x-san vs. RAID

Anyone out there with experience with shared media? The project I am working on is a cg animated feature. We have 3 fcp setups. We work with storyboards - photojpegs- for the animatics and quicktime files for the animation as it comes in.

My show finally splurged on the xsan system but the company that sold/installed it will only supports the xsan and not the FCP/xsan package. We are having dropped frames and missing renders and contacted an independent support tech that says that xsan has nothing but problems and the RAID was the way to go.

The reason that FCP is so great is that it is open ended in terms of configuration - but that is also it's drawback if you are doing an usual project. It doens't seem like there are a lot of animation projects out there so we feel we are on the bleeding edge.

Why would Apple claim it supports xsan if there has been nothing but problems?Basically we would like a company that would package everything for an animated movie - shared storage, Macs, external monitors, what co-decs, frame sizes, etc to use.

Can anyone recommend a 3rd party FCP system builder that supports animated projects?

thanks very much!

b

Someone is giving you a load of nonsence. Set the thing up right and its bullet proof. Mark Raudonis frequents this forum. His company Bunim-Murray is quite familar with X-san/raid. I'm sure he'll check in.

Where are you located?

FWIW you are not quite on the bleeding edge. Corpse Bride used FCP and so did that Disney film with the pidgons that died quickly last summer

Bee,

Feel free to contact me off list.

You say the company who sold it to you supports X-SAN and not the FCP/X-SAN package. That's nuts! Call 'em back and say ,"get some one in here who knows the difference between a LUN and a lugnut". My guess is that you're working in an uncompressed format with too few "spindles" supporting too many data streams.

In otherwords, your bandwith isn't big enough to support the group that's drawing on it. A knowlegable installer would ask questions in advance and spec out a system capable of delivering the performance you need for your particular situation. Unfortunately, the hardware might be correctly installed, but the way your media is organized may be contributing to or causing the problem of dropped frames. A shared storage environment is NOT a trivial undertaking. My best advice is to make sure that you have qualified help to assist you in the setup phase. What ever it costs will be worth it.

As for a recommendation for a knowledgeable dealer, if you're in Los Angeles, Promax would be a good choice.

Mark