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Author Topic: Media data storage  (Read 5256 times)

Stephen Swaffer

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Media data storage
« on: March 13, 2015, 08:40:47 AM »

I am fairly sure I can handle the technical aspects of implementing either solution-or I may hire the setup done, but my question is really about which path do I head down at this point.

We have a dedicated media iMac that will be used for recording services and media presentations.  I have avoided using the internal hard drive for recording for a host of reasons, but need to do something. Am I better off with a USB external drive or two, or network attached storage? 

Pros/cons? 

Any issue with running media/multitrack playback off NAS?

How difficult would it be to access the media NAS from the church network if the NAS is on the media network and still maintain security?

Mirroring for backup would be a plus.
We do plan to start video recording of services at some point-could be same system or
 separate.
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Steve Swaffer

John L Nobile

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Re: Media data storage
« Reply #1 on: March 13, 2015, 09:13:06 AM »

I have a dual Bay case with 2 -  240GB SSD drives on my MacPro on a lightning connector running Raid 0. It's blazingly fast. I also have an ext USB 3 drive attached for backup and storage. It's been flawless for almost a year now.
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TJ (Tom) Cornish

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Re: Media data storage
« Reply #2 on: March 13, 2015, 09:25:06 AM »

I am fairly sure I can handle the technical aspects of implementing either solution-or I may hire the setup done, but my question is really about which path do I head down at this point.

We have a dedicated media iMac that will be used for recording services and media presentations.  I have avoided using the internal hard drive for recording for a host of reasons, but need to do something. Am I better off with a USB external drive or two, or network attached storage? 

Pros/cons? 

Any issue with running media/multitrack playback off NAS?

How difficult would it be to access the media NAS from the church network if the NAS is on the media network and still maintain security?

Mirroring for backup would be a plus.
We do plan to start video recording of services at some point-could be same system or
 separate.
The issue with spinning disks is exclusive access to the spindle(s).  Unless you're recording 4K video, throughput shouldn't be too big of a problem; the issue is when you're recording along, and some process makes the head seek to find another piece of data, causing latency that hoses you.

A USB2 drive is primarily limited by the interface throughput, to roughly 40MB/s.  A USB3 drive is primarily limited by the drive's throughput.  Latency is determined primarily by disk RPM.

A NAS box may be better or it may be worse than a local USB3 drive.  If you are the exclusive user and have a solid wired gigabit connection, a NAS box with a couple disks and some cache will be at least as good as a local USB3 drive.  If you are trying to record to the church's shared file server NAS box that might be doing other things, some local storage is probably a safer bet.

What do you mean by security?
« Last Edit: March 13, 2015, 09:35:59 AM by TJ (Tom) Cornish »
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Jeff Carter

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Re: Media data storage
« Reply #3 on: March 13, 2015, 09:34:16 AM »

I don't think I would play back live directly from NAS. In my church's network, high-res video will stutter when we do that (though we don't have a separate media network, everything is on one network with one NAS).

Our SOP is for staff to put media for the service in a folder on the NAS and for the Sunday morning graphics operator to copy the files to the internal drive for playback.
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Stephen Swaffer

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Re: Media data storage
« Reply #4 on: March 13, 2015, 01:04:57 PM »



What do you mean by security?


Controlled access to the NAS.  My thought is a dedicated media NAS on the media network-but if the pastor or staff creates content on an office computer I would like them to be able to save that content on the NAS for use in the service.  I don't want just anyone on the network to be able access the NAS though.

My concern with using the internal drive for media playback is that we experienced some latency while using Logics for playback.  From what I understand, the iMac virtual disk swaps data with the internal drive whenever it needs to regardless of priorities-so I am thinking playing back from that drive-while it usually works ok- is not the best plan. 
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Steve Swaffer

Lee Buckalew

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Re: Media data storage
« Reply #5 on: March 13, 2015, 05:10:30 PM »

Mirroring for backup would be a plus.
We do plan to start video recording of services at some point-could be same system or
 separate.

I would not recommend mirroring as redundancy during recording, most RAID configs can be a problem for live recording due to speed.  That said, there used to be some video programs that required a RAID but not a redundant RAID.

For backup I would recommend a cloning program (provides a fully bootable disk as your backup) scheduled for weekly clones (perhaps alternating between two discs for the clone drives, in case one dies you have another that's only a week older) with a separate disc for Time Machine.  This way you can get to a recent fully bootable disc and then update from Time Machine.

Lee
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Scott Holtzman

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Re: Media data storage
« Reply #6 on: March 13, 2015, 10:44:18 PM »

I would not recommend mirroring as redundancy during recording, most RAID configs can be a problem for live recording due to speed.  That said, there used to be some video programs that required a RAID but not a redundant RAID.

For backup I would recommend a cloning program (provides a fully bootable disk as your backup) scheduled for weekly clones (perhaps alternating between two discs for the clone drives, in case one dies you have another that's only a week older) with a separate disc for Time Machine.  This way you can get to a recent fully bootable disc and then update from Time Machine.

Lee

There are different kinds of RAID, RAID 0 increases throughput but has not data redundancy.  If one drive goes all the data is gone.

You do see speed increases with a proper RAID 5 (fully striped).  The external NAS boxes don't have much power or decent RAID controllers.

We have been benchmarking ZFS filesystem (a software RAID) on a beefy dual hex core Xeon machine with SSD's vs.  a serious hardware RAID card with 15k dual port SAS drives.  The SSD's win every time.  Samsung now has 10 year warranty and a 500g SSD can be had for under $300.  Put five of those in a decent i5 machine with 16G of RAM and run the open source software FreeNAS.  Easy to install and has all the security levels you need.  If you run a Windows Domain it will use that for authentication.

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Scott AKA "Skyking" Holtzman

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Rob Spence

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Re: Media data storage
« Reply #7 on: March 14, 2015, 12:38:24 AM »

I have a Synology Diskstation with 8 bays. It seems pretty quick to me but I have not measured it. I have a 5 drive array with global hot spare in it.
I back it up to an external drive dock on my office PC. I put in the right disk for the backup. Each backup has 2 disks which I alternate.

They make smaller ones and also expanders.

I understand you can set up some sort of copy if you have 2 of them (but I don't).


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Scott Holtzman

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Re: Media data storage
« Reply #8 on: March 14, 2015, 01:07:59 AM »

I have a Synology Diskstation with 8 bays. It seems pretty quick to me but I have not measured it. I have a 5 drive array with global hot spare in it.
I back it up to an external drive dock on my office PC. I put in the right disk for the backup. Each backup has 2 disks which I alternate.

They make smaller ones and also expanders.

I understand you can set up some sort of copy if you have 2 of them (but I don't).


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

I should add that I have had 3 702p h.264 streams running from my FreeNAS box with not issue.
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Scott AKA "Skyking" Holtzman

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Lee Buckalew

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Re: Media data storage
« Reply #9 on: March 14, 2015, 09:04:57 AM »

There are different kinds of RAID, RAID 0 increases throughput but has not data redundancy.  If one drive goes all the data is gone.

You do see speed increases with a proper RAID 5 (fully striped).  The external NAS boxes don't have much power or decent RAID controllers.

We have been benchmarking ZFS filesystem (a software RAID) on a beefy dual hex core Xeon machine with SSD's vs.  a serious hardware RAID card with 15k dual port SAS drives.  The SSD's win every time.  Samsung now has 10 year warranty and a 500g SSD can be had for under $300.  Put five of those in a decent i5 machine with 16G of RAM and run the open source software FreeNAS.  Easy to install and has all the security levels you need.  If you run a Windows Domain it will use that for authentication.

Obviously that is correct.  The OP asked about "mirroring" for backup.  Proper striping with RAID5 for backup is slower than using a standard drive, let alone an SSD.  No recording programs that I know of will allow/recomend recording to a RAID 5.  There was a time when certain video editing systems recommended or required (I can't recall which) RAID 0 arrays, but no redundancy there.

Lee
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Lee Buckalew
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ProSoundWeb Community

Re: Media data storage
« Reply #9 on: March 14, 2015, 09:04:57 AM »


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