Can I use FCP with Unity Drives?

I work at a post house in Santa Monica. We have 4 rooms that are all connected by Avid Unity. We want to start converting each room to FCP over a few months. Can I use the Fiber Optic Avid Unity Drives for storage like a regular Hard Drive with Final Cut? I know that we probably won't be able to access projects in each room like the Avid Unity could.

Hey,

I should know this one. We have 4-3/4 Avids in the house--barring any rentals at the last minute.

The "3/4" Avid is really a Final Cut station because one of the feature productions was an FCP house. I don't know if it can see the Unity or not. I'll need to ask...

I do know we have had to juggle Unity licenses as we changed Avids around. I'm almost 100% sure that if you don't have a license, you don't see the Unity. It's really the Unity Manager you're licensing. Without that, the Unity turns into a plain pile of drives--and not a very talented pile, either.

I'm also almost 100% sure you don't get a split. You either have a Unity or you don't. Someone is going to correct me--possibly our Hardware Manager.

Koz

I cross posted this on the Avid-L2 and got this response:

There's no reason the drives couldn't be converted to shared storage
through a utility program like SanMP. Volume-level locking is easy.
You wouldn't get the full function that a Unity would provide, but it
would save your investment in hardware, for what it's worth.

John Svetlik


My opinion is that if you're switching to FCP, you should switch to a SAN that supports it like Apple's X-SAN.

Mark

I got the answer. The reason Avid 4-3/4 (the Mac) isn't on the Unity is that it doesn't have a fiber-channel network card--and no good way to add one.

There is the license issue, too, but I think that was secondary.

Koz

No way to add one?

It's only around $500 bucks... and the fibre cable.

In the networked workflow, there is no free lunch. If you want connectivity, you're gonna have to pony up for it.

Mark

<<<No way to add one? >>>

Not to an iMac. This machine is the runt of the litter. I think the G5s kick sand in its face when we're not looking.

Koz