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iMac Jumbo Frames on current gens?
Can someone remind me, do the current gen iMacs support Jumbo Frames? I have a nice 2.93 i7 quad iMac w/ plenty of RAM, but I’m upgrading to probably a 12 core Pro, and in the next few months will need to setup shared storage (Little Tree being the best system that I know of for this right now). But I’d like to use the iMac for one of the other edit bays.
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2 Replies
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the entire line of current iMac computers will NOT support jumbo frames. You do NOT need jumbo frames to build an ethernet shared storage system. You can run all products at an MTU of 1500 (the default of all computers, and the only speed the iMAC can currently run at). This means that you get about 50 – 60 MB/sec, and not 80 – 90 MB/sec with Jumbo frames.
What does all this mean – it means that you can do LESS STREAMS of video, but it will still work. Even with an MTU of 1500, you can still do 1 stream of ProRes422HQ or 2 streams of ProRes422 without issue, on each client. But your Mac Pro will have to run at this speed as well.
An easy fix is to buy the current Mac Mini, and get a 27″ screen for this, because the MacMini is the Core2Duo, and uses normal ethernet ports. Or get a 17″ Mac Book Pro, that has a slot 34 adaptor. Or get USED OLDER iMAC’s, which work perfectly.
bob Zelin
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We were almost called Little Tree. But one of the engineers thought it sounded too “cute” so we went with “Small Tree” 🙂
The current imacs all use the broadcom 5764 chip and it does not support jumbo frames.
Our own testing showed that it made the system more prone to drops. For example, an imac will drop a frame when a still image is on the timeline (Pro Res). It can be rendered and then it won’t drop anymore. A Mac Pro shoots right through.Steve Modica
CTO, Small Tree Communications
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