Suggestions on choosing Storage

vjnews · Knows DNS is the answer Joined: 19 Jun 2010 Posts: 31

Hi,

Can anyone help me to choose between active Raid or Promise with specific reasons?

"Promise"--- Iam already using as 3 boxes SAN, providing a great performance.

But looking for another stand alone raid for online Archive.

Best Regards!!

VJ

mark raudonis · Xsan Master Joined: 23 Sep 2005 Posts: 123

I'm a big fan of Active Storage. We have plenty of their equipment and it's been working flawlessly for years.

Great monitoring apps for the iphone. Outstanding tech support. Forward thinking in their product development.

Just my .02 cents.

Mark

abstractrude · Xsan Master Joined: 13 Mar 2008 Posts: 881

Active or nexsan

gmaness · JBOD Joined: 31 Oct 2005 Posts: 3

I'm about to order Active for a drop-in replacement of 5 year old Xserve RAID's.

But what I'd like to know, is anyone using Isilon for media production storage? (realizing that Isilon is both hardware and the file system which is not XSAN compatible)

abstractrude · Xsan Master Joined: 13 Mar 2008 Posts: 881

isilon is great for nearline. you can't edit off it, or well at least. it really just a smb server and even more accurately its just cheap netapp.

JSamuel · Xsan Master Joined: 05 Jan 2011 Posts: 175

+1 for Active.

If you are thinking AFP/SMB, consider Space units.

undercover · Could work for Apple Joined: 14 Jan 2010 Posts: 59

I'd vote +1 Active/Promise/NexSan (typical SAN) rather than Isilon for video UNLESS you are working with a large number of lower bandwidth clients (ethernet).

You CAN edit off Isilon, but expect to have some minor issues with the NFS occasionally, but you're limited by the Gig ports. I think Isilons strengths are with large clusters. We have a 4 node cluster and I don't think we really see the benefits possible with larger clusters. Also the annual support costs are ridiculous, and batteries tend to fail pretty often so it is required.

Here's my thoughts on Active/Promise/NexSan:

Active:
Ease of Use!

Promise:
New units look FAST!
Been around the block a while, if you already have it and are comfortable, it might be a good option to continue.

NexSAN:
Good power saving options, can scale big with the BEAST series, also has iScsi options.

Solidus · Xsan Master Joined: 28 Jan 2011 Posts: 70

+1 Active for me.

Good support, build quality and ease of use.