Re: SAN, NAS and Organizing Your World

this is a simple answer, and it is not a complete answer. You will not get a complete answer on these forums, as this is a complicated subject.

You need to hire someone that does SAN systems for a living (like a qualified dealer). This is not a plug and play process. In choosing a SAN for AVID, you MUST BE AWARE that AVID is like no other video product. Each AVID Media Composer (or Xpress) creates a .msm file which is the Media Database for that particular workstation. If you have a generic shared storage enviornment (like XSAN) that is not capabable of managing multiple AVID systems, you will ERASE the "other" AVID's msm files, making it impossible for them to access their files. Just because someone can "see" another computers drives, does not mean that it will work with AVID. This is what Metadata management is about with AVID and other systems that can handle multiple AVID systems. This is why it is more complex than a simple standard SAN or NAS system.

If you choose the wrong system, you will erase other computers media databases, and those uses will kill you.

Bob Zelin