Hi
We have been tasked with finding a NAS for a system with 200 cameras HD cameras all running at 1080p. The NAS will very big. We will start with 148 TB and the storage may increase to 1~2 Petabytes.
We have looked into the usual Suspects (EMC2 Isilon X-400 with 148 TB to start), NETAPP 5600, etc and the lesser known but rather interesting models such as Panasas ActivStore 18. The goal is to get to up to a year of storage ...
So far the prices we have seen, are, to say the least brutal. We do understand that the larger the storage arrays the more problems come up.. Rebuild time is a serious issue for example and the need to provide redundancy when you are dealing with hundred of drives is not trivial but ... We do not want to scare the customer with the case of the sauce costing much more than the fish.
We would like to listen what people from the collective have faced when it comes to storage at that level. We believe that deep storage is often overlooked by VMS manufacturers and integrators alike. There seem to be few options that allow one to just save the recording on something for future references/viewing. With IP it simply isn't that easy. I don't know of any system that would allow to simply remove the disks and watch them on something else aside from Veracity's Coldstore system which is painfully limited to a handful of VMS manufacturers maybe 5 if that much and even fewer versions for a given manufacturer...
Your comments, recommendations, sharing of experience and even speculation are welcome.
Integrator