power source, one site, one server.

 

It is my opinion that your dad should have a better handle on it this, and should've been able to answer your questions without having to direct you to one of his employees to report that they use external drives.  If you can collect and consolidate some concise information for him to go through on network technologies and how his company specifically could benefit from employing them, maybe he'll care/appreciate/use it.  Or he could ignore it and keep on truck'en.