Now video professionals can simultaneously access a single storage volume that supports multiple high-bandwidth video streams in a way they never did before. Thanks to Apple’s new Storage Area Network (Xsan) file system. It is based on Mac OS X, and supports up to 64 clients in its cluster leading to efficient workflow in video and film editing, broadcast, visual effects and motion graphics creation.
The file storage system is priced at $999 per client and per server. It is designed primarily for high end computing such as that required by video broadcasters and it offers scalable, high-speed access to centralized shared data.
The advanced features of Xsan include metadata controller failover and Fibre Channel multipathing. This guarantees high availability. The best feature however of the system is to do file-level locking. This feature lets multiple systems to read and write the same volume at the same time. The feature comes very handy in complex workflows.
Volume management, SAN file system configuration and remote monitoring is built into the Setup administration tool that is very easy to configure.
As Xsan can easily integrate itself with the ADIC's StorNext File System, it works very comfortably on a range of platforms including Windows, UNIX or Linux.
The company has already started shipping the file storage system and is now available from authorized Apple resellers.
The system demands Mac OS X or Mac OS X Server version 10.3 software installed on the server and supports qualified Fibre Channel switches from vendors such as Brocade, QLogic or Emulex.
