-
Using a Mac Pro as a SAN server (I think)
Hello,
To start out with, this is an area of which I have absolutely no experience in, and for that I apologize if I’m wasting anyone’s time by making this thread.
From the research that I’ve been doing, it seems like what is required for what we need to do is some sort of a SAN configuration. In reading through many of these threads on here, it doesn’t seem as if other peoples’ workloads are very similar to what we’re trying to do (though I could just be an idiot), so I thought I would just explain it and see where it gets me.
We have two Mac Pros with FCP 7 that we’d like to share projects between and work on simultaneously. We are looking into getting a third Mac Pro to act solely as a server. Most of the footage we work with is not HD (though occasionally it is), but we process a lot of it. The plan is to have enough space on the server computer to hold the projects we are currently working on, then dump the finished projects, after a certain amount of time or lack of space, to an external source (just as back storage, not something we’ll be working off of).
Being that what we mostly deal with is SD footage, is there (I know you all cringe at this question) a cheaper way to go about it, rather than a $12,000 set up?
I’ve been trying to research this on my own and I’ve looked at some companies that offer the whole package, but it seems like a lot more than what we’re needing on a day to day basis. Any help anyone can give would be greatly appreciated, even if that is just pointing me in the direction of another thread or article.
-
4 Replies
-
Hey Mike,
Don’t worry about feeling overwhelmed, there is a lot of info out there and every SAN set up is different. I’ve been doing SANs for 9 years and I still have never seen the same set up twice.
2 Mac Pros running SD footage is a pretty low requirement. There may be options under $12k depending on what codecs you are using, how much storage you need and how much horsepower you need behind the storage.
If you want I’m happy to spend a few minutes working with you to get a spec and can give you a good-better-best options with the pros and cons of each.
Good luck!
Nate Cooper
nate.cooper@promax.com
949.375.2738 -
Being that what we mostly deal with is SD footage, is there (I know you all cringe at this question) a cheaper way to go about it, rather than a $12,000 set up?
REPLY –
you need a MAC computer as a server, you need a drive array, you need some ethernet equipment, and you need someone who knows how to set this up. That’s all you need.I’ve been trying to research this on my own and I’ve looked at some companies that offer the whole package, but it seems like a lot more than what we’re needing on a day to day basis. Any help anyone can give would be greatly appreciated, even if that is just pointing me in the direction of another thread or article.
REPLY –
since you are a researcher, try to figure out a way to contact me using the internet. I can show you how to acoomplish exactly what you want to do. Remember, that the only expensive part of this process is a drive array that is fast enough to serve out the files that you need.Bob Zelin
-
[Bob Zelin] ” Remember, that the only expensive part of this process is a drive array that is fast enough to serve out the files that you need.”
I’m going to shamelessly plagiarize wikipedia (note the bit about servers):
Real-time computing is sometimes misunderstood to be high-performance computing, but this is not always the case. For example, a massive supercomputer executing a scientific simulation may offer impressive performance, yet it is not executing a real-time computation. Conversely, once the hardware and software for an anti-lock braking system has been designed to meet its required deadlines, no further performance gains are necessary. Furthermore, if a network server is highly loaded with network traffic, its response time may be slower but will (in most cases) still succeed. Hence, such a network server would not be considered a real-time system: temporal failures (delays, time-outs, etc.) are typically small and compartmentalized (limited in effect) but are not catastrophic failures. In a real-time system, such as the FTSE 100 Index, a slow-down beyond limits would often be considered catastrophic in its application context. Therefore, the most important requirement of a real-time system is predictability and not performance.
Steve Modica
CTO, Small Tree Communications -
SD or HD, 6-8 drives in a RAID is the magic number for real-time video, but don’t cheap out on a desktop NAS device, as it will not have enough “embedded” horse power to deliver.
Good Luck!
-Caspian
Product Specialist
Studio Network Solutions
https://www.studionetworksolutions.com/products/product_detail.php?pi=12
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up