Xsan Usage anyone ?

SAN usage in fcpx is different than not using a SAN.

You can setup "San locations" that are placed anywhere in any folder hierarchy, not just at root level in a Events/Projects folder.

You can setup separate San locations per project if you'd like, but you can only have one SAN location mounted at a time in X. You can have as many Events/Projects in a SAN location as you want. If you have one SAN Location per project, you simply remove the current one and add the new one.

Currently, Event Manager X only expects root level X directories.

Yes, event manager x moves folders out of your Events/Projects folder into another folder. But it's a graphical list and very easy to use.

Jeremy

[James Mortner] "If Im unable to write to the root folder does this mean Event manager X isn't any good to me ? "

For SAN setups, it simply doesn't work. Yes. SAN locations simply work differently. You can almost use them as a "check in/check out" but not quite as elegant.

[James Mortner] "I still dont really understand how FCPX could work in my office with lots of people sharing the same storage. Wouldnt it be quite painful to set
SAN locations every time you open a project ? "

It's really easy to set a SAN location.

Remember, you don't HAVE to bring all the media in to an Event and in a shared setting, maybe you wouldn't. Everyone can simply reference the same media which probably helps to answer your last three questions.

It's not a perfect system and it requires some thought. To keep things organized, maybe every user get their own SAN Location, and then you a create a common Event and Project repository. This way, if you need to work on a project, a user would go to the repository and drag the appropriate folders to their San Location and launch FCPX. After they are done, they quit FCPX and return the folders to the repository.

That's the way I have to set things up on my particular SAN as I don't have Xsan.

It's still early days for all of this.

Jeremy

Also, XSAN gives you permissions per user, so you will have more options in "locking" people out of each other's work.

My San, we have to manage this process manually, currently.

Its a serious problem, is there any indication they are looking at solving this ? I cant set permissions or move files around every time I
want to open a project.

Wait a minute, Im confused again:

[Jeremy Garchow] "Just curious, but what is unusable about it (I know it's not perfect) and what does cs6 offer in comparison?"

Didn't you say Event manager X wont work at all in a shared environment ? How would you show/hide media and projects you didn't want to see ? What if there are hundreds of other projects both current and older on the same drive. Would FCPX show them as well ?

[Jeremy Garchow] "It's not a perfect system and it requires some thought. To keep things organized, maybe every user get their own SAN Location, and then you a create a common Event and Project repository. This way, if you need to work on a project, a user would go to the repository and drag the appropriate folders to their San Location and launch FCPX. After they are done, they quit FCPX and return the folders to the repository. "

The above quotes show how its completely unworkable in a large-scale (say 20+ seats) setup, no ? I could easily see our XSAN dissolving into an incoherent mess if every editor had to clean up after themselves, moving files around manually.

Unless Im being really, really stupid ?

Maybe this will help you: http://images.apple.com/finalcutpro/docs/Final_Cut_Pro_X_Xsan_Best_Practice...

Jeremy

[James Mortner] "Thanks Jeremy, thats interesting too. Still doesn't seem to scale very well though, particularly the bit about SAN locations."

What do you mean? Scale to what?

Do you have Xsan now? How do you use it?

Jeremy

[James Mortner] "Like say if you had 20 seats of FCPX ? How would it work with people checking in and out ? What about mucky freelancers ?"

Well, what do you do now? How do you prevent people from overwriting currency fcp7 projects?

Check in/check out is fairly simple and the permissions are pretty much handled by FCPX if all computers are on the network and attached via fibre.

You would just have to tell people to release the San location before quitting. Of someone else needs to work on it, they can then mount that location. You can't have multiple people working on the exact same Event and Project at the same time currently, just like fcp7. But they can use the same media if you don't bring it in to the Event, but rather reference it.

[James Mortner] "how FCPX would work with hiding events or moving files around. Permissions would be a problem for us as well i think"

With SAN Locations, you don't have to move anything. You simply mount one location at a time on one machine, then release it, and mount elsewhere. Do you not have user groups setup on Xsan currently? How do you manage everything?

Jeremy

[James Mortner] "If ever two people have a project open, on save a warning dialog comes up checking if you really want to overwrite. We generally dont have to use same projects simultaneously though, it was me musing on how a large-scale edit facility might work IF there were alot of editors working together. Separate projects would work I suppose with separate SAN with referencing ?"

OK, James. I now have a better sense of how you use your SAN, and thanks for that.

In all honesty, I think you might be pleasantly surprised at how this works.

Of course, I can't speak for you, and you should really give it a try.

You don't need separate SANs.

A "SAN Location" is quite literally, a folder, or more accurately, a physical location on a SAN. That folder can be anywhere on the SAN, at any directory level, which is much different than how FCPX works with "local" drives, and it's also why Event Manager X doesn't work with SANs (and frankly, it might not have to if you use SAN Locations to their potential). You can have as many SAN Locations as you want, just make a new folder. You do not need a separate physical SAN or partition per user.

Hope that makes sense.

You can also mount more than one SAN Location at any station.

Conversely, if you use the "repository" method I outlined, you would have to be more aggressive with the user groups/permissions, and have to manually move folders around. In your case, I'm not sure if you need that and SAN locations will probably work very well for you.

It's not perfect, but I have to say, as far as built in SAN support for an NLE it's pretty decent, and fairly easy to manage. It does work differently, but once you try it, you might like it.

Jeremy