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Server for FCP Projects post workflow
Hi list, wondering in someone can educatte me on the benefits it any of using a osx server in my post production workflow. I currently have four intel iMac connected via giganet to a G5 Workstation which is turn has a 2.5 striped raid connected to it. All works pretty well overall. Four people can edit media on the raid, even render back to it and it’s relatively smooth. Every few days I reboot all machines when we get errors “file not found” and the reboot seems to sort it out. Milticam edits can put a strain on the connection. We had two going on yesterday and every 10 seconds FCP was dropping frames, but even that was workable.
Looking now to see what I can do to speed up the connection. I read that there is FCP server coming. I think it’s geared towards media management and file sharing. Will it also help in terms of the speed of the network. Would I benefit from installing OSX server on my hosting workstation. I’m unfamiliar with server software, so please excuse the novice line of questioning. Does server software operate like my regular OSX. I can run apps and use it as I would my normal os. I’d love to hear from anyone who might have traveled this path before.
Any thoughts or insight would be greatly appreciated.
Warmest,
Kevin
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2 Replies
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Are you using a SAN software solution? You could ad MetaLan to each iMac and MetaLan server to your G5- you would probably have better performance and not experience file not found errors. Not that it is perfect but we use it on a 5 workstation set up.
Lance
Lance Bachelder
Southern California -
Kevin,
What you want to explore is called “X-SAN”. There’s a forum on this site dedicated to it. Apple also has a ton of info about it. The “Server” that you mention is not specifically set up to do what you’re thinking… X-SAN is. Know that there are plenty of other simpler SAN solutions out there as well.
You may be successful now, but as you’ve noticed, you’re already dropping frames due to band width and throughput issues. If you ever expect to expand beyond the number of systems you’re currently using, I’d strongly suggest you investigate a SAN solution.
Mark
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