Hello Rob .. I'm using a xserve with Raid (7TB) array from apple. The xserve is connected to the disk array with a fibre channel ... and the xserve is connected to 3 workstations with a gigabyte router. This was just installed about a month ago and I've kept myself clear of the nitty gritty details so apologies if this isn't clear. I store my raw images on one raid array and then the worked on images on another (3TB) each. I can work directly on the files (33MP) from any workstation with a gigabyte network connection. It works really well and has simplified the workflow in the office to a large degree. As to sratch disks ... I'm still using the startup disk but am thinking of using an extra hard drive in each machine to perform this function... I tried it before on one machine but had trouble sometimes when the demountable disk became read only for some reason. I've been shooting slr digital for about 4 years and mf digital for a year .. and there is about 2TB left on the disk array where I store the Raw images .. On the disk array where I have about 7 years of digital files (from film and digital capture) there is about 1.8 TB left. Which isn't bad going I think. There should be enough space there for another 2 years I'm hoping.The whole system was quite expensive and I had to get a lease... but it solves the problem of data loss due to disk failure. Backup however is a different story. The system is noisier than I anticipated .. and doing this again .. would have rented an extra room to put it in![a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=113669\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I just set up an Infrant ReadyNAS NV+. It uses Infrant's XRAID system and will hold up to 4 SATA drives. With the new 1TB SATA drives this would yield a net 3TB of storage. I started out with two 500gb drives and will expand as needed. The diskless unit can be had for just over $600. It is extremely high quality and built like a tank. It's appearance would match a Power Mac well with the cheese grater look. It goes on your network and can even be accessed remotely. The read/write speeds aren't as bad as you might think for a network device. It is very quiet...and about the size of a toaster.[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=113670\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
NAS are convenient, but slow.If you access your file repository from one client only, then I'd really advise eSATA instead. If you ever target the really high end, you might want to consider G-Technology instead of Apple. Apple solutions are at least twice more expensive that their competitors...Regards,Bernard[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=113735\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
