Mixing PC server and Macs

[Douglas Learner]

Lance, those are all great questions. I’d suggest talking to the person who manages your Windows Server, someone at ProAvio, or the folks who are setting up your system. Perhaps all three.

You should really try to get all those answers in hand before you start putting everything together. Figuring this out can suck up a lot of your time, and you run the risk of production coming to a halt while you try to figure it out. At a minimum, make sure you have a plan to keep things running if nothing works initially.

Good luck!

[David Gagne]

1) Most importantly, am I going to have an issue using a pretty standard PC as server to my more expensive Mac editing stations? I can’t afford to buy a dedicated Mac Pro as a server.

It doesn’t sound like an ideal setup to me… But it also depends on the network — what is your network infrastructure like?

2) Do I need to purchase management software like MetaLAN or something or can I forego that expense? And if I do need some sort of management software, what’s good for both PC and Macs sharing the same storage?

You don’t *have to* depending on what you’re trying to do… You can just reshare it via NFS or SMB but then you’ll take performance hits if your PC is slow. I’d definitely invest a little extra to make sure that PC has enough cpu/memory to handle the load. This setup is more of a NAS, not really a SAN…

3) I’ve already read Bob’s article on a low budget do it yourself SAN solution which is very good. He says there you need the management software. But I’ve also read on this forum that it can work without. What gives?

If I understand right, you’re only directly attaching to one machine — you won’t need management. (Correct me if I’m wrong).

4) Since we’re shooting on the Sony EX, I’m used to using the XDCam codec. Is that codec going to make it over the network? If not, and again this is a newbie question, if I have to use the Apple Pro Res format which I haven’t really used before, how bad is the hit in quality and how hard is it to up rez back to the original if needed?

I’m not familiar with the XDCam codec, but you definitely don’t want to waste time/quality by converting if you don’t have to…Which XDCam codec is it? XDCam EX?

5) Semi-unrelated bonus question… Can I use the PCs in a render farm with my Macs or am I just a lunatic?

Don’t think so… I don’t think QMaster/Compressor is cross platform.

—

Side note —
Even though you are a non-profit, it’s not excuse to have a sloppy growth plan. I work for a non-profit as well, and in the past running things sloppy has hurt us bad (lost footage, major down-times, wasted money, etc). Start putting solid building blocks in place and have a plan for growth. It might be worth looking into picking a platform instead of having a mix of both PCs and Macs — it will save you a lot of headache. Also, think about your bandwidth and storage needs and how they will grow. Can you do something now to prepare for growth? Also, think about disaster preparedness. What happens if your PC crashes (hardware or software). Do you have any redundancy in place? Sure, it costs more, but is it really worth the risk?

Don’t build your house on sand. Get something redundant power, redundant controllers, or you will regret it.

[Bob Zelin]

Lance –
I will reply below, but let me make one thing perfectly clear – and I apologize for being rude, but (A)I am rude, and (B) the following offends me from your post – you want to have shared storage in a mixed enviorment, yet your company has no money, and they do not even want to hire someone to do this – they want YOU to do it, with no money, no equipment, no knowlege, and they want it to work anyway in just a couple of days. How can a professional not be rude (and insulted) by these requirements.

REPLIES BELOW –

Hi, this is my first time ever posting here and I’m not a well versed tech guy, I’m learning as I go, so bare with me. I have really enjoyed the posts here as a bystander and figure this is the place for my question.

REPLY – you will need assistance. If you attempt this by yourself, you will fail. My article is over 2 years old.

In the next few days I’ll be getting a 16TB ProAvio storage array attached to a Highpoint Rocket raid card going into a PC running Windows as server.

REPLY – because of the latency issue with the Highpoint RocketRaid host adaptor for your SAS/SATA array, you will get DROP FRAME errors when you attempt to playback multiple systems from your shared volume. End of story. You buy the worst card on the market, you get the worst performance. Single user is a lot different than shared enviornment.

The editing facility we have is not big budget, we’re non-profit and do a variety of work, but we currently mix 2 PCs running Premiere and 4 Imacs and a Mac Pro running FCP and we’re at a point we need a central storage solution. We’re shooting XDCam on Sony EX3s. We’d almost surely never be in a situation where every single station would be pulling the same footage from the server at the same time just by the way. Usually there aren’t more than three or four stations used at once. I would like to use the idol stations as a render farm when not used.

REPLY – a simple network will not support this shared enviornment – it’s not fast enough. You either use link aggregation, iSCSI, Fibre Channel or 10 Gig ethernet. Simple Gig E network will fail ALL SYSTEMS the minute “system # 2” trys to start playing back media. And you can’t use Apple AFP. You must use SMB (which on the Apple computer is terrible, even in isolated enviroments). And you can’t use QMaster or setup a Render farm across this video network, because it will bog down (even with link aggregation), and your system will crash.

So here’s my questions;

1) Most importantly, am I going to have an issue using a pretty standard PC as server to my more expensive Mac editing stations? I can’t afford to buy a dedicated Mac Pro as a server.

REPLY – it won’t work. Your whole process won’t work. To get your MAC’s to work, you will have to switch to SMB, and you will see that the native performance is terrible.

2) Do I need to purchase management software like MetaLAN or something or can I forego that expense? And if I do need some sort of management software, what’s good for both PC and Macs sharing the same storage?

REPLY – for mixed enviornments, yes, but don’t buy anything now, because the system you are describing won’t work.

3) I’ve already read Bob’s article on a low budget do it yourself SAN solution which is very good. He says there you need the management software. But I’ve also read on this forum that it can work without. What gives?

REPLY – MAC only Apple AFP clients can work without SAN management software, but this won’t apply in mixed platform enviornments. AFP doesn’t work with PC’s, and Apple’s native SMB sucks. If you read my original article, the key was LINK AGGREGATION for a cheapo network, and you are not discussing doing this, you want to avoid a real server, you want to have no management software, you want to use the cheapest SAS host adaptor your can find, AND you want to create a render farm – AND you want to do this yourself, without profesional assistance. Bottom line – you will fail. And if you don’t fail, buy a lottery ticket, because you are the luckiest guy in the world.

4) Since we’re shooting on the Sony EX, I’m used to using the XDCam codec. Is that codec going to make it over the network? If not, and again this is a newbie question, if I have to use the Apple Pro Res format which I haven’t really used before, how bad is the hit in quality and how hard is it to up rez back to the original if needed?

REPLY – you will find that you will hit a 4 Gig file limit over Apple AFP with MP4 files (Sony XDCAm EX). You will transcode your EX files to ProRes via log and transfer. ProRes is 20MB/sec, and ProRes422HQ is 30MB/sec. With a simple network, with no link aggregation, and no jumbo frames, you are talking about having a network server connection speed of 50MB/sec – you won’t get far with that.

5) Semi-unrelated bonus question… Can I use the PCs in a render farm with my Macs or am I just a lunatic?

REPLY – NO. You are not a lunatic. You are just innocent, and trying to accomplish something that you don’t have the experience in.

We’re setting up our system in a few days so I’m trying to get all my ducks in a row before we do. Any input would be appreciated.

REPLY – my input ? Hire a company to do this for you. IT will not be free, and perhaps THEY can train you on what they are doing. There are countless wonderful shared storage systems out there, and countless dealers that will want to assist you with this. But they don’t care about your non profit orgainization – they want to get paid, no different than the sheetrock company, the painting company, the plumbing company, and the phone company that work for your non profit company right now. They do their job, they want to get paid.

This is nothing like plugging in a firewire drive.

Bob Zelin

[Caspian Brand]

Hi Lance,

In cross platform file server environments where one platform is in heavier use/more demand than the other, it’s almost always best to use the native OS and/or File System for the dominant client OS. RAID hardware comments aside, in this case even for basic file server requirements you’d probably be better off using a Mac to share out your direct attached storage.

On the RAID hardware and performance side of things, using a properly tuned network and storage, you would be capable of handling XDCAM EX over GbE. XDCAM goes up to 50Mbits I believe, leaving more than enough bandwidth leftover on a 1024Mbit pipe. XDCAM will put a harder hit on your CPU and RAM compared to PRORES though, and PRORES requires a bit more bandwidth and storage space. The number of physical drives you have will also affect performance and may often yield fewer instances of video than bandwidth calculations alone would predict. As you can see there are many variables that affect the overall performance of any system.

If you’d like to look at a solution designed specifically for sharing video in media production workgroups, then check out our solutions. We have some new configurations available depending on your I/O requirements, including some unique approaches to render farms (depending on the software tools and type of media you’re trying to create). We leverage the use of Native File Systems of the Client OS for peak performance and sharing compatibility with our storage server:

https://www.studionetworksolutions.com/video-san.php

-Caspian Brand

Product Specialist
Studio Network Solutions

[Lance Mungia]

Thanks all for your comments, including you Bob, don’t feel you’re being rude. Even if you were, I don’t mind rude if it helps.

I’m working with my tech guy on this project. But we are new and this is the first time we’ll be attempting to edit from a central server.

BOB REPLY – because of the latency issue with the Highpoint RocketRaid host adaptor for your SAS/SATA array, you will get DROP FRAME errors when you attempt to playback multiple systems from your shared volume. End of story. You buy the worst card on the market, you get the worst performance. Single user is a lot different than shared enviornment.

We have a RocketRAID 4322. I notice in another post you mentioned it may or may not be an alright card to use but not if you want a ton of expandability. I’m fine with the ProAvio 8 bay with 16TB, that’s going to hold us for a long time for what we do. Please let me know if I should get something else like Atto and if so does anyone have a recommendation? I wasn’t thinking of latency in the RAID card, just over ethernet. I may be able to get a better card if it’s going to be the troublemaker, if the Highpoint 4322 is not going to work. I would need any opinions on the 4322 pretty soon as I can probably work with the vendor to swap it out.

BOB REPLY – a simple network will not support this shared enviornment – it’s not fast enough. You either use link aggregation, iSCSI, Fibre Channel or 10 Gig ethernet. Simple Gig E network will fail ALL SYSTEMS the minute “system # 2” trys to start playing back media. And you can’t use Apple AFP. You must use SMB (which on the Apple computer is terrible, even in isolated enviroments). And you can’t use QMaster or setup a Render farm across this video network, because it will bog down (even with link aggregation), and your system will crash.

We’ve got a 4 port Ethernet card in the server (I have to check from which company) going to a decent managed GigE switch so we planned on using link aggregation and jumbo packets as you recommend. (Sorry if I left this out before, it was too late at night) Any render farm would probably be used overnight when one machine needs help with something complex not while all systems are in use.

1) Most importantly, am I going to have an issue using a pretty standard PC as server to my more expensive Mac editing stations? I can’t afford to buy a dedicated Mac Pro as a server.

REPLY – it won’t work. Your whole process won’t work. To get your MAC’s to work, you will have to switch to SMB, and you will see that the native performance is terrible.

Okay, I’m looking into getting a used Mac Pro for the server instead of using a PC. I’m also less concerned with having the couple of PC’s we have around the studio on the network anyway. Most of the jobs we do are on the Mac side and we’re moving that way primarily. My question would be, just how robust a Mac System do I need as a server? Is an older generation or two Quad core Mac Pro with say 6 or 8 gigs of RAM going to be enough?

Also, I have a new question about the drive array. I’ve had a vendor tell me just yesterday that it’s actually better to have a 32Mb Cache rather than a 64Mb cache on the 2TB drives, basically Hitachi versus WD. He said it has something to do with the boot times. All I need to know is if there is any validity to this statement that 32Mb cache is better. My instinct would tell me the opposite. Anyone have any thoughts?

Thanks again for the input.

Lance