October 2001 — Applications
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Space Limitations Enhance Video Editing Systems at Middle Tennessee State University
Students mostly work in groups of three, with files that can range from 6 GB to 80 GB. Prior to getting these editing systems, Parrish used to give students removable 9 GB hard drives. But with those hard drives students would fill up a drive, causing it to lock. When this happens students are forced to delete their work and start over. Since the new editing systems have resolved those storage issues, Parrish no longer has to give the students removable hard drives. Instead, they can login to the system under a group name, utilizing a folder built on hard drives that have the same name as the group. Normally, Parrish assigns up to three groups of students to each system per semester. So, he may allocate up to 12 GB each to two groups and 10 GB to another group. Because students are loading so many minutes of footage on the hard drive, they have a limited amount of time to edit the footage and then free up the space for the next group. "Students have to really plan their usage of storage space," says Parrish. "If they load too much footage, then they might not finish the project on time or in the space allocated."To protect the hard drives and ensure that students in each group have equal access to the group's allocated space, Parrish turned to W. Quinn Associates' QuotaAdvisor, a Windows NT-based disk space allocation management product. The product, which he installed on the server, enables Parrish to put a directory allotment on the amount of space assigned to each group, and to set up alerts so students will know when they are getting to the allocated limit. For example, they receive an on-screen, pop-up message when they reach 75 percent of their quota and another one at 80 percent. The second message tells them to stop digitizing either the audio or the video. When they reach 100 percent of their quota they get an on-screen message telling them they've reached their quota and can't digitize any more footage until they've deleted something on the drive. QuotaAdvisor won't allow the students to go over their set limit. "Since I get new groups each semester, I now find it easier to work with students because of the space limits set by QuotaAdvisor," says Parrish. "It has a space monitor screen that I keep open to see how much space each group has used. I can also send e-mail to professors if one group has reached its limit. QuotaAdvisor has saved me a lot of time and keeps us from having to add more disks."
X@XCloseTag000X@XOpenTag003X@XOpenTag001Contact InformationX@XCloseTag001X@XOpenTag002
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X@XCloseTag003W. Quinn Associates Inc.
Reston, VA
(800) 829-3453
www.wquinn.com
