SAN For uncompressed HD

[Margus Voll]

More details would help.

Look here:

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/197/856118

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Margus

https://iconstudios.eu

[Nick Hasson]

ok.

Here is the components that i own.

(3) 2.8 octo Mac Pros
(2) Cal digit HD Pros.

I use Kona 3 cards in both machines. Allot of my work is from files. Not much digitizing that is going on. We have one machine setup for Color Correcting and another for editing. Right now I am exporting the final edit from one machine to another. This transfer time is killing me. I want to be able to instantly access the files from both machines. With the full speed of those raids. The HD Pro raids are PCIE.

I have to have two machines because the editing software I used must have a FX4600 GFX card. But I color correct with apple color and that can only use ATI gfx cards. Plus I can render on the edit machine, while I’m color correcting.

I must use uncompressed HD or 2k. This is a MUST for me. I’m doing mostly D.I. Work.

I dont want to start over with storage and by fiber channel stuff. The HD Pro’s work great. There is no efficient way to share media with HIGh bandwidth. Right now I am just using gigabit and getting 70MB a sec between the two machines.

What I don’t need is Multiple users hammering on the same files at once.

Nick Hasson
http://www.niceedits.com

[Margus Voll]

To some point will help faster network like 10 Gbit but storage will make wonders if it will not handle
the data rate you are forcing there.

10 gigabit is costly as hell also if you get 3 network cards + switch.

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Margus

https://iconstudios.eu

[Nathaniel Cooper]

Hey Nick,

There just isn’t a way to network those boxes to handle uncompressed HD and 2k video.

Since the boxes run on SAS/SATA connections they are only able to handle direct connection to a workstation. The only way to network that type of set up would be to use the storage as a NAS set up. Which would work and would be fast, just not fast enough for the performance you want.

The exception would be if you did the whole NAS with 10GbE, but at this point I’ve still never seen that used as a viable option for this type of set up. If anyone has seen this feel free to chime in.

Nate Cooper
ncooper@studionetworksolutions.com
https://www.studionetworksolutions.com/

[Matt Geier]

Nick,

I want to lend you my two pennies here — this is my first official post using my small-tree.com address. Feel Free to come over to the forum we just got here on The Cow and we can connect there too (https://forums.creativecow.net/smalltree)

Doing Uncompressed HD over Ethernet is hard, siomply because either there isn’t enough Ethernet bandwidth on a single Gigabit wire, 10Gb is expensive still in comparison to other options, or storage isn’t fast enough to pass the i/o quickly enough, in some cases, all three are a problem for most users trying to do this kind of work in a shared environment with two or three clients hitting the same storage box.

I’d like to point out that just because a device claims to have X amount of network bandwidth, does not mean it can successfully pass a real time video stream, one, two, or multiple times at once. As is the case with any storage, and it should be investigated as such from that vendor as to the “real time” conditions/requirements of their solution.

You said —
I dont want to start over with storage and by fiber channel stuff. The HD Pro’s work great.

REPLY —
This is true perhaps a Direct Attached Storage, however, it changes the dynamic automatically when you share the device and start hitting it with more then one client at a time (or more then one video stream at a time…Your raid performance can go through the floor when it’s being hit with more then one client in any condition…I’ve seen it several times before, especially in these video editing environments, and even is some non real time environments.

Here are some questions I would ask…

Have you connected this and successfully shared streams of video from it to more then one client at once?
How did it perform?
How many video streams can you pull from this device at one time?
What formats perform better then others?
How many / what video formats did you try?

You Said —

There is no efficient way to share media with HIGh bandwidth.

REPLY —

This is simply not true. I fyou have a network designed to do it, then that’s what it will do. But the caveat is that you have to afford the kind of equipment that has to supply the data rates and throughputs you are looking for.

For example, with Gigabit, I’ve personally witnessed Apple servers being hit with multiple gigabit and even 10Gb Ethernet clients and those servers can reach 600MB/sec +
(A six Port Ethernet Adapter, Link Aggregated with two internal Apple ports will effectively give you an aggregate capable of pushing and pulling 800MB/sec worth of throughput ….at full speed of course) — Full Speed is referred to as line rate.

You Said —
Right now I am just using gigabit and getting 70MB a sec between the two machines.

REPLY
That’s very normal… you are copying back and forth from Mac to Mac of Gigabit. The speed you are achieving tells us you have Jumbo Frames turned on. Otherwise these numbers would probably look more like 30-50MB/sec.

You Said –

What I don’t need is Multiple users hammering on the same files at once.

REPLY —

That’s likely referring to project files, as your media can be stored on the storage and shared across project folders. IN any event, I would be more concerned with multiple users hitting the same raid at once, which is where some of my above comments come into play. It’s not so much the access to the files, as it will be the performance of the raid that tells you if this is going to work with what you have now or not.

Let me know if there’s further insight I can lend you….

Regards,

Matt G

[Bob Zelin]

Hi –
you want to do uncompressed HD, but you already own some expensive drive arrays, and I bet you are looking for the CHEAPEST way to do this. Well, this is done with a 10 Gig Ethernet card, and I bet you a cookie that the Small Tree boys are going to be discussing this on the NEW SMALL TREE FORUM on Creative Cow.

Now, if you have simply read Creative Cow’s print magazine, you would have seen that Sonnet is offering a 4 client shared system (that is more expensive than it seems) – but Small Tree looks like they have a sexy, inexpensive solution.

Lets go over to the Small Tree forum, and see what they have to say.

Bob Zelin