ATABOY2 IN A HIGH PERFORMANCE ENVIRONMENT

ATABOY2 IN A
HIGH PERFORMANCE
ENVIRONMENT
STARGATE FILMS MIGRATION TO ATABOY2
TECHNOLOGY A NEXSAN CASE STUDY
H I G H L I G H T S
COMPANY
Stargate Films
INDUSTRY
Entertainment Technology
APPLICATION
HDTV Visual Effects Postproduction
CHALLENGE
To streamline workflow and keep multiple
HD projects online by increasing the storage capacity of their Avid DS / HD system
far beyond the 1.8TB limitation of the
delivered SCSI system without sacrificing
performance. The solution needed be
scaleable without necessarily modifying
the Avid configured hardware, have a
lower cost per GB and provide redundancy.
SOLUTION
Nexsan ATAboy2. A single 5.3TB volume
was created across multiple ATAboy2 ATA
RAID systems, aggregating performance
and capacity. This scalable volume sustained throughput rates exceeding the
stock SCSI solution and enabling seamless HDTV editing.
BENEFITS
Improved workflow through the ability to
keep multiple HD projects online and
readily accessible to editors and visual
effects artists. Added scalability, performance and data protection at a lower TCO.
OVERVIEW
The digital video industry is actively seeking reliable, high
performance, high capacity, and low cost storage solutions. Until now high capacity has also been very costly,
the integration of ATA drives enables the manufacturing
of such storage with a lower cost. As a result more companies are migrating to this technology from both high
end SCSI and low end SCSI, such as in this case.
TESTIMONY - STARGATE FILMS
"We are a visual effects postproduction facility working in
both feature films and primarily High Definition television.
Platform-wise, our facility is a homogenous one; we have
standardized on Windows 2000 (W2K Pro SP2 for the
workstations, and W2K Server). We have a Gigabit
Ethernet based shared storage model with approximately. 10TB of network accessible storage. We use a Cisco
Catalyst switch as the network aggregation device, and
run a mix of Cat-6 copper and multi-mode fiber cabling.
Our backup solution is a Mamoth2 Exabyte autoloader
library. As an adjunct to the film side of the business, we
have an ARRI Laser 35mm Digital Film Recorder.
We have approximately 30 hi-end workstations, the bulk
of them being Dell 530 dual 2.2 Xeon systems to support
our digital compositing, matte painting and 3D animation
departments.
Our editorial centerpiece is our Avid DS|HD non-linear
editor that works in uncompressed HD at a resolution of
1920x1080 pixels. This real-time editorial system is the
hub of our workflow. While Stargate is highly enthusiastic about the power of the Avid DS system, we had
become frustrated by the technological barriers that prevented the use of more that 1.8 TB of storage (equating
to 3.5 hours of uncompressed HD video). We therefore
embarked upon an R & D project to extend the range of
this workhorse, and discovered the Nexsan product line.
The Avid DS system requires a very high performance
storage solution to maintain the high-sustained data rates
of HD. The system ships with Avid's branded JBOD
SCSI racks. Each containing 8x73GB 10k SCSI Disks.
These disks are striped in Windows 2000 as software
striped RAID 0. Each volume is comprised of 8 disks,
they are striped with 4 disks from SCSI Channel A and 4
from SCSI Channel B to maximize SCSI throughput. The
end result is a maximum storage configuration of 3 x 584
GB volumes. This is a hardware limitation due to the
available SCSI Ids, since the JBOD SCSI disks use a single ID per individual 73GB disk. This configuration provides ample performance for the system but requires a
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NEXSAN TECHNOLOGIES
high risk RAID 0 setup coupled with the high cost of the
Avid SCSI disk arrays. The down side is the current cap
on available storage. This 1.8TB maximum storage provides approximately 3.5 hrs of uncompressed HD
footage to exist on-line at any one time. This amount is
enough to do an on-line editorial session for a single fulllength feature. However, this would not be enough to offline that show, since all the dailies could not be captured
uncompressed. The system works extremely well as it
ships. We believe with this current technology, the real
possibility of changing this system into a true
online/offline system capable of handling the entire set of
uncompressed dailies for project, much as the standard
definition Avid evolved from a compressed standard definition off-line system into a dual purpose as technology
supported it.
However, we wanted to be able to increase the storage
capacity above the 1.8TB limit with the delivered SCSI
solution. We realized that Avid may at some point offer a
storage solution in the future to eclipse this current limitation. We felt we should be able to solve it ourselves.
Our brief was to find a storage option that would match or
exceed the JBOD SCSI Avid drives performance. We
needed it to be scaleable far beyond 1.8TB without necessarily modifying the Avid configured hardware. We
wanted to accomplish this at a lower cost per GB, and
also attempt to add redundancy to the solution; obviously, as the data storage increases, so does the pain when
a single drive failure causes the loss of the entire data set.
We first decided that the only way to make the capacity
scaleable would be to turn to an ATA-SCSI hybrid. The
benefit here is that all of those solutions consolidate a
large amount of disk down to a single SCSI ID. Another
advantage is that these systems of a variety of RAID levels and performance options. Also typically these solutions are vastly cheaper than pure SCSI solutions. We
have worked with JBOD ATA SCSI solutions for several
years. Unfortunately, we had suffered the consequences
of what was new technology. Our difficulties centered on
a hard disk failure problem, due to a particular batch of
hard drives that had an abnormally high failure rate. This
was problem with the hard drive itself, not with the ATASCSI solution.
The Stargate Films team, composed of Victor Scalise
(head of Editorial Department), Adam Ealovega (System
Architect), and Joseph Meier (head of the IT Department)
and Jeff Ho (part of the IT staff) began by beta testing a
variety of drive brands. We decided that the price/performance ratio coupled with the most impressive build
quality we'd seen was superior in the Nexsan drive
arrays. Although many manufacturers offer similar specifications in this capacity range, we felt the feature list to
be the most extensive in the Nexsan product line.
Particularly noteworthy for us in the ATABoy2 is its single
RAID controller, which can be configured internally as 14
x 120 GB drives at RAID 4 or 5. This allows an available
1.34TB (usable) array to be reduced to a single SCSI ID,
and have it appear to the Windows operating system as
a single SCSI disk. Many competitors' products offer
only a dual controller unit, which manages only half the
available storage on a single SCSI ID.
Depending upon the application, there are uses for a dual
vs. a single controller. Because we were looking for the
greatest capacity per SCSI ID, the single controller version was most compatible with our ultimate goal. Starting
conservatively, we built a storage volume out of only 4
Nexsan ATAboy2 chassis. Working with Lighthouse and
Nexsan, we devised a solution that would not require any
hardware reconfiguration in the Avid host; specifically,
this was done by 'daisy chaining' 2 Nexsan chassis off
each of the channels of the Avid's stock Adaptec 39160
SCSI controller. A software stripe was created in
Windows across all four chassis, thus creating a single
5.3TB volume. This volume was able to sustain and in
some cases, surpass the data rates of the stock SCSI
solution. We were able to reach sustained
reads of 340MB per sec and
sustained writes of 218
MB/sec with this configuration. In this case, our solution
met all of the initial requirements we had set. We thus
had our scaleable solution.
Furthermore, in this case we
only used 4 of the 30 available
SCSI IDs on the Adaptec controller. The 1.8TB Avid solution
used 24 or 30 ID's and was therefore at capacity. Although we
haven't tested this theory, we feel
the possibility exists that we could
host a total of 30 Nexsan chassis on a
single Adaptec 39160. If true, it would
provide 40.2TB of useable space, which
could be as much as 78 hrs of uncompressed HD footage. In the case of our 4
chassis test, we had 5.3 TB of useable space,
which is over 10 hours of uncompressed HD, over
3.5 times the maximum using the stock SCSI solution.
The solution also offered redundancy that the SCSI
JBOD's could not. This configuration is by definition a
RAID 0 over 4. Since the individual 1.34TB (usable)
chassis are all internally RAID 4 and they are all striped
in Windows at RAID 0. This is an excellent blend of performance with the added gain of RAID protection. The
price level was the big break. The Avid disks cost
approximately $30/GB, the Nexsan ATAboy2 cost
approximately $8/GB. The Nexsan solution comes in at
less than 1/3rd the cost, PLUS offering the benefits of
scalability and redundancy.
WE ARE ON THE LEADING EDGE
We migrated away from the SGI, Mac and Windows environment with all the compromises and shifted to a uniplatform Windows environment that allowed us to focus
our energy on solutions that would affect every user in
the facility at once. Networking is simplified, distributed
processing in our render farms in simplified. We decided
to leverage affordable Ethernet instead of moving up to
more costly networking solutions and have managed to
build a very efficient workflow around it. We adopted
ATA-SCSI very early on as our primary storage solution
and are now continuing to do so with the more advanced
ATA-SCSI solutions.
We had the business challenge of leveraging our very
expensive AVID DS|HD seat. We needed a way to add a
large amount of scaleable storage to our Avid to accommodate the multiple simultaneous shows we work on.
Since we work on as many as 15 different shows at a time it's not always
desired to purge on show one day
only to need to bring it back on line a
few days later. We wanted the ability to keep multiple shows on line for
sustained periods without breaking
the bank and also with matching performance to the stock Avid storage.
Ideally meeting the aforementioned
parameters of lower cost and greater
redundancy.
We are risk takers in the technology
field. We certainly are perpetually
motivated to up our performance in
regards to our workflow in order to
remain competitive and meet our clients'
tight delivery schedules. Television and film is
a very demanding arena. We have paid the price
with our bleeding edge approaches in the past but
always manage to come out stronger for it. Blending price
and performance requirements together and with a unique
The Nexsan solution comes in at
less than 1/3rd the cost,
PLUS offering the benefits
of scalability and redundancy
STARGATE FILMS CASE STUDY
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problem solving approach we've been able to maximize
our productivity and stay ahead of the game. The Nexsan
products fit perfectly into that philosophy. We always try
to sift through the lofty sales claims and find the products
that can really leverage our existing hardware as
opposed to making frequent core changes in approach.
We try to avoid the solutions that limit the scale of our
facility. Some high-end solutions are so cost prohibitive
that it would be impossible to expand to meet our needs.
We try to look at unconventional ways to apply the more
cost-effective solutions in a highly productive way.
Utilizing this approach, with this project we successfully
added 5.3 TB [equating to 10 hours] of additional HD
video, thus jumping from being able to keep only one
project online to more than 3 or 4 projects. This increase
not only greatly streamlines our workflow, but also allows
us to serve our clients better."
The SCSI channels are SCSI 3 with a throughput of
160MB/sec. Using 4 channels, this aggregates the
throughput to 640MB/sec. Connecting a single SCSI
ATAboy2 to the SCSI channel will provide us a sustained
throughput of about 60MB/sec on sequential writes and
85MB sustained reads.
THROUGHPUT
In order to achieve the required throughput it is necessary to stripe the data across multiple ATAboy systems.
Striping data across four ATAboys provides us with sustained writes of 218MB/Sec and sustained reads of
340MB/Sec.
REDUNDANCY
TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW
Workstation:
· Compaq Evo Workstation W8000 featuring dual Intel
Pentium 4 1.7 GHz processors
· Two PCI controllers supporting 66MHz 64bits with a
total throughput of 512MB/sec on each.
· Two Adaptec 39160 SCSI host adaptor, each has two
SCSI 3 channels that supports up to 160MB/Sec each.
Storage:
· Four ATABoy2 with 14 120GB drives striped with RAID
5 for a total capacity of about 1TB/1.5TB/2TB respectively.
· Each unit holds a single SCSI position.
· The maximum through put for the ATAboy2 storage unit
is 160MB/Sec.
· The throughput of each unit is 85MB/sec sustained read
and 65MB/sec sustained write.
ATAboy2
ATAboy2
ATAboy2
Avid/DS-HD
ATAboy2
The solution utilizes the maximum throughput of the different components existing between the CPU and the
actual storage media (disk device). The internal CPU bus
is very fast and wide: 64Bit running on 400MHz; that
means a throughput of about 3GB/sec. The PCI bus is a
64bit 66MHz and provides a throughput of 512MB/sec.
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NEXSAN TECHNOLOGIES
Each unit is configured with Raid 5 or Raid 4 that protects
against data loss in case of drive failure. The data is
striped across the four units and, using Windows 2000, is
configured to halt any write to the array should any one
of the units not be available. Halting any write to the units
when one of the units is not available will keep the integrity of the data across the units.
ABOUT STARGATE FILMS
Stargate Films, is the leading pioneer in 2D, 3D, and High
Definition visual effects for feature films, broadcast television, commercials, interactive video games, station
ID's, promos, logos and music videos.
Stargate achieves this by utilizing the latest technologies
in high definition video, digital color correction, and computer graphics including a revolutionary "digital intermediate" process of finishing films - a completely new
method of finishing motion pictures that vastly
expands the creative toolbox of feature film and
television producers, while saving both time and
money.
Credits: Over 200 projects including projects for
HBO, TNT, Miramax, 20th Century Fox, Warner
Brothers, ABC, and CBS, including the hit shows
ER and CSI.
21700 OXNARD STREET, SUITE 1850
WOODLAND HILLS, CALIFORNIA 91367
TELEPHONE: 886.4.NEXSAN | 818.715.9111
FACSIMILE: 818.715.9175
WEBSITE: WWW.NEXSAN.COM