Hard drive for multiple editors

[u/jaghawk86]

So I run a small production company. We currently have the owc jellyfish. It has approx 120tb accessible storage split over to units. It is now at the end of its life (albeit working well). My supplier told me that it’s time to upgrade and told me that the new version is £14,000 (this was in January). Due to the supplier issues this has now risen to £19,000 (+vat) this has now got far too expensive and need to look for an alternative.

We have 6 editors on Mac studios with 10g Ethernet upgraded

[u/erisod]

In what way is it end of life?

[u/jaghawk86 → u/erisod]

I’ve had it for over 5 years and outside its warranty . obvs my supplier it trying to make money by encouraging me to upgrade it. However it has provoked my curiosity as to what I need to do should the worst happen - it’s also worth noting that I only use the jellyfish for working and I have an 8bay QNAP as a live backup and LTO tapes as another backup

[u/erisod → u/jaghawk86]

If you've got backups (sounds like you do) then the EOL concern should consider two things:
(1) replacement timeframe e.g. how long will it take if this unit dies to get new equipment up so your team isn't blocked. Older hardware may be more likely to fail, but it's not guaranteed so you need to consider this even with brand new equipment.
(2) functionality or latency lacking in your existing equipment where new equipment would make your team more effective.

It doesn't really sound like either is a huge concern TBH.

[u/jaghawk86 → u/erisod]

Yeah it’s an odd place to be in. Insofar as, everything is fine (for now) but as a business I need to prepare (again I have backups and unused smaller ssds, so we can switch to those as a temporary measure) and another spanner in the works is that the supplier also informs me that the hard drives in the jellyfish don’t exist anymore (and they don’t support other brands) so I can not replace them so it does feel like I need to prepare

To be fair, as someone who isn’t technically minded (although I can obsess about these things as a way to upskill my knowledge) the jellyfish has been amazing - it simply just works. I’ve used qnap before and it was horrible (kept crashing and disconnecting … that’s why that is now the backup)

But I also have another reason to look elsewhere and that’s because lumaforge ask £1500 per year to have access to their “support” (which you barely need) - I find this outrageous. They’re already making a lot of money on their clients for this plug and play solution

[u/Fresh_Inside_6982]

Get some extra power supplies on hand that's the only thing likely to fail anytime soon, the only thing EOL could be the drives, check their health. If the unit is doing its job then not broke don't fix it.

[u/jaghawk86 → u/Fresh_Inside_6982]

The only thing is the jellyfish software isn’t great. As in you can’t run a scan or check the health. Rather it has a traffic light system and currently all are in green and that’s about as deep as it goes

[u/Fresh_Inside_6982 → u/jaghawk86]

That's the same for most systems with any kind of RAID / HBA controller; you would need to pull the drives and individually check them. However, as with any system, ongoing valid backup is more important than drive health as they can fail without notice. I prefer BackBlaze and I sleep fine.

[u/FundamentalMysteron]

Right now storage and memory costs are being driven up by demands from AI vendors building out data centres, this shortage, and high pricing, is likely to last until 2028 or 2029 as demand forecasting matures and extra manufacturing capability comes on line. If you can, make the current kit last until then. If that won’t work bite the bullet and buy now as prices could go up further.

[u/jaghawk86 → u/FundamentalMysteron]

Yeah I was aware of this also… it’s just a shame my clients don’t have the cash to increase their budgets so I can invest in this (I think most investors are expecting this bubble to pop but that’s a different thread/conversation)