For a number of NABs, it‘s always been my part of my beat when covering storage and networking to stop by the booth of Studio Network Solutions, a small but savvy manufacturer of network attached storage devices out of St. Louis, MO. They always seem to come up with interesting, useful solutions that are priced right for modest to mid-sized post facilities, whether audio, video, or multimedia-oriented.

This year was no exception. For starters, the company has been doing SAN systems for Mac gear for many years, long before Apple‘s Xsan hit the market. Keep it simple is the key phrase. SNS‘s SANmp is the key here; the multi-platform volume sharing software works with both Macs and PCs straightaway.

The software is the basis of its globalSAN product line, or, as the company likes to describe it, a “SAN in a Box”. Users will feel like they‘ve saved themselves the cost of an IT guy when they pull it out of the box, plug it in, and edit away.

The enabling technology is iSCSI, which keeps hardware costs down with off-the-shelf gear, while working with a long established format does away with squirrelly new tech problems. The company claims its globalSAN x-24, with over 9TB of storage, comes in at ½ of what Apple charges for its Xsan system.

One cool new tool at the booth is Postmap - its latest software product for Mac OS X and Windows. Postmap can quickly find, manage and catalog files located on a SAN, file server, and removable storage such as FireWire drives and DVDs.

So while Apple‘s Spotlight is great for finding what‘s on your workstation, it won‘t work over a network, nor with mixed PC and Mac gear, nor with DVDs, removable FireWire drives and other such storage, which Postmap handles.

Postmap fits between simple OS-native search tools and highly complex Digital Asset Management applications, which can cost a small fortune.

Users can create and attach metadata to describe and classify specific files and folders. Such tagged information helps reduce search times, allow you to share production notes, and organize files to create a more efficient workflow process.