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this is a GREAT article on Thunderbolt shared networks
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I am surprised that this thread is still going on !
At CCW, I saw the 10 meter and 30 meter Corning Thunderbolt 2 cables, being demonstrated like the AT test, showing about 800 MB/sec from computer to computer (with Tbolt 1 10Gb/sec). But of course, no drive arrays, and just a demo – not real life. And as we have discussed, the cost of building a new system that has a “hub” would at the moment require a new Mac Pro Cylinder ($2999 starter price), with 6 Tbolt 2 ports (and who knows that the performance will be on all 6, because there are only 3 Falcon Ridge chip sets on the new Mac Pro), a fast TBolt 2 Chassis (Promise 8 bay – no price yet), plus 5 30 meter Corning cables at $599 each (add $3000 for cables), plus your computers must all have Thunderbolt on them – so retire that 12 core Mac Pro with the NVidia GTX-680 ! 🙂But of course, no matter how it works, and no matter what the reality of this system working properly is – the MORAL of this LONG thread is that users like Greg want what Steve Jobs vision was – to be CHEAP AND EASY, so it can “one day” only cost 30 bucks, and not require an expert to make all this stuff work. And his hope was that for 30 bucks, he could do shared storage over Thunderbolt, and tell “all of us” to go “screw off”, because he can do it himself. Lets face it – there are plenty of clients out there that can’t wait to tell us to GET LOST, so they don’t have to hire us anymore. And don’t have to buy any more expensive equipment.
But as Eric points out (and as Alex knows), the cost of the 10gig NIC cards and switches have become SO inexpensive, you have to weigh the value in buying a new Mac Pro as a server, along with the $3000 cables, and TBolt 2 drive chassis, when many companies already have lots of wonderful fast Mac Pro computers, big drive arrays, and just need everything interconnected. And by the time that all this stuff wears out, perhaps there will be a Tbolt 2 switch, or even newer technology that will obsolete all of this. Bottom line – some people will just wait until it DOES cost 30 bucks !
Bob Zelin
Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
maxavid@cfl.rr.com -
Just taken an interest in this subject recently. I am looking into shared storage over Thunderbolt 2. Maybe this is where you get told it can’t happen but I would be interested to hear the communities thoughts on this since Apple / Intel have just released drivers to do 10gb over TB2. So current state of affairs for 2014. How is shared storage over TB2 looking now?
And a supplemental question, what would be the best way to connect 3 work stations to the same shared storage? -
[Jayson Packett] “Apple / Intel have just released drivers to do 10gb over TB2.”
Where did you read/hear that that?
David Roth Weiss
ProMax Systems
Burbank
DRW@ProMax.comSales | Integration | Support
David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.
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[Jayson Packett] ” I am looking into shared storage over Thunderbolt 2. Maybe this is where you get told it can’t happen but I would be interested to hear the communities thoughts on this since Apple / Intel have just released drivers to do 10gb over TB2.”
Hi Jayson,
Honestly, I think this is wishful thinking on your part. I’ve scoured Apple Support for new drivers and I just don’t see anything new that offers any changes to the issues we’ve written about here pertaining to shared storage NOT working over T-bolt or even T-bolt-2.
David Roth Weiss
ProMax Systems
Burbank
DRW@ProMax.comSales | Integration | Support
David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.
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To clarify, I think it was Intel making the announcement they were releasing drivers for Windows for 10GBE over TB as Mavericks now has this.
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[Jayson Packett] “To clarify, I think it was Intel making the announcement they were releasing drivers for Windows for 10GBE over TB as Mavericks now has this.”
Well, unfortunately the networking protocol necessary for effective shared storage is still not built-in to Thunderbolt, so don’t rush out to buy the parts, because you’ll be disappointed.
David Roth Weiss
ProMax Systems
Burbank
DRW@ProMax.comSales | Integration | Support
David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.
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David,
Two years ago we replaced our Apple XSAN with an EditShare Energy 48 TB shared storage solution. We integrated a Blade G8124 24-port 10GbE switch for connectivity to seven 2010/2011 Mac Pro towers via Myricom 10GbE cards. We recently replaced our old Mac Pros with 2014 Mac Pros and a few iMacs. We currently use the mLogic mLink thunderbolt expansion chassis to house the Myricom cards. EditShare, Mac Pro and Myricom are all optimized. I have been running speed tests and have found that write speeds are well over 550 MB/sec, but read speeds suffer at times. Meanwhile, the Myricom driver says it is experiencing no issues when it runs its test at boot-up. All systems seem to report optimal functionality but we continue to have latency issues when working with just a few streams of FCPX optimized DVCPro HD 100 Mb/sec video. Have you or anyone you know of bridged the gab between TB or TB2 to 10GbE successfully?
Jay Bowman
Post Production Manager
Abernethy Media Professionals -
Hi Jay,
The issues I’ve mentioned previously were all about using Thunderbolt storage, not about using T-bolt to 1Gb Ethernet or 10Gb Ethernet to connect to T-bolt enabled workstations – we routinely do that and have no issues do so.
However, I know for a fact that the 10GbE cards we use do have new specialized drivers that enable Thunderbolt connectivity and performance, but many cards on the market do not yet have such drivers. You should check with Myricom to see if they can provide you with updated T-Bolt drivers.
Hope this helps…
David
David Roth Weiss
ProMax Systems
Burbank
DRW@ProMax.comSales | Integration | Support
David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.
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