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Is Gig-E too slow for FCPX shared storage?
Hi there,
I’ve been looking into shared storage solutions for our company as we move to FCPX and have been considering a gig-E NAS solution (using sparse disk images), since this seems to be the most cost-effective.
However, I’ve noticed in my own tests on single workstations that connecting to Thunderbolt storage definitely improves performance over Firewire 800 storage when playing Prores 422 footage, which is what we use. The system is just more responsive, with no lags. It’s not terrible with Firewire. I just notice playback isn’t instant when I hit space bar, which is annoying. The computer is brand new, i7, lots of RAM, the works.
I don’t understand why this is, since Firewire should be plenty fast enough to play Prores and is in FCP7, however, I suspect it has to do with the database structure of X and the amount of small reads and writes happening, which fills up the pipe. . . ?
Which leads me to my question. Gig-E is not that much faster than Firewire. So, is this pipe too slow for responsive playback in FCPX? Anyone have experience?
Many thanks,
Oren Hercz
Post-Production
Journeyman Film Company
https://www.journeymanfilm.com -
14 Replies
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I have a GigE SAN, it seems fast enough, but it’s certainly not as fast as the fibre clients.
The thing that will slow you down is the sparse disk images.
Jeremy
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Hi,
Thanks Jeremy. I’ve read several of your posts regarding FCPX and SANs. So I guess XSAN is the way to go then for X so you can use the add SAN location feature as opposed to workarounds with disk images.
For your Ethernet SAN, do you have Project and Event libraries on the SAN? Is anything stored locally? And it still plays back snappy?
Thanks,
Oren
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[Oren Hercz] “So I guess XSAN is the way to go then for X so you can use the add SAN location feature as opposed to workarounds with disk images.”
XSan is one way to go. I don’t have XSAN so I can’t comment on it.
SANs done right, can be costly, I don’t want to steer you in a direction you aren’t prepared for. XSAN takes more setting up and maintenance for users. We have metaSAN which actually can be used on almost any storage system. It is extremely flexible. It does take some setting up and there is some cost involved, but there are ways to make it more affordable.
FCPX, does not work with NAS right now, but it does work with SAN.
[Oren Hercz] “For your Ethernet SAN, do you have Project and Event libraries on the SAN? Is anything stored locally? And it still plays back snappy?”
Everything is on the SAN, nothing is stored locally. Yes, things are relatively snappy, not any worse than FCP7. I edit 1080 projects from ethernet, and I also have fibre clients as well. Both work.
I don’t want to scare you away, but SANs can be tricky. I love our SAN, it’s very easy to use, but I would suggest knowing what you are getting in to before jumping in.
Where are you located, do you have a VAR you could talk to about this?
How many computers/users do you have and what other applications do you need to work with? What kind of computers? Laptops, iMac, MacPros?
Jeremy
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Hi Jeremy,
There is a technician at the local Mac store that has set-up XSANs before for other companies. He would be setting ours up and maintaining it for us if we went with XSAN. I do understand it will cost around 40k to do the fibre channel version, so yes we are considering it carefully before jumping in.
We have also talked with other suppliers about their various SAN and NAS products. Unfortunately, there is no local VAR where we live (Canadian East Coast).
We have a MacPro, 2 Imacs, and a MacbookPro, which we would network. Everything except the tower have thunderbolt.
For now, we may just pretend we have a SAN by centralizing our storage and checking projects in and out using “sneaker net” over thunderbolt, while we figure out the best way to go forward. There are so many variations on SANs from different suppliers, it can be a little mind boggling.
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Yes. It’s not an easy decision. It’s one of the reasons we went with metaSAN as it’s fairly flexible and works across a multitude of scenarios.
The good thing is, is that Thunderbolt actually makes lower cost computers more viable. You won’t need PCIe slots to hook to fibre storage, which is completely awesome. Fibre does add significant cost. Maybe you should think about mixed fibre and ethernet (that’s what we have).
Are you sure you are going to be sticking with FCPX and Macs? With XSan, you can’t add windows machines without third party help.
Jeremy
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Hi Jeremy,
Well, we’ve always been an all Mac shop, but it’s true, you never know what the future will hold or what direction the industry will go. . . food for thought.
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If you have any further questions, let me know. I am glad to talk about our experiences with our SAN.
It was a huge purchase for us as well, and overall it’s been great.
Jeremy
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Hi Jeremy,
I realize this thread ended a half year ago, but I’d like to take you up on your offer to talk about your SAN experiences. It looks like we may be ready to make the move soon, so hearing your experiences and opinions would be really valuable. We are closing shop in a couple of days for the holidays. But would you be available for a quick chat in early January?
Let me know!
Oren
Oren Hercz
Editor, Post-Production Manager
Journeyman Film Company
http://www.journeymanfilm.com -
Surely!
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