Looking for Portable Network Editing Solution

I work as a video editor in a military environment and need a deployable/portable editing server solution.

Currently our deployment consists of 2 8TB NAS drives (Seagate Black Armor & WD ShareSpace) which are incredibly slow and nearly impossible to edit directly from. We are currently a team of 8 (2 journalists, 2 producers, 2 editors, 1 still graphics/photographer and an After Effects master) and with all of us trying to access projects directly from the 2 NAS drives the production process grinds to a halt. We're using all Adobe products, ver. 5.5.

None of us is particularly network/server savvy and though we know what we want to be able to do, none of us knows how to do it. We're looking for a solution with the following requirements:

-Rugged enough to be shipped (typically via air-freight) multiple times a year. I was looking at this server rack.
-Fast as possible access for 8 users using portable workstation laptops with ethernet. Currently we work from the second generation (R2) of these Alienware laptops.
-Simultaneous access for all 8 users with ability to edit video, create motion graphics & still graphics with assets stored on the server, programs running locally (currently we have to pull all assets we wish to use in a project to our local drives in order to use them without slowdown).
-Minimal administration needed. Doesn't need to be plug 'n' play but as long as we don't need an IT degree to figure it out we should be able to use it.

If anyone is able to help us figure this out, I would greatly appreciate it.

Cheers,

Chris Hill

Bob, Matt (and Tim) thanks for your responses. I'll be looking into Small Tree at NAB. If anyone else also has some personal recommendations I'd love to hear them.

Hi Christopher,

Bob speaks the truth (as usual)

Small Tree does have a solution that fits your bill to a tee. Others as well like he mentioned.

Just give Small Tree a call and someone will get you in touch to the person you need to speak with. Plan to have a discussion about "Titanium" the self contained shared storage NAS product.
It's very high performance for multiple editors and can do high bandwidth and high real time video stream counts as well. Of course depending on your actual real world / real work needs you may prefer one or the other performance measurements more.

They'd be happy to help, I know it!

You can also shoot over to the Small Tree forum here on the Creative Cow here and inquire directly as well. http://forums.creativecow.net/smalltree

Small Tree will need to know where you are located so sending them an email from their website wouldn't hurt, or reaching out to someone on that forum directly would be okay too!! (There's also the Small Tree website option for inquires)

You'll be very impressed. I have no doubt!

Thanks,

Matt Geier
(Video Networking Solutions Expert)
(Creative Design Workflow Consultant)
(Social Media Networks Consultant)
(Technical Video Industry Sales Consultant)