Video Editing NAS or SAN

[gent23mj]

Hello all, I am bringing this here because I am beginning to question the credibility of my company's IT knowledge in this particular field.

I am a video producer for a growing company and am a one man band, for now, but am growing more into a management role and have to grow with the growth of the department.  I am using a simple Drobo raid that the last producer before me left me to store my footage but have realized that that is no longer sufficient. We currently have 14TB worth of footage since 2015 and are going to begin shooting 4K soon, and so that will only increase the need for space more.  And we will need backup solutions.  I am looking move to a NAS or SAN, but need to get some guidance and direction.  Here are the details.  I want to store and edit footage directly from the NAS or SAN.  Here are my PC specs below.

CPU - Ryzen 7 1800x 3.6GHz 8 core 16 threads

RAM - 32GB DDR 4
GPU - Asus GTX 1070
NVMe M.2 - Samsung Pro Evo 960 512GB
Mobo - ASRock x370 Gaming K4
Windows 10 Pro

The idea with the NAS or SAN, for under $50,000 is to bottleneck the PC as little as possible and offer support for storage expansion and 1 to 2 other users in the near future.

Can anyone offer advice or at least get me going in the right direction for further research?  My IT guy suggested something that was going to bottleneck the crap out of my PC and reduce it to a 2010 technology and speeds.  Any help is much appreciated.
 

[KenjiUmino]

15 minutes ago, gent23mj said:

I want to store and edit footage directly from the NAS or SAN.

if you really want to edit footage straight from the network drive you need a damn fast network

[Radium_Angel]

2 minutes ago, KenjiUmino said:

if you really want to edit footage straight from the network drive you need a damn fast network

And a SAN will coooooost. Setting up a SAN is not trivial.

If the old files/footage isn't in use, back it up on tape, archive it and use the free space on the NAS.

[GDRRiley]

to edit of the NAS your going to need a lot a enterprise grade HDD and a 10gb network. 

[BOOZy]

Whether you edit directly from the NAS or not, with 4k coming up your need for 10Gbs will grow.

Personally I'd never edit straight of the NAS, but true, with 10Gbs you'll be hard pressed to get anything faster on local storage aside from a decent SSD.

[gent23mj]

2 hours ago, BOOZy said:

Whether you edit directly from the NAS or not, with 4k coming up your need for 10Gbs will grow.

Personally I'd never edit straight of the NAS, but true, with 10Gbs you'll be hard pressed to get anything faster on local storage aside from a decent SSD.

Thanks for your reply.  Unfortunately, having to edit from a NAS is a reality for many.  So I am just trying to get the best out of it.  From what I hear more and more viable NAS options are coming out.  having 260TB of SSDs locally just isnt practical.  I wish!

[unijab]

Really need to sit down and put actual specs on paper that you need.

 

Total space?

Clustered storage?

Hardware / power redundancy?

Target seq. read/write speeds?

Target random read/write speeds?

Storage over fibre channel or ethernet?

Desired speed over network?

How many concurrent users?

Budget?

 

 

 

 

 

 

[gent23mj]

1 minute ago, unijab said:

Really need to sit down and put actual specs on paper that you need.

 

Total space?

Clustered storage?

Hardware / power redundancy?

Target seq. read/write speeds?

Target random read/write speeds?

Storage over fibre channel or ethernet?

Desired speed over network?

How many concurrent users?

Budget?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course I do.  but remember, this is a starting point for all that.  And I only speak about 50% geek, so Im not totally sure on some of those questions.  But let me give it a shot.


 

Total space?

not sure - 300 TB max for the next 5 years?  maybe more?

Clustered storage?
not a clue

Hardware / power redundancy?
again, not sure.  But I think you mean data protection?

Target seq. read/write speeds?
well, atm, I can get about 2500/500 sequential

Target random read/write speeds?
see read/write speeds, as that determines this. the idea is to not bottleneck

Storage over fibre channel or ethernet?
cant afford fibre (I dont think), so 10Gb ethernet?

Desired speed over network?
as fast as needed to not bottleneck within budget range.  10Gb?

How many concurrent users?

2 or 3, in the future.  now, just me.

Budget?
50K max?

[Radium_Angel]

You'll never hit that budget with a SAN. The network speeds alone are going to be an issue.

At this point, it might be easier to get your IT crew involved.

[geo3]

If you want a full featured non-tivial 'lol look I set up a SAN' SAN you better have $500,000 laying around. Regardless you'll need 10GB networking at your server, switch and desktop and everywhere in between. 

[leadeater]

17 hours ago, gent23mj said:

Hello all, I am bringing this here because I am beginning to question the credibility of my company's IT knowledge in this particular field.

I am a video producer for a growing company and am a one man band, for now, but am growing more into a management role and have to grow with the growth of the department.  I am using a simple Drobo raid that the last producer before me left me to store my footage but have realized that that is no longer sufficient. We currently have 14TB worth of footage since 2015 and are going to begin shooting 4K soon, and so that will only increase the need for space more.  And we will need backup solutions.  I am looking move to a NAS or SAN, but need to get some guidance and direction.  Here are the details.  I want to store and edit footage directly from the NAS or SAN.  Here are my PC specs below.

CPU - Ryzen 7 1800x 3.6GHz 8 core 16 threads

RAM - 32GB DDR 4
GPU - Asus GTX 1070
NVMe M.2 - Samsung Pro Evo 960 512GB
Mobo - ASRock x370 Gaming K4
Windows 10 Pro

The idea with the NAS or SAN, for under $50,000 is to bottleneck the PC as little as possible and offer support for storage expansion and 1 to 2 other users in the near future.

Can anyone offer advice or at least get me going in the right direction for further research?  My IT guy suggested something that was going to bottleneck the crap out of my PC and reduce it to a 2010 technology and speeds.  Any help is much appreciated.
 

How many computers will be editing off this network storage? Scaling wise it's generally much better to edit locally on the workstation and copy all files to network storage as required. You'll basically never get anything faster than local NVMe no matter how much you try, all you need is enough storage for the current working set.

 

There are companies that sell NAS/SAN solutions tailored to video editors such as SNS, http://www.studionetworksolutions.com/products/

 

Also a SAN/NAS is not a backup solution, these only offer resiliency so you will still need to address that. You can do that either by taking backups on HDDs or Tapes and taking them offsite or having an off site storage location either using your own equipment or cloud/service provider. Key point is don't have a single copy of your data else you don't have a backup. 

 

[leadeater]

Also just for information sake the School of Design department where I work is about to buy a 120TB SNS EVO and a 60TB SNS EVO, one to store video and one to store audio. They will be editing directly off these NAS's with I believe around 30 computers.

 

All up the purchase cost is about $130K NZD or 90k USD, this excludes the 10Gb networking to the computers.

 

Cost per TB for archival storage is cheap, cost per TB for live editing storage is much more expensive and there are a ton more factors to consider. This is why I always advise to edit local if you can, guaranteed to work, much cheaper, much less complicated. Follow the good old advice of keep it simple, simple works where complex can work but maybe not.

[Nils3D]

Been there done that, 
As a server hardware engineer i come across SAN's and NAS's on a day to day basis, building them, and seeing them in action.
SAN's / NAS's are usually licensed per node / per TB usually. For example Starwind. Scaleio. Raidix, etc. And those licenses can run anywhere between 2-10k usually.

We recently did a similar solution but for electronic microscopes and their data, and 10G, for that transfer was a bottleneck, SO if you're trying to go with an SSD or NVME array, 40G is where it's really at (not so much with SSD array). But this is with keeping headroom in mind.  

Ideally, i'd suggest as many people here before me have - localize the raw footage, then dump it. Will save a ton of cash in terms of NAS / SAN Hardware and licensing costs + eth + switch + ram / ssd caching and etc.

So sugesstion:
*migrate to 10G if you wish to have good file offload from your station.
*get a NAS with SDS (software defined storage) and use it as a dumping ground, preferably with some SSD's as cache, and RAM also as a cache to learn cold and hot data perhaps if that scenario will prove useful some day (cold and hot data) but caching would be good anyway. Also get some decent storage medium for the NAS.
*Upgrade your station with NVME drives to act as a scratch disk, for redundancy and preferably for more space, try to SW raid them.
*I'd not invest into hardcore server hardware just yet, since you're a one man band, i doubt the infrastructure overhaul to go like "balls to the wall" is something you'd consider, especially considering the price to even do it in the first place. 
 

[dalekphalm]

On 04/10/2017 at 4:50 AM, Nils3D said:

Been there done that, 
As a server hardware engineer i come across SAN's and NAS's on a day to day basis, building them, and seeing them in action.
SAN's / NAS's are usually licensed per node / per TB usually. For example Starwind. Scaleio. Raidix, etc. And those licenses can run anywhere between 2-10k usually.

We recently did a similar solution but for electronic microscopes and their data, and 10G, for that transfer was a bottleneck, SO if you're trying to go with an SSD or NVME array, 40G is where it's really at (not so much with SSD array). But this is with keeping headroom in mind.  

Ideally, i'd suggest as many people here before me have - localize the raw footage, then dump it. Will save a ton of cash in terms of NAS / SAN Hardware and licensing costs + eth + switch + ram / ssd caching and etc.

So sugesstion:
*migrate to 10G if you wish to have good file offload from your station.
*get a NAS with SDS (software defined storage) and use it as a dumping ground, preferably with some SSD's as cache, and RAM also as a cache to learn cold and hot data perhaps if that scenario will prove useful some day (cold and hot data) but caching would be good anyway. Also get some decent storage medium for the NAS.
*Upgrade your station with NVME drives to act as a scratch disk, for redundancy and preferably for more space, try to SW raid them.
*I'd not invest into hardcore server hardware just yet, since you're a one man band, i doubt the infrastructure overhaul to go like "balls to the wall" is something you'd consider, especially considering the price to even do it in the first place. 
 

 

On 04/10/2017 at 3:33 AM, leadeater said:

How many computers will be editing off this network storage? Scaling wise it's generally much better to edit locally on the workstation and copy all files to network storage as required. You'll basically never get anything faster than local NVMe no matter how much you try, all you need is enough storage for the current working set.

 

There are companies that sell NAS/SAN solutions tailored to video editors such as SNS, http://www.studionetworksolutions.com/products/

 

Also a SAN/NAS is not a backup solution, these only offer resiliency so you will still need to address that. You can do that either by taking backups on HDDs or Tapes and taking them offsite or having an off site storage location either using your own equipment or cloud/service provider. Key point is don't have a single copy of your data else you don't have a backup. 

 

 

Both great advice.

 

@gent23mj I'd strongly recommend you get an NVME drive internally in your computer, and then use that as a workspace for the actual footage and editing, etc. Get one large enough to give you lots of headroom (Eg: If raw footage for one workset is around 500GB, get a 1TB NVME drive).

 

As for the actual NAS, I'd go with a storage server appliance, if you've got $50K to work with. Load it up with Enterprise grade SAS drives in RAID10 or RAID60, some SSD's for caching, and share that over the network - bonus points if you have enough money left over to install a 10GigE switch, and networking on your workstation (and ensure the Storage Appliance also supports 10GigE).

 

Don't work directly on the NAS. To get the performance you want, you'd be far better off using that money to get more storage and a fast local drive.

[Fixer]

The best bang for your buck right now is thru LumaForge.  They have a ZFS server with multiple on-board 10Gbe & 1Gbe ports so no switch needed for your SAN.  https://lumaforge.com/jellyfish/

I own a VR/VFX/Post studio and we started with a 48TB Jellyfish Mobile (4x 10Gbe ports, 8 drives, $13k).  We have since sent that unit on the road as a portable edit center and we currently have a Jellyfish Tower in the studio (8x 10Gbe ports, 20 drives, , $33k).  Couldn't be happier!

 

[jkirkcaldy]

These questions always get me worked up as a lot of the information in the replies can be very misleading. 

 

If this is for a business, and you rely on being able to edit and deliver videos on a deadline. Buy video editing equipment. Don't build your own, and definitely don't build your own storage system. Don't get me wrong, gaming hardware is great and the performance to price ratio these days is amazing. But, when something goes wrong, being able to call various support teams will be invaluable. (Also for the company I work for there are specific requirements that the insurance company says we must meet.) 

 

If you have a budget of 50K go and speak to the vendors who specialise in video editing network storage. Look at companies like DDP (DiskDrivePool) or edit share.

 

The problem with building your own SAN or NAS is that this is for business use! If you are paying editors to come in and work, if something goes wrong you need to be able to get everything back up as soon as possible. If you are your own support, you're going to run into problems. Editors are not cheap. 

 

Depending on what editing software you use. Premiere can be a nightmare on network storage for anything longer than a short video. Avid is the industry standard and is designed to run on a network I would recommend looking into Avid, you can get a subscription for the same sort of price as adobe these days. One caveat with Avid though is you need to be working on approved machines, as if you call for support, the first thing they will ask is are you using an avid supported machine, if you say no, they tell you to use an avid supported machine. 

 

The workstations do not need 10GB , You will likely need 10GB from the san to a switch but after that 1GB should be plenty.

 

I work in Broadcast television in the UK, In the production company I work for currently there are up to 10 editors working at once. All the footage is transcoded to XDCAM 50Mbits and the TV shows are all around 45 minutes long. Each edit machine is working off a single slow mechanical hard drive, there are no SSDs anywhere in the workflow and apart from the fact that the machines boot fairly slowly and it can take a couple of minutes for avid to open in the mornings, there is no noticeable bottleneck.

 

You may want to think about some sort of workflow that means you don't have to have everything on your storage machine all the time. Backing up to tape is a good plan Or alternatively for video you should look at Sony's alternative ODA machines. They work the same way as tape in a lot of ways, but they work via usb3 and can be read and written to by any machine with no special software as they appear as an external disk. 

 

[leadeater]

3 hours ago, jkirkcaldy said:

If you have a budget of 50K go and speak to the vendors who specialise in video editing network storage. Look at companies like DDP (DiskDrivePool) or edit share.

Got a link to Disk Drive Pool? Maybe I'm looking at the wrong thing or just isn't what I was thinking it is, local storage pooling software? If it's that then that type of software is starting to lose it's value now days since Storage Spaces exists. Anyway that's besides the real point.

 

3 hours ago, jkirkcaldy said:

The problem with building your own SAN or NAS is that this is for business use! If you are paying editors to come in and work, if something goes wrong you need to be able to get everything back up as soon as possible. If you are your own support, you're going to run into problems. Editors are not cheap. 

One of the biggest things people under value is vendor support, so many people  either don't use it when they should, didn't need to or aren't the ones actually using it within the business. When you do need to use it it's often at times when you'll pay any amount to get what ever it is fixed, the more you aggregate your storage in to single large entities the risk and impact increases.

 

Too often the conversation is around a collection of parts and how you can buy them cheaper, how many people are driving around in self built kit cars? Even the people with the skill to assemble them.

[jkirkcaldy]

17 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Got a link to Disk Drive Pool? Maybe I'm looking at the wrong thing or just isn't what I was thinking it is, local storage pooling software? If it's that then that type of software is starting to lose it's value now days since Storage Spaces exists. Anyway that's besides the real point.

Here it is: https://www.ddpsan.com/

 

18 minutes ago, leadeater said:

One of the biggest things people under value is vendor support,

I agree. I am all for building servers and getting the most for my money, but if my work asked me to build a server I'd run a mile. It's the same with workstations.

 

22 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Too often the conversation is around a collection of parts and how you can buy them cheaper, how many people are driving around in self built kit cars? Even the people with the skill to assemble them.

 

I love this type of conversation as much as the next guy/gal in here. But there is a time and place for it. If the OP had a budget of £5000 then it would be a different story and the advice would be very different.

On 03/10/2017 at 6:52 PM, gent23mj said:

Total space?

not sure - 300 TB max for the next 5 years?  maybe more?

Clustered storage?
not a clue

Hardware / power redundancy?
again, not sure.  But I think you mean data protection?

Target seq. read/write speeds?
well, atm, I can get about 2500/500 sequential

Target random read/write speeds?
see read/write speeds, as that determines this. the idea is to not bottleneck

Storage over fibre channel or ethernet?
cant afford fibre (I dont think), so 10Gb ethernet?

Desired speed over network?
as fast as needed to not bottleneck within budget range.  10Gb?

How many concurrent users?

2 or 3, in the future.  now, just me.

Budget?
50K max?

You should sit down and think about your workflow before spending any amount of money on a SAN/NAS. There are many questions being asked here that could quite possibly lead you down the wrong path.  300TB for a proper SAN for video editing will probably be out of reach. But do you need to have footage from 5 years ago online and ready immediately?

 

Designing a good workflow with the right equipment will probably be more valuable in the long run than "cheaping out" now in order to get more "bang for the buck"

 

Speak to the vendors before spending a penny. You don't necessarily need to buy their products but it may give you a better understanding of how realistic your expectations are. They can probably build some sort of deal as well.

 

[leadeater]

7 minutes ago, jkirkcaldy said:

Here it is: https://www.ddpsan.com/

Right that makes way more sense than what google was giving me.

[gent23mj]

On 10/3/2017 at 12:45 PM, unijab said:

Really need to sit down and put actual specs on paper that you need.

 

Total space?

Clustered storage?

Hardware / power redundancy?

Target seq. read/write speeds?

Target random read/write speeds?

Storage over fibre channel or ethernet?

Desired speed over network?

How many concurrent users?

Budget?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course I do.  but remember, this is a starting point for all that.  And I only speak about 50% geek, so Im not totally sure on some of those questions.  But let me give it a shot.


 

Total space?

not sure - 300 TB max for the next 5 years?  maybe more?

Clustered storage?
not a clue

Hardware / power redundancy?
again, not sure.  But I think you mean data protection?

Target seq. read/write speeds?
well, atm, I can get about 2500/500 sequential

Target random read/write speeds?
see read/write speeds, as that determines this. the idea is to not bottleneck

Storage over fibre channel or ethernet?
cant afford fibre (I dont think), so 10Gb ethernet?

Desired speed over network?
as fast as needed to not bottleneck within budget range.  10Gb?

How many concurrent users?

2 or 3, in the future.  now, just me.

Budget?
50K max?

[gent23mj]

Thank you all for your replies.  I should mention that we keep footage from up to 5 years back that is needed at any given time.  So editing locally just isnt an option.  Moving footage back and forth just isnt an option.  While and editing NAS may not be as fast as a local edit, I am trying to find the best NAS option I can.

[gent23mj]

On 10/9/2017 at 3:46 AM, jkirkcaldy said:

These questions always get me worked up as a lot of the information in the replies can be very misleading. 

 

If this is for a business, and you rely on being able to edit and deliver videos on a deadline. Buy video editing equipment. Don't build your own, and definitely don't build your own storage system. Don't get me wrong, gaming hardware is great and the performance to price ratio these days is amazing. But, when something goes wrong, being able to call various support teams will be invaluable. (Also for the company I work for there are specific requirements that the insurance company says we must meet.) 

 

If you have a budget of 50K go and speak to the vendors who specialise in video editing network storage. Look at companies like DDP (DiskDrivePool) or edit share.

 

The problem with building your own SAN or NAS is that this is for business use! If you are paying editors to come in and work, if something goes wrong you need to be able to get everything back up as soon as possible. If you are your own support, you're going to run into problems. Editors are not cheap. 

 

Depending on what editing software you use. Premiere can be a nightmare on network storage for anything longer than a short video. Avid is the industry standard and is designed to run on a network I would recommend looking into Avid, you can get a subscription for the same sort of price as adobe these days. One caveat with Avid though is you need to be working on approved machines, as if you call for support, the first thing they will ask is are you using an avid supported machine, if you say no, they tell you to use an avid supported machine. 

 

The workstations do not need 10GB , You will likely need 10GB from the san to a switch but after that 1GB should be plenty.

 

I work in Broadcast television in the UK, In the production company I work for currently there are up to 10 editors working at once. All the footage is transcoded to XDCAM 50Mbits and the TV shows are all around 45 minutes long. Each edit machine is working off a single slow mechanical hard drive, there are no SSDs anywhere in the workflow and apart from the fact that the machines boot fairly slowly and it can take a couple of minutes for avid to open in the mornings, there is no noticeable bottleneck.

 

You may want to think about some sort of workflow that means you don't have to have everything on your storage machine all the time. Backing up to tape is a good plan Or alternatively for video you should look at Sony's alternative ODA machines. They work the same way as tape in a lot of ways, but they work via usb3 and can be read and written to by any machine with no special software as they appear as an external disk. 

 

Hi there, and thanks for the reply!

Regarding AVID vs Adobe, I am not making long videos or will that ever become part of the workflow.  We make videos from 30 sec spots to 5min recaps.  Plus, as I understand it, AVID has a MAJOR learning curve and I think the AVID machines are very expensive.  We are still very grassroots here, but I am trying to push us forward in our thinking.  

Help me understand what you mean about "buy video editing equipment."  In the end, is it not all the same, while keeping budget in mind?  If I have $5k to spend on an editing computer, I am not going to get an overpriced Mac.  I am going to custom build and save $1500.  Plus, I have lifetime warranty on it.  And whats a "gaming machine" anyway?  Its just a really fast computer, no? I bought an 8 core 16 thread CPU.  Within that price range, I am not so sure I have any better options.  (Maybe I do, I just didn't know about them).  This is for business - as I stated - it's for a somewhat grassroots company who is growing.  Im trying to future proof this somewhat while not having to ask for $100k +

1Gb vs 10Gb - so you are saying, if I understand you correctly, there would be no need for a 10Gb PCIe adapter, locally?  Why is this?  

Even with 2 or 3 users (eventually), is there no need for SSD drives for the NAS?  To my understanding, its just sending and receiving information for the most part, but doesnt the increased write speeds help decrease, by alot, my render times?

Again, thanks for the reply, and forgive me if my questions are elementary, I am still a "layperson" when it comes to some of this.
 

[gent23mj]

On 10/9/2017 at 6:11 AM, leadeater said:

Got a link to Disk Drive Pool? Maybe I'm looking at the wrong thing or just isn't what I was thinking it is, local storage pooling software? If it's that then that type of software is starting to lose it's value now days since Storage Spaces exists. Anyway that's besides the real point.

 

One of the biggest things people under value is vendor support, so many people  either don't use it when they should, didn't need to or aren't the ones actually using it within the business. When you do need to use it it's often at times when you'll pay any amount to get what ever it is fixed, the more you aggregate your storage in to single large entities the risk and impact increases.

 

Too often the conversation is around a collection of parts and how you can buy them cheaper, how many people are driving around in self built kit cars? Even the people with the skill to assemble them.

Did I accidentally imply that I was going to build my own SAN or NAS?  Haha!  Not even close!  I am looking for a guiding light and will def go with enterprise level gear with support.

Geeking out over tech and whats cheapest is not my desired conversation.  Though, each of those, still has a part in it.

[jkirkcaldy]

1 hour ago, gent23mj said:

Did I accidentally imply that I was going to build my own SAN or NAS?  Haha!  Not even close!  I am looking for a guiding light and will def go with enterprise level gear with support.

No, I don't think you did. It's more that I have seen this question pop up a few times and DIY is always suggested. If places like DDP are still well over budget (which I think they could be for 300TB) check out Indistor. They may have something that could suit your needs.

 

TL:DR - DIY is great but it has a time and a place. Professional video editing is usually not either.

 

 

DIY is fine in and of itself, it's just that the advice that often comes with that suggestion tends to be off. There is a very big difference in creating a SAN for a homelab and creating a SAN for a business. And as much as love the videos where Linus and the team show off their servers and as jealous I get at the ridiculous power they have at their disposal. I'd probably categorise their setup as a homelab (An amazing setup that I'd give a kidney for) rather than a setup I would recommend anyone try and replicate.

 

Which is why I think people often suggest stupidly fast drives are needed to edit from. I can't think of many situations where editors would need a server with 48 nvme SSDs to edit from. Even 10GB (from server to workstation) is overkill in most situations. I often wonder if they would go down a similar route if they weren't sponsored by Intel or have the relationships with manufacturers that they can use in place of tech support.

 

That being said, Premiere is a PITA on a 1GB network and it can also be a PITA on a 10GB network too. It's just the way it works, it's just not designed to run on a network drive. It's getting better as they take more and more market share, and you can see this with the way they are trying to implement things like sharing projects between multiple editors at the same time. So in a year or two this may be a very different conversation.

 

 

[dalekphalm]

The main thing enthusiasts tend to overlook on this forum is how valuable vendor support is when in a business scenario. Downtime = lost productivity and lost revenue. 

 

 Each part in a custom build having an individual warranty is not the same as having single source vendor support with next day priority parts delivery and - if necessary - on-site tech in the same timeframe is invaluable.