I know just enough to be completely lost

[Mark Raudonis]

Only two systems? No problem. Buy an ethernet cable, plug ’em together, and poof! You’re sharing.

For anything beyond two systems, you’re in for a much more complex solution.

Mark

[Jacob Goodnight]

Still looking for a storage solution that will be safe and fast. Also, I would like to look into something that I could eventually add another station to.

[Steve Modica]

You want to buy from a vendor that knows what they are doing.
At Small Tree, we spend a lot of time testing this stuff as well as supporting it. *most* of the calls are not problems with our hardware or configuration. It’s mostly other things. Apple bugs, setup problems, permissions problems, usage problems, FCP problems. We work through them all.
The main issue is that we aggregate the experience of all our customers into one place. So you either don’t hit those problems, or when you do, we know how to fix them fast so you’re back to getting your work done.
What makes us special is that our networking cards and drivers are used by anyone doing a Mac based NAS. So we get a good look at everything.

Steve Modica
CTO, Small Tree Communications

[Nathaniel Cooper]

Start with something like this:
https://www.promax.com/Solutions/FastMAXMiniSAS/

Attach it locally to a single workstation. Share the volume out using AFP by doing the following:

– Connect both workstations to each other with GigE, this can be direct or through a switch. As long as they can ping each others IP addresses you’re good.
– Set up the storage locally to the more important workstation, we’ll call it Mac1
– On Mac1 go to System Prefs>Sharing
– Select File sharing and turn it on
– Under ‘Shared Folders’ hit the ‘+’ button and select the storage you want to share
– You should see the other worksationk, we’ll call it Mac2 under the users column on the same screen, make sure Mac2 has read/write previledges.

– Go to Mac2
– Open your Harddrive, on the left side under ‘devices’ you should see an option that says ‘shared’ with Mac1 underneath it.
– Select Mac1
– There will now be a ‘connect as’ button, hit that
– Put in your user name and password for Mac2 and hit ‘connect’

You should now be able to read/write to that storage from both workstations. This will not give great performance, if you want to help it a bit you can use jumbo frames and add a GigE HBA. But you should be able to do light DV/HDV work sharing that way. It’s a good solution if you need to keep costs way down.

Then when you are ready, you can take the same storage and dedicate a Mac tower to hosting out the storage. This will allow you to increase performance later.

Nate Cooper
nate.cooper@promax.com
office: 949.861.2725
cell: 949.375.2738

I support:
Xsan
MXFserver
Promax ShareMAX
EVO/SANmp
EditShare
MetaSAN
Small Tree
NAS solutions

[John Gyldstrand]

Jason,
I see you mentioned the Maxx Digital FinalShare solution. If you would like more in depth information on FinalShare ,or the best way to proceed; contact me and I’ll be happy to help you out.

Best,
John Gyldstrand

Maxx Entertainment Digital
Office: 714-374-4944
Cell: 714-206-1367
Fax: 714-374-3404

E-mail: johng@maxxdigital.com

Website: https://www.maxxdigital.com

https://www.reducation.net/community_day.html

[David Gagne]

Jacob, I just want to give you an impartial (non sales) perspective from someone also in the non-profit sector:

1. Think of the future. Are you going to be on 2 stations for quite a while? Great. Are you going to grow fast? Think it through…

2. Assuming just 2 for the near future (1-2 years), these guys are offering good options. Set up a direct connection via ethernet (you’re on mac pros, right?), and if necessary you could get 10Gb cards from Small Tree. Set up some good storage (SAS or something) and share it. You’re done, and for quite a reasonable price.

3. How much storage? This is a big one… If your storage is going to grow fast, start thinking about your archive now, otherwise you’ll end up losing data somewhere along the line. Disks on the shelf are *not* a stable archive.

[Jacob Goodnight]

Thank you for such a thorough response. We have been file sharing but the stations are connected through our office server. Just wondering, you said,
“- Connect both workstations to each other with GigE, this can be direct or through a switch. As long as they can ping each others IP addresses you’re good.”
Does that mean, if I use a switch, I could add additional stations and keep the same speed or will it slow down?

Also,
“you can use jumbo frames and add a GigE HBA”
does that mean, a special card in the stations? Or is that just a setting somwhere?

Thanks again.

[Jacob Goodnight]

Ok, I think we will probably stick to 2 stations for the next year or so. I am thinking about archives and storage now. I already have some archives in the form of “hard drives on a shelf.” So, in looking at making the jump to a more secure form of storage and archives, I have seen so many options, SAS being one of them.

If I can get by for now on ethernet sharing, what would you guys recommend for storage? And what level of RAID is the best for this situation? How do you guys set up your storage?

[Bob Zelin]

Jacob –
let me make this as simple as possible, as I know you have only one goal here. “what is the absolutely least amount of money I can spend to make this work”.

Mark Raudonis said it correctly – with an exception. Get an ethernet cable, plug it between your two computers, turn on file sharing, and you have shared storage. With that said, you will find that once you actually start to work, once that server is actually editing from the single drive array, and the second computer is using the same drive array, both systems will crash.

So what does this mean Jacob ? It means YOU NEED A SERVER. This means that you need a DEDICATED COMPUTER TO SIT THERE AND DO NOTHING but supply your media on your drive to both of your computers. If you have NO MONEY, you can’t do this without a DEDICATED SERVER. This server can be a “cheap” MAC Pro with some internal drives in it, and those internal drives are your “shared storage. With three 2 TB internal drives, you now have a 6TB array (RAID0) that can be SHARED STORAGE for your two “client” computers. Now, everyone’s solution that is being thrown at you are all very cool solutions, and are much better than what I am describing, but what I am describing is going to work for you.

Look Jacob, look at this –
https://www.pcconnection.com/IPA/Shop/Product/Detail.htm?sku=11829658&cac=Result
this is a BRAND NEW MAC PRO for $2400, and you can find one even cheaper on ebay.

What did you say? Did you say “I don’t have $2400 or anything near that to build shared storage” – then guess what Jason – YOU CAN’T HAVE SHARED STORAGE.

I want a Ferrari, but I can’t afford one, so I don’t have one. This applies to everything in life. Get a MAC Pro to act as a server, then we can get started.

Bob Zelin

[Jacob Goodnight]

Not sure where you go that my goal was to find the cheapest solution possible. Quite the contrary, I am ready to spend some money, I would just prefer to spend it wisely. I have a G5 I could use as a server if that’s where I should start. Does it have to be a Mac pro or would this PPC work? I Am currently using intel based Mac pros as editors.