Bob Zelin
7
COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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simple solution –
buy a QNAP. They are cheap, they have 10G ports, they work great.
BobBob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com -
for those reading this thread – Nick solved his own problem, doing something I would never have suggested.
He blew away his Mac OS installation, and completely reloaded the macOS, and his speeds came back. So there was something corrupt in the Mac, not the QNAP.
Always an adventure.Bob Zelin
Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com -
so exactly what kind of advice do you want ?
Do you want me to tell you to buy an LTO ?
Do you want me to tell you to buy a NAS, and backup to another NAS at your home
Do you want me to tell you to make several copies of your media onto multiple SATA drives (or SSD’s) –
are you going to say “well, what’s that going to cost me ?”
You have been in business for 11 years without issue.
Are you going to come back and say “I have been in business for 11 years, and I never had to spend this kind of money”.You tell me. No matter what I suggest, it ain’t free.
Bob Zelin
Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com -
Hi Brian –
here is a quick honest answer – I don’t know.
Different generation machines respond differently. And different 10G chip sets respond differently. You plug in an ATTO Thunderlink, Akitio thunderbolt to 10G box, Sonnet Twin 10G, and Promise SanLink2, and they are all different. You now try your new iMac Pro and you get fast speeds. But I have seen even faster speeds on other products – for example, on a new iMac Pro going into my beloved QNAP, you get about 900 MB/sec read/write. A Thunderbolt 3 iMac with a SanLink3 will do 350 MB/sec write and 1000 MB/sec+ read – why different than the iMac Pro ? I have no idea. The new iMac Pro is using the Aquantia 10G chip (not the generic Intel X540, X550 that everyone else uses except for Akitio). So why does the same Aquantia 10G chip on a PCIe card (on ASUS PCIe 10G cards) only do 600MB/sec in a PC, when a Sonnet Presto 10GbaseT card with Intel X550 chip does 1100 MB/sec in the same PC ? I don’t know – chip specs, driver specs. Lot’s of variables. The same Sonnet Presto card in an old Mac Pro will probably only get about 400 MB/sec in a x16 lane slot.You want “apples to be apples” and “oranges to be oranges”. But it’s not. I see that with RAID arrays as well. You put in HGST, WD, Toshiba, and Seagate drives in the exact same enclosure and you get different speeds in the same configuration, even though they are all 7200 RPM drives and the same size. So eventually you develop prejudice over which brands you like, and which you don’t. There have been recent posts by Nick from Athens in the NAS forum on why he cant get more than 250 MB/sec write speed on this thunderbolt 3 connection to his QNAP Thunderbolt 3 NAS (he gets over 1000 MB/sec write). I told him that I can get 350 MB/sec write and over 1000 with the SanLink3 and 10G. But why does a Sonnet Twin 10G or Promise SanLink2 get 800 MB/sec write on an “old” Thunderbolt 2 computer, when Thunderbolt 3 should be faster (because it’s 40Gb/sec) – I have no idea. I am not privy to sit with the engineers of these products and figure out who (Apple, Intel, Aquantia, Sonnet, Promise) has the engineer that has no idea of what he is doing. Don’t assume that all these guys have the same qualifications. And don’t blame “brand X” when it could be “brand Y”. That’s what testing is all about – and that’s what all these web forums and reviews are all about.
And get rid of that damn Mac Mini.
Bob Zelin
Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com -
replies below –
I’ve never been amazed at the speeds I’ve gotten, but it’s still a little better than standard ethernet so I’ve continued to use the setup.reply – I don’t know why. I am guessing that your system is not setup correctly.
This week I received a new iMac Pro with native 10gbe and was anxious to see how its network speeds would perform. I connected to the server via AFP (SMB still extremely slow), and got almost twice the speed as what I’d get on my Mac Pro with the SANLink2.
reply – SMB will remain slow until you go into terminal and disable SMB signing. This is still an “issue” on the new iMac Pro with macOS 10.13.2. Disable SMB signing, and your SMB speeds will be wonderful. Start getting used to not using AFP anymore. Apple is not going to support it soon.
Mac Pro (Late 2013) with SANLink2: 285 MB/SEC WRITE, 270 MB/SEC READ
iMac Pro (2017) with native 10gbe: 497 MB/SEC WRITE, 361 MB/SEC READ
Keep in mind, both client machines above are connecting to the same target location on a Mac Mini Server (Late 2012) that’s also using a SANLink2. I imagine if I had another iMac Pro as the server machine, performance would be even better.
REPLY – well, you have a crappy Mac Mini Server with both your SanLink2 tied to the same single x4 lane thunderbolt port that your RAID array is connected to. Of course, you are getting crappy speeds. And you don’t have SMB Signing disabled, and I bet you are not using Jumbo frames.
The iMac Pro is using the new Aquantia 170 Chip. In a properly configured system (with an actual server that can read and write at the correct speed) you will see about 900 MB/sec WRITE/READ. For the SanLink2, depending on what computer you are using, you get (typically with Thunderbolt 2 like from a modern iMac or Mac Pro 6,1) about 600 – 800 MB/sec Read/Write. Oddly enough, with the Promise SanLink3, I see consistent results of 350 MB/sec Write and about 1000 MB/sec READ.My questions:
Is there anything I can do to improve the Mac Pro with SANLink2 speed to get closer in performance to the iMac Pro (configure SanLink utility differently perhaps)?REPLY – yes. Configure your system correctly. Stop using the Mac Mini as a server, with everything tied to your single x4 lane thunderbolt port.
Would those reading this expect this kind of performance difference between the iMac Pro and SANLink2 ethernet connections?
REPLY – you should be getting better performance. You have not stated what kind of RAID array you are using for your server. I hope it’s an 8 drive or greater, if you expect decent results. You can quickly prove this to yourself by turning your Mac Pro 6,1 as your server (forget the Mac Mini) and go 10G from the iMac Pro to the Mac Pro (via the SanLink2) and if it’s configured correctly, you will get dramatically faster speeds. If you are using a Pegasus R4, and the Mac Mini, and you don’t have SMB signing turned off, well – what do you expect.
Bob Zelin
Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com -
I asked how old you were, because you sound inexperienced. The problem with being good, but young, is that you have not make enough mistakes. You think you know everything – you will soon find out that even when you get old (like me), you still don’t know everything. Making mistakes (including making poor investments) is unfortunately part of the learning process.
In the stone age, you had to buy endless amounts of video tape machines, because things kept changing. Today, you need countless amounts of large drive arrays, because you will use up so much storage space, you will say to yourself “how did I use up so much space already”. It will never end, as we evolve from 6K to 8K and beyond.
Don’t waste your money on doubling your internal SSD drives. You just want your programs on there. Invest in external arrays, and ones that can be expanded – because there will never be enough storage (if you are successful at what you do). Going with thunderbolt 3 drives (for 2017 – 2018) is the right thing to do. But don’t worry, you too will soon learn that these products become obsolete, and before you turn 30 you will say “I spent so much money on this crap, and now it’s obsolete !”. I will then say “welcome to the club”.Bob Zelin
Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com -
Hi –
you own an excellent motherboard. Your two 2TB HDD are for your media storage (you need more than this for actual storage – what are 4TB going to do for you today – and this is not a safe array, unless you do RAID 1).
I guess your one 512GB SSD is for your Win 10 OS. You tell me – what are you going to do with the two 1TB NVME SSD – use it for caching, use it for rendering, so it’s fast, use it for 8K playback ? That’s up to you. Bottom line, you need a lot more than two 2TB SATA drives. Think about an external array.Bob Zelin
Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com -
Paul Golden writes –
After Effects: is there any machine where AE doesn’t suck at realtime playback? Had a 4.6K ProRes 444 timeline and with Mercury Transmit enabled, still can’t play a RENDERED timeline at speed where it’s downscaled to 1080p for the monitor. WTF is wrong with Adobe and realtime playback? I’ve been using AE for years and they’ve been promising RT improvements the whole time and it never gets much better.It’s comments like these that make me love Creative Cow, and in my opinion, are the very reason these forums exist. It reminds you that you are not the only one that has problems (and gives you confidence to yell at the manufacturers).
Bob Zelin
Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com -
Ooh – I just finished a rant on the thread below.
While I love Tim Wilson, and in 2017, Creative Cow is Tim Wilson, if it were not for
Ron and Kathlyn Lindeboom, do you know where ALL of us would be ? No where –
we would be silent, under some advertisers sponsored article, that we could not criticize.
Creative Cow single handedly changed our industry, and in the process put 95% of the video publications
out of business (that’s to the participants of forums like these). So HAPPY HOLIDAYS to Ron, Kathlyn, and Tim, as
we literally would not be here without you !We see manufacturers come and go – including major famous ones. Do you know where Creative Cow is going in the future – NO WHERE – it’s staying right here – with us, and future generations that want to rant and criticize products on the professional video market.
Bob Zelin
Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com -
I guess my response to all of this is similar to many political debates. You can “intelligently” state – “well, I am sticking with CS2018 and a HP Z840 or Boxx or Puget Systems because of this”. And the other side can say “well, I am sticking with FCP X and an iMac Pro because of this”.
Of course, I am neither of these people. I want it ALL to work. And I want to go to the BOARD OF DIRECTORS that really don’t care either way, as long as their corporation makes huge profits on the stock market, and has a wonderful 2017 bonus for themselves (after all, it is time for a new private jet – isn’t it ?) – and say “WHAT THE F#$$ is WRONG WITH YOU. Do you know WHO WE ARE? We are the ELITE of your user group, and WE are the ONLY ones that count – not your stupid iPad users, not your family – its US – US – PAY ATTENTION TO US. WE NEED THESE FEATURES, and you are going to do NOTHING else except pay attention to the PRO USERS, because WE put you where you are today.
Of course this is my fantasy, and they laugh at when they see posts like this (they never see posts like this – only their product managers do) – and our opinions really mean nothing. Just like the champion race car drivers mean nothing to the chairmen of Ford, GM and Chrysler, other than for a press event.If you are a race car driver, you do whatever you do, to win that race. No matter what Ford, GM and Chrysler does.
We must do the same. You get the tools that you need. If “brand X ” doesn’t make it – you do what you need to do.While I personally use Adobe, FCP X, Davinci Resolve, Cinema 4D, etc. – if it was not for AVID Media Composer and Digidesign Pro Tools, no one would give a crap about Apple. Does Tim Cook even know who AVID, Bill Warner and Eric Peters are ?
Bob Zelin
Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com