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These prices seem exorbitant.
I've built a similar home backup server for $1700, Dual 10core Xeon, 32gb ECC ram, 32TB + Parity Protected Array and throw in a 10gbe or SFP+ port for $100 more.

If these are WD Blacks (7200rpm) they are $179 for 4TB*8 = 32TB, $1,432.

For $12,000 I would expect an all-ssd machine.
Individual SSDs this past black friday are now below $150 per 1TB. $150*32 = 4,800.
Throw in an optane 905P for $1,200 for a cache disk and you've got an insane local SAN.


Then again is the software worth doubling the margin?

For a lousy TLC yes, but not for MLC or SLC.
 
With the number of video post-production focused products Apple is now directly selling, you'd think they would have a recent powerful desktop machine to complement...

Apple: show your cards on the MP7,1 before NAB if you're hoping to keep the last of the holdouts.
 
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$50k is peanuts for enterprise storage. It’s cute sometimes seeing stories like these and looking at the comments. If people only knew ... $500k and up is a lot more common that you think for an enterprise grade shared storage solution. 200TB is also relatively small these days. The “wow!” factor for that size left town many years ago.
 
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I guess Apple does care about Pro and Enterprise Users after all, eh?

Also, remember, even when Apple sold XServes, they still offered third-party SAN and RAID products.

This COULD be a small foray into the back-room again.

Mmmmmm. An ARM-based XServe...

Four of them in a 1U rack space. Mmmmmmm...
 
Its kinda fun that LumaForge employees registered on MacRumors just to upvote comments that praised their "off-the-shelf-components-botched-togheter-with-500%-markup-for-software"-box. If you make the effort to register, atleast write a comment or two while you're at it

$50k is peanuts for enterprise storage.
This is nowhere near what should be called "enterprise".
 
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Not sure why people are surprised. Apple still sells Promise VTrak equipment (just doesn't show much of it on the consumer side). I can easily pull up a number of VTrak units with our education account and a 180TB Expansion Chassis (basically a JBOD) is over $50k.
 
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Also, time. If you have budget and time there's plenty of cheaper off the shelf solutions. But in media, a lot of times you don't have the time to spec out a proper server for a project, you have tight deadlines to meet. That's why a product like this exists. Media people can run out, expense it, and be up and running in no time flat. That's harder to do with Enterprise server offerings if server administration isn't in your wheelhouse.

Cheap, fast, and good - pick any two.
 
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Its kinda fun that LumaForge employees registered on MacRumors just to upvote comments that praised their "off-the-shelf-components-botched-togheter-with-500%-markup-for-software"-box. If you make the effort to register, atleast write a comment or two while you're at it


This is nowhere near what should be called "enterprise".

Read the comments. There are several already referring to this as “enterprise” with various levels of jubilation. Others are gasping at the cost and the size (even the article itself ... ie: “ultra-high”.) I was steering them, and others who might think of doing the same, in the proper direction.

The products specifically mentioned in the article are targeted to smaller teams and departments (ie: SMB type setups.) I’m sure the maker of these products probably has larger sized ones for use in actual “enterprise” setups too, but those are not the focus of this article.
 
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$50k is peanuts for enterprise storage. It’s cute sometimes seeing stories like these and looking at the comments. If people only knew ... $500k and up is a lot more common that you think for an enterprise grade shared storage solution. 200TB is also relatively small these days. The “wow!” factor for that size left town many years ago.
Exactly! We installed an enterprise SAN in our facility a few years ago and paid about $40k for 48TB. These are not consumer level, sure you could build your own for cheaper but no support or replacement on second hand hardware. I would say this is about right price range.
 
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Will go well with next year's Mac Pro, which I estimate will range in price from $6000 to $100,000.

Apple wants the Hollywood production market, which needs more powerful boxes than Apple currently has available.
 
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Software and support is where the money is with stuff like this, Drobo, Synology, etc. Although in comparison to the other two this is an expensive solution. It appears to be purpose-built for video work which explains the premium.

If the hardware is anything like EMC, the price would include hot swappable fans and power supplies, redundant active controllers, battery backed cache modules, and SAS drives. The support contract would require the use of hard drives sold by that company, a.k.a highly marked up prices.

Since the Macs need a client application to communicate with the storage, the company can also charge more because MacOS still does not have native support for iSCSI, so they have to implement it themselves. Since Apple no longer sells Xserve RAID which used Fibre Channel, there is no political reason for Apple to withhold support for iSCSI.
 
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Clearly you weren't around when Apple still had the Xserve Servers ;)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xserve
You guys need better sarcasm detection methods. My comment was genuine surprise, because Apple had seemingly abandoned the server market. The exasperated exclamation is mocking Apple's lag into what should otherwise have been an obvious move for a hardware provider for a very long time.
 
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Pointless for enterprise, just buy the PowerEdge R740xd2 for half the price, or the Apollo 4200 and use it exactly the same as one would with this overprices device, and you get a better SLA deal. Or just buy a tower with 3.5" drives if you really would need a tower.

And for small SMB:s and highend hobbyist just build it yourself for cheap.

Why would anyone buy this over any other offering on the market?
Please, let's have more comments from members who have absolutely no clue as to what this product is and what function it serves. It is not a data server, it is a video server built specifically to manage shared video production. It supports sharing in DaVinci Resolve without a separate server. The idea is that multiple people can connect to this one video server and edit the same clips simultaneously and it will manage access to that playback is consistent across all machines. Compare this to actually equivalent products such as an Avid Nexis, QNAP, Faclis, Smalltree and you will appreciate the competitive cost. Lumaforge is, as well, a company of filmmakers who have produced a video server to suit the needs of filmmakers. In all of the demonstrations I have seen set up is insanely easy, which is not something any of the others can claim.

So, from someone who actually uses products like this to make film and television let me assure members of this forum who don't that this is a good product made by great people at a very competitive price.
 
Please, let's have more comments from members who have absolutely no clue as to what this product is and what function it serves. It is not a data server, it is a video server built specifically to manage shared video production.
The hardware is nothing unique, all hardware can be setup to serve content and workflow like these, there is no special hardware in what LumaForge offers, they use hardware that anyone can buy from any computer retailer.

It supports sharing in DaVinci Resolve without a separate server. The idea is that multiple people can connect to this one video server and edit the same clips simultaneously and it will manage access to that playback is consistent across all machines.
Again, nothing unique for LumaForge (or anyone who claim to sell hardware tailormaid for NLE workflows), DaVinci Resolve Project Server, Open Storage and bin locking can be installed on any hardware/server/storage system, takes 1 second, no need to pay a 30'000USD markup for something that is included in the software that "you" use anyway.

Compare this to actually equivalent products such as an Avid Nexis, QNAP, Faclis, Smalltree and you will appreciate the competitive cost.
Why do i only have a choice of comparing LumaForge with other overpriced solution instead of real enterprise offering with actual SLA offerings for half or the price? Which also have higher performance.

Lumaforge is, as well, a company of filmmakers who have produced a video server to suit the needs of filmmakers. In all of the demonstrations I have seen set up is insanely easy, which is not something any of the others can claim.
If you can't setup DaVinci (which is what you exemplified) yourself you should probably not handle storage anyway, not even the LumaForge boxes.

So, from someone who actually uses products like this to make film and television let me assure members of this forum who don't that this is a good product made by great people at a very competitive price.
People who make film and movies for television and for studios use actual enterprise products with real SLA, but yeah, good luck with your LumaForge tower that will render "your" whole business useless if the one and only PSU (a consumer oriented Cooler Master PSU that isn't even rated for 24/7 use) stops working
 
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