[Matt Geier]

Hi Ross,

Bob is right. (As usual…)

You’ll get lots of responses from solution providers and integrators telling you that their product is the best fit and to buy that stuff.

Certainly a “Do-It-Yourself” configuration, means you’ll save money, but it also means you have a 50/50 chance of having it all work when you get it all setup and installed. Then there’s always the question of who do you start to call when you see something wrong? (There’s a lot of pieces of software and hardware involved.)

The user experiences vary as much as the solutions do. This is certain. Just ask around.

You need to get more quotes. You need to have more conversations.

You need to know that when you spend your first dime, that it is because it’s the right choice, the best choice, and the choice you’re in bed with and will rely on it to work. Otherwise it’s just going to become an expensive paper weight.

I suggest writing down a list of requirements you would like to make sure are met in the solution based on what you know that you want to do. Following that, make a second list with another/different set of questions you want to have answered as it pertains to your budget, log term growth needs, ongoing upgrades, licenses, product support fees etc…(all the things you might need to worry about after the first investment.)

Then you take note of the responses you get.

After having asked the same set of questions to everyone, you compare those responses in context. You’ll be able to tell right off who can support you the best, who has the best solution, and WHY it’s the best choice for you and your business. Then you should equally feel confident in your decision.

That being said;

I will lend to you that Ethernet is very reliable and is also very scalable. It’s also very affordable in comparison to a lot of other network backbones to do real time workflows with.

1GbE and 10GbE can both work in certain cases just fine. They can be intertwined with other networking, they can be run in parallel to other solutions, and it can offer you things you may not even know are possible.

There’s still lots of questions that need to be addressed to make certain what you are asking for is what you need vs what you want to have vs what will work for you and not cost a fortune long term to maintain and support on your own.

In the end, you may even find out that your current 1GbE network is not as unreliable as you thought. It might be something else that’s causing your issues leading you to believe that your current network is the sole culprit.

— Let’s hear more from you! 🙂

Matt Geier
(Video Networking Solutions Expert)
(Creative Design Workflow Consultant)
(Social Media Networks Consultant)
(Technical Video Industry Sales Consultant)

[Matt Geier]

Hi Jeremy,

I’m not entirely sure 100% this is the is actual cause of the problem, but line 363 seems suspect as to the placement of the tag….

Might want to check into that and see if you can remove it (since glancing at the source doesn’t seem apparent where the start tag is….)

Could be I’ve missed it too…. just a thought.

Let us know.

Matt Geier
(Video Networking Solutions Expert)
(Creative Design Workflow Consultant)
(Social Media Networks Consultant)
(Technical Video Industry Sales Consultant)

[Matt Geier]

Hi Shawn,

When it comes down to drives and storage, you’ll find the manufactures will vary in how dependable they are made to run.

Honestly I never like to suggest someone outright replace an investment in any hardware. There’s always going to be something newer and better anyway.

Does it make sense for the budget to add another storage array or swap out all the existing drives just to have all the old ones sitting around doing nothing? I think adding another array is the logical move.

Speaking in terms of what I see for reliability, Seagate drives tend to fail more then WD, and WD drives tend to fail more then Hitachi drives. Of course one never really knows due to all the factors that play a role in the process. My point is that if you have 200 drives vs a place with 20 drives, the 200 drives user will probably see more failures more quickly then the place with 20 drives.

What’s the problem your faced with right now? Are you worried about your drives failing in the near future or are you trying to position budgeting for upgrades to newer tech and bigger drives?

Just curious.

Matt Geier
(Video Networking Solutions Expert)
(Creative Design Workflow Consultant)
(Social Media Networks Consultant)
(Technical Video Industry Sales Consultant)

[Matt Geier]

Go get what you want, and do something worthwhile with what you have!

Turning 16 and submitting 2 job applications and making numerous phone calls to the organization to follow up asking for the interview….
= Showing The Perseverance to Get What You Want In Life

Landing your first position in Customer Service two weeks after your second interview followed by sitting and staying awake through 40 hours of Customer Service and Procedural Training….
= Showing The Ability to Achieve Outstanding Accomplishments

Spending the next 2 years at your first job, moving up the ranks from pee-on status, getting yelled at by people from Disney, NASA, MGM, Universal and then taking time to let them know it wasn’t their fault because “the customer is always right”…..
= Showing the Full and Unconditional Commitment and Love to the Customer

Having the balls to leave all of your family and friends behind at age 19 and accepting the generous relocation package to go to work for Silicon Graphics Inc. doing the same thing….
= Proving Everyone Wrong Who Said You Would Never Be Able Do It

Still Turning Your Dreams into your Reality……
= Truly ‘Fraggin’ Priceless

Call To Action
Don’t let anyone tell you cannot do something….

JUST GO DO IT, AND CONTINUE TO PUT IN THE EFFORT FOR HOWEVER LONG IT TAKES TO GET WHAT YOU WANT AND GO WHERE YOU INTEND TO GO IN LIFE.

Footnotes:
Something I had a dream of doing since age 12 was go to work for Silicon Graphics. That was about that time saw Indy graphics workstations in Jurassic Park. I became inspired to be a 3D Graphics Design and Computer Animation Artist.

I had to wait until I was 16 to work full time, and find someone willing to hire me….and then keep that position and do the job better then I was supposed to do.
Although I’m not an accomplished Computer Graphics and Animation Artists today, I’m still in the same industry I started in, and I’m still talking and interacting with Video and Production Companies who are always on my TV and Big Screen.

Now, my 3D Graphics and other work is more of a hobby, but that’s because I love what I do….

…Which means I did something right so many years ago.
…Which also says something to the people who took a risk on me.

Matt Geier
(Video Networking Solutions Expert)
(Creative Design Workflow Consultant)
(Social Media Networks Consultant)
(Technical Video Industry Sales Consultant)

[Matt Geier]

Hey Bryson,

Same here. Call me too 🙂

Matt Geier
(Video Networking Solutions Expert)
(Creative Design Workflow Consultant)
(Social Media Networks Consultant)
(Technical Video Industry Sales Consultant)

[Matt Geier]

Having the things defined for your site will depend on a few factors.
Browsers on mobile devices like phones won’t be the same necessarily vs tablets, monitor screen resolutions etc….

You can certainly define a size and most things will “resize” on the browsing app.

You can do this with html code and/or CSS code in most cases. Do you have a graphics program to resize your images with?

Even though apps are built on standards, they can still interpret differently. Firefox vs internet explorer vs safari vs etc etc ….

You need to define what problems you see in the different apps and build your CSS code to meet the various differences.

Let us know more about what sizes you want for your images and details about your browser or other browsers and how they show your site and I’m sure more suggestions will folllow.

Scroll bars can be done in CSS and a few other methods as well. They used to show on frames, but you should think about how you’ll want the pages to show content and build the code either on the page itself, or in CSS file, etc etc..

Happy to help more if you want.

Matt Geier
(Video Networking Solutions Expert)
(Creative Design Workflow Consultant)
(Social Media Networks Consultant)
(Technical Video Industry Sales Consultant)

[Matt Geier]

Just asking to know more – when was all the content changed?

That may have something to do with things.

How often is the website being crawled by Google?

Is it indexing and also showing search results on any other engine?

Sometimes it can take up to 4 weeks for SEO and other changes to show on searches. This is also true for content pages etc…..

Google ranks depend on a lot of factors.

What are some of the search terms or word phrases the site is showing up with? (if any)

Matt Geier
(Video Networking Solutions Expert)
(Creative Design Workflow Consultant)
(Social Media Networks Consultant)
(Technical Video Industry Sales Consultant)

[Matt Geier]

Austin,

Dual, Quad, Six, Twelve, Ethernet Ports…;
Each Ethernet port on the Mac Pro can connect and operate independently.

You keep the one you have in place now for the current network.
You take the second port and put it on a new network.

Ethernet is very smart considering the complexity behind networking. It can figure out the fastest way to get from point A to point B over the available network connections it has.
— For example an iMac or MacBook Pro can use Wireless for one connection (internet, email, dns), and the second connection with the hardwire for another active network (video editing, file upload download to storage, etc…)

Software Downloads / Testing Tools;
You’ll find that there will be a mix of tools to show you different results…some for data transfer speeds, some for video streams performance, etc… Each one will have options to get results back and talk about what they are showing you.

Ethernet Speeds;
Ethernet is quite more then capable of just 1Gb speeds.
It can also support 10Gb speeds. Of which many references can be found through these forums.
Looking into the future, you can look at places like IEEE and see further development around the standards for support of 40Gb and even 100Gb speeds over Ethernet.

So do not worry. Ethernet certainly isn’t going away.

What are you intending to do on your network?
What kind of speeds do you want to see / think you should have?

Matt Geier
(Video Networking Solutions Expert)
(Creative Design Workflow Consultant)
(Social Media Networks Consultant)
(Technical Video Industry Sales Consultant)

[Matt Geier]

Hey Austin,

Thanks for asking this question.
This is interesting the way you’ve done this.

Here’s my comments / thoughts;

Network:
Based on the fact you’re networking 4 Mac’s together, you don’t technically need a switch. However, there may be a reason or information you have that I don’t that says you have to have it.
If you do need / want to use the switch, you’ll want it to be a managed switch. – NO EXCEPTIONS – DO NOT save the money for an un-managed switch, or “web” switch.

If you do not need the switch in the network, remove it. You’ll benefit from it too. The switch is not a necessity for you to have how you describe what you want to accomplish. Go get yourself a Multi Port 1GbE network adapter to put into the Mac Pro that you’re going to hang your storage from
– This will allow you to direct connect the other Mac’s directly.
(Small Tree offers a 4 Port or a 6 Port adapter for such an occasion.) – You achieve the same outcome. No switch required.

Shared Storage:
The storage environment needs to be adequate to do the right kind of work expected. Be it under a shared load, or a single attached user load. Depending on your specific requirements, this will determine the outcome of your long term usability of the chosen storage in a certain way. Your usage will fluctuate I’m sure, and that means your storage performance and/or network performance will fluctuate as well.

Depending how the RAIDS, Controllers, and each network connection and system is setup depends on what you’ll experience under a real world use situation.

Other Advice / Resources;
Certainly here on the forums you can find people to participate in the conversation with. Opinions and reactions can vary. Good discussion is the outcome.

Don’t take anything you hear negatively too personally. Instead, take the info and consider it very seriously. There are plenty of experts and veterans out here that have been where you are right now. It’s best for you to error on the side of caution before you jump into anything.

Here are a few places that offer some storage and network testing tools that you may find useful in the future;

– Small Tree, Helios, AJA are three that come to mind. They have tools available to download from their websites. Usually under their Downloads or Support sections. These are designed to run on your current environment, and offer some kind of conclusion based on the configuration setup you run it under.

I’m sure someone else (Like Bob…) can share their insight as well. I wouldn’t expect not to hear from others on this post.

Matt Geier
(Video Networking Solutions Expert)
(Creative Design Workflow Consultant)
(Social Media Networks Consultant)
(Technical Video Industry Sales Consultant)

[Matt Geier]

Hi Devin,

What kind of network are you looking to run the storage on?

There are certain types of setups that can be recommended depending on what your try to ultimately achieve.

Matt Geier
(Video Networking Solutions Expert)
(Creative Design Workflow Consultant)
(Social Media Networks Consultant)
(Technical Video Industry Sales Consultant)