Matt Geier
Forum Replies Created
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Hey guys,
It’s still that way — it’s just done differently with these new things!
Remember for Real Time Sustainable video, which is really what Bob talks about, you only need 40-50MB TOPS for the GREATEST Pro Res files out there! — which of course these great new cables will be able to do… just like 10Gb can do today with CAT6 connections! … The idea is that Thunderbolt is faster then the traditional USB and will work with existing USB hookups, providing the fastest connections over that kind of protocol.
Small Tree is curious how they work in real time environments — and we will find out — it’s in our nature to! 🙂
Just today I was getting wind that perhaps we wanted to get out hands on one of the new Thunderbolt systems to test that out!
It’s very cool, and Apple again, has led the industry of consumer friendly and very awesome products!!
Go Apple! WoOt wOoT!
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Hi Vik,
Bottom line for you is the reliability and sustainability of whatever protocol you choose to use (Ethernet is 1, and Fiber Channel is another….) – They are not Apples to Apples, more like an Apple and an Orange.
If you want to reliabily count on running 4 streams of Pro Res along with “bursts” on the wire, 10Gb Ethernet is certainly the way to go. It may seem like the MB/sec is enough on a 10Gb wire, but think if you are pulling a 4th stream of Pro Res, and something large impacts the same wire. You may find you drop a frame.
Small Tree will always recommend 10Gb Ethernet when someone wants to run more then 2 streams of Pro Res to a single workstation, this is because it’s reliably going to work…….This is just the way it is.
I’m not saying Bob is incorrect or faulty, there are people that have success running more then 2 streams on a Gigabit wire of Pro Res, however, eventually they may find that something goes wrong……Not saying it will, but it does happen.
Reliability is key.
Overall, an Ethernet network can cost little or more depending on how you want to network all your clients, and what Storage you choose to serve all those clients. Typically using Gigabit is okay, if you want to support an inexpensive Pro Res network, and 10Gb is more common (at least from Small Tree) for networks that want to do 1, 2, or 3 clients + using multi cam shoots, or 3 x Pro Res streams per client or more.
Regards,
Matt Geier (Small Tree)
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Hi Jack,
Without creating a conflict with people, I won’t recommend any hardware, I am only technically knowledgable about the true performance of Small Tree’s technologies….if I were an independent (like some here) I would provide you with a referent to Small Tree as your answer because I know what the engineering team is capable of and knows this Shared Storage Real Time extremely well. (Others here can back that up….) (Small Tree is composed mostly of Ex SGI and Ex Cray engineers, sales, and technical support people.)
Speaking in a different context, in the interest of folks on the board, I’ll be as knowledgable as I can with you without giving away any Small Tree trade secrets. That’s why I won’t recommend a particular host adapter. (They all perform differently….) I will say that Small Tree is an OEM of ATTO, and work very closely with Intel and Apple at various levels with regard to networking, Mac OSX, and real time shared storage performance with regard to their GraniteSTOR family of products (ST-RAID, and ST-RAIDII, among others)
I’ll recommend giving me a call and I can speak with you. (Friday) if you like. My number is in the first post.
Excersizing good business ethics, I will offer you to speak with other vendors on the phone and have the same conversation that you have with me. Then you can make a desicion based on how your “feelings” go and who you are most comfortable with at the time…….time is money in this business, and your business is editing…..you have to be 100% confident that whatever and whoever you choose, works, and who can you rely on to fix it if it breaks….etc….
Definition of SAS = Serial Attached SCSI (Scu-zz-ee)
—- Small Tree is a solution provider of Real Time Shared Storage solutions that fit your need based on my previous posts, the solutions offered would be a great fit for you at every level —- you can also check Small Tree out at NAB 2011 and speak with Steve Modica (SAN Forum Leader here) or others at Small Tree… Unfortunately I will not be attending this year….. (Small Tree will include everything you’ll need from the Storage, Network Adapters, Storage Controller perspective and 100% Mac OS X friendly options) — Small Tree is not an Apple Reseller, so you’ll need to get the Mac from Apple, or from your authorized Apple dealer….
I hope this intrigues you and is helpful to all that come across this post.
I still encourage others to participate in this talk.
Regards,
Matt Geier (Small Tree)
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Jack,
In a single system environment, just replace the word “server” with the word “client” and connect your storage.
In an environment where you have 2 editors connected to a Mac Server (3rd system) that’s a Shared Storage network that needs to be balanced in a different way.
Make sure whatever hardware RAID you choose, will support your stream counts the way you need it to; Both in terms of bandwidth, and in per stream count (bandwidth, and response times of disk)…….each video format will work a little differently then another.
Hope that helps.
Matt G
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Hi Vik,
Here’s a tip: Fiber Channel RAIDS sitting behind one server can be shared over an Ethernet network in a way, simply because you can put an Ethernet adapter into the Mac Server and connect Gigabit or 10Gbit clients to access the server….since the server is the only thing talking to the FC RAID, you’ve been able to avoid the need for individual client connection cards, to a FC SWITCH, Software for each, etc…..
Storage is tricky however depending on what you want to do with it. Do you intend to create a REAL TIME SHARED NETWORK (or) a PUSH AND PULL only network…… one will be based on pure REAL TIME SHARED PERFORMANCE and one will be based more on just SHARED BANDWIDTH performance.
I would recommend getting that Mac Pro server, and putting in a Multi Port (quad or six port) Ethernet Adapter, or 10Gb adapter to connect the users accordingly…….. Then pick your storage, and get it set up and see how it works for you based on what kind of network you want to configure.
Careful; Storage and Networking is the easy part to decide on…..getting something that does what you want under a Shared Network load is a little more difficult depending on the vendor hardware configuration you choose to use (hardware vendors all do it differently, be it Software, Hardware, etc…) This stuff is not built equal, which means looking at two data sheets and comparing them, is not doing you enough justice…. I would recommend making some phone calls to speak with vendors about their performance in the different types of networks you want to do … make sure it’s not all based solely on bandwidth.
I always say that it’s very easy for about any networking / storage company to give you something in terms of the bandwidth you need, however, when you’re editing video on a shared network or off a particular set of hardware, the real time performance will be the key for what you need…..this is not just about bandwidth.
Regards,
Matt Geier (Small Tree)
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Hi Jack,
A little info on the HDCAM streams:
The main competitor to HDCAM is DVCPRO HD format offered by Panasonic. It uses a similar compression scheme and bitrates ranging from 40 Mbit/s to 100 Mbit/s depending on frame rate.What that means is that your bandwidth per stream can vary between 5MB/sec and 13MB/sec conservatively.
Don’t get caught up in just bandwidth however because RAIDS will all perform in REAL TIME differently depending on what you are doing. (That means even if you think you’re getting a RAID to support the MB/sec, it may not support the REAL TIME streaming for Final Cut etc, in the same way….)
A little more info about striping;
When you stripe disks together, depending on the vendor, it will also affect your REAL TIME stream counts and their performance per stream.Info about RAID;
When you RAID a drive, usually recommended at RAID5 or RAID6 you will also loose additional disk performance that will affect both the bandwidth of the solution and the REAL TIME performance of the solution.Do you have plans to run anything faster then HDCAM (DVCPRO HD)? If you do, you’ll want to get a solution designed for your worse case scenario. For example; a solution that runs 5 streams of HDCAM, may or may not run 5 streams of PRO RES or anything beyond HDCAM. — It’s true — because not all RAID solutions are designed equally ….
3K — I’m sure someone here can find you a good set of drives for 3K, the question will be how much more will you need to spend in the long term of the solution, and/or who can you call when something goes wrong if it’s failing…..
Another point is that if you want SHARED STORAGE — that shared load will also affect how it behave in an overall way…..
If I were you, I would put your drives behind a central server (like a Mac Pro 8 Core) and I would install a Small Tree multi Port Gigabit NIC. This allows you to connect each Mac or PC directly to the server. The server will do all the work of reading and writing to the storage. This is often called NAS (Network Attached Storage), and can often be the easiest on the pocket book…..but even 3K is a little low.
A good solution (one that will be able to do PRO RES 4444 or anything less) in terms of high stream counts will last you a lot longer then having to buy new RAIDS all the time when they get 80% full, or you ad more clients to your network as you grow.
The bottom line is that you have to know 100% that whatever you buy (or build) can support you now, and six months from now when you change things in your workflow. I would also plan on spending (on the low side 8K-9K for something that will last a while in capacity and in a NETWORK SHARED REAL TIME configuration, and 10K-15K + on the higher side of things. Don’t forget to find a Mac Pro (8 Core) server to do the work as well on top of that. (I know that seems high, but comparatively, this kind of Ethernet configuration is roughly about 40% less then Fiber Channel would be for 4 to 5 client systems in a SAN network)
I’ll be curious to see what others will come back with…. and even more curious to find out how long that will last you or if we’ll see you again in six months when you move up the ranks in editing formats…..
If you’d like to speak with me more, I’ve left my contact number at the bottom for you (or anyone) that would like to speak with me;
Regards,
Matt Geier (Small Tree)
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David,
Networking your XServes together is the easy part. Just start putting in Ethernet cards, and get them all hooked into a Switch. Then hang whatever Storage you have, off the back of the servers, and share it out. If all the servers can see each other, they can see the storage attached behind one or all of them too!
I assume by reading your have more then one, that’s why I suggest the switch. (A managed Switch….) The Managed switch will allow you to hook into the servers via Ethernet….
(I’m not promoting you to do Real Time Shared Video Editing…but just a simple NAS base Storage Share among the servers without having to wait for something you don’t *really* want to spend more money on for equipment that’s old…..)
Let me know if you think this is a good idea?
Matt Geier
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Hi Jacob,
I’ve read through the thread.
Keep in mind that no matter what hardware configuration you choose, it will all work differently then the next set of hardware when it’s being shared, over a network. Pass files back and forth over Gigabit wires to and from each system, with or without their own direct attached storage, that’s the easy part……passing files at the same time while sustaining shared performance from the storage operations and o/s model is the difficult part….often, it’s the shared sustained real time performance where others are faulting and falling off the ledge on.
Moving up from Gigabit, you can get opt to get direct attached storage and pass files back and forth over 10Gb Ethernet wire for fast transfers from storage to storage…..The speeds of transfers will go up assuming you are not writing to internal Mac drives over the wire, and assuming the storage array chosen supports the speeds you want (Example: MB/s using Finder Copy)
The goal as I understand here however, is that you want to have your Power PC, and your 2nd Editor, accessing the same storage with Final Cut Pro codecs and edit video simutaniously in the timeline. I also understand that you intend to keep the files native to the storage.
If you truly want to accomplish that; then you need to invest in a Shared Storage solution like that of Small Tree’s which is designed and configured for Real Time Sustainability…..Invest in a 3rd Mac Pro 8 Core (minimum), and get that in place as the server to ensure you are servicing your other clients hooked into it accordingly. IN this configuration you should take in account that you are getting the best PCI Express performance, DMA (Direct Memory Access) performance, and Processor performance by having the new Mac Pro as the server.The next step is being confident that the hardware configuration you’ve chosen is going to work when you load it up and start hammering on it.
Good luck to you! Call me if you like and I can talk more about your needs;
Matt Geier
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Hi Eric,
I supposed some may have seen this coming with the announcment of the XServe going away….but I also suppose it was more speculative then anything up to this point.
Small Tree’s solutions are Ethernet based, and do not rely on Apple (XSAN) / Fiber Channel, or OSX-Server…..This will be good news for anyone looking into the future, especially with things like “FCoE” — Fiber Channel over Ethernet…….which will utilize 10Gb Ethernet Wires instead of your traditional Fiber Channel connections!
Woot!
Matt G.
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Hi Eric,
Yes, you can (and would likely benefit more from NAS then SAN) for your Editing Needs.
SAN’s often require additional overhead software like you mention. Meta Data, and Redundancy are often required in addition to expensive cards, and other pieces you would not need with….
NAS, since it’s a lot more friendly for direct attach situations.
(You can direct attach to a Server, and run out to Gigabit or even 10Gb Mac OS Clients / PC Clients) — Creating Shared Storage shared over AFP etc, and boom you have NAS, and not SAN…
With regard to MAC OS + PC — I would recommend putting something like Dave Software (from Thursby) on the AFP server so it will properly handle SMB connections from the PC side.
(it’s not needed elsewhere)
My $0.02
Matt G.