Dual Workstation Mac Pro Solution

[William Schultz]

Hi,

I'm currently trying to put together a proposal for the agency I work for as we are currently trying to expand our video department to include a second editor and workstation. We shoot a lot of high-end commercial work on the Red One MX as well as other various cameras (Hopefully the Epic and Scarlet soon too.) In addition to this there is quite a bit of After Effects animation going on, even to the point of entire projects being created inside the box. Most of these projects are pretty short term things and don't take up a ton of room for any extended amount of time. I'm just trying to come up with the most efficient way of networking these two machines together as well as cut down processing time as much as possible.

Currently we have one system in place. The specs are as follows,

Computer - Mac Pro 5,1
Processor – 2 x 2.93 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon
Memory – 14GB 1333 MHz DDR3 RAM
HD Bay 1 – Operating System/Applications – 250GB 7200RPM
HD Bay 2 – Storage/Media Drive – 1TB 7200RPM
HD Bay 3 – Preview/Cache/Export Drive – 500GB 7200RPM
HD Bay 4 – Overflow – 500GB 7200RPM
Graphics 1 – ATI Radeon HD 5770
Graphics 2 – NVIDIA Quadro 4000

We have Adobe Production Premium CS5.5 installed and I am using it as the main post-production suite along with a few other various apps such as PFtrack, Redcine-X, etc..

Ideally I'd like to store all source media and project files on a SAN and keep things like previews, cache files, and exports on each computers internal set of drives (Hopefully swapping those over to fast SSD hard drives once SAN is in place.

Does anybody have any suggestions as to what I might need to get an identical system up and running on a SAN? Is it feasible given the data-rate that REDCODE RAW produces (say 42MB/s for instance). Do I need to look into something more robust like a Fibre Channel SAN?

I was looking at the following, it seems like it may work since we're only planning on one more additional system, I'm just not sure until I can get my hands on it and do some testing.

Gigabit Ethernet
Drobo B800i iSCSI SAN (Limited to 2 computers.)
8 Bays w/ 3TB Drives = 24TB. Actual size w/ protection available for use is 16.34TB with 5.48TB used for Dual Disk Redundancy. (I know, I know.. 3TB drives are still a little too unreliable, I just used them so I could get an idea of the maximum size of it.)

Any and all help is greatly appreciated. I'm an editor.. not an IT wizard. Looking into a SAN is still pretty new stuff to me.

Thanks!

[Ben Graham]

Talk to Maxx Digital. They can help you sort it out. You need to have a mac as a server with Direct attached storage, no need for Fibre Channel. You can use an older mac pro for server. I have the same setup with a 16 drive EVO 4k from Maxx on 2008 MacPro on Gigabit. Then fully loaded Mac Pro with Red rocket and kona 3 cards as worksations. You should get a Red Rocket to help transcode times.

[William Schultz]

Awesome, will do. Thanks for the reply!

[Tony Lorentzen]

If you're looking for a professional, fast and secure storage solution then you should take a look at the Caldigit enterprise products: http://www.caldigit.com/products.asp

A FibreChannel SAN is a great solution if you're running multiple OSes or systems and need to share the same storage system for different clients on the network. Otherwise you might as well save yourself the hassle and go for a direct attached storage like the HDPro2 from CalDigit: http://www.caldigit.com/HDPro2/

With their ThunderExpress you can harness that lovely Thunderbolt speed too :-)

[Tony Lorentzen]

By the way - forget the Drobo. I have on three different occasions heard of people having problems with their Drobo Pro which lead to loss of data. It's a pity really, 'cause I really like their affordability. In the long run - you get what you pay for. I've had nothing but excellent support from CalDigit.

[William Schultz]

Really helpful, Tony! I've also recently heard and read a few unfavorable reviews of the drobo. Definitely a shame.. I like the idea of the CalDigit, I completely overlooked thunderbolt as well. I'll do some more digging into that. Could be a good option.

Thanks again,

[SeanBrown]

I have a Drobo but not a server and have alot going on it with no problems.. Must be one of the lucky ones. Let me know if you need some help William.

[William Schultz]

So if I understand this correctly Tony I would need the following from CalDigit to connect two workstations to a single raid, correct?
What is the throughput cut down to by the time it reaches each individual workstation? Sorry if these are pretty basic questions, just trying to wrap my head around this high-speed shared storage solutions.

CalDigit SuperShare 12 Port Switch/7 Port Hub -- $8,304.05
CalDigit HDPro2 – 8TB -- $5999.10
(2) CalDigit SuperShare Optical Cable -- $198.55
(2) CalDigit SuperShare Host Adaptor Card -- $295.95
SAN software (metaSAN, XSAN or StorNEXT -- $999.00

Thanks for all of your help.

[Tony Lorentzen]

That looks about right William.

If you're looking to connect two or more workstations to your storage then you need to look for a SAN solution or a NAS with something like iSCSI. FibreChannel SANs are a lot faster than a NAS using iSCSI or regular gigabit ethernet. Typically FibreChannel is 4Gb/sec or 8Gb/sec whereas iSCSI is typically just 1Gb/sec. It all comes down to what speed you need and how you need to manage your storage if you're running multiple systems (Windows, OSX, Linux etc). The CalDigit solution uses the PCIExpress connection instead of FibreChannel, which makes it a lot faster with speeds of up to 20Gb/sec.

The NAS solution with iSCSI probably won't get you more than a maximum of 100MB/sec of bandwidth for all workstations to share whereas the HDPro2 can deliver around 800MB/sec (in reality around 700MB/sec) shared among all workstations. If you need more speed then take a look at the CalDigit HDPro-24 which come in 24 or 48 TB editions. The SuperShare will allow you to connect both HDPro2s and HDPro-24s to the same system.

The cables from the SuperShare to the workstations can only be up to 100 meters, which is worth knowing. I don't know the pricing on the cables, but they're probably very expensive :-)

Another (and more economical) solution would be to direct connect an HDPro2 to each workstation, but it is not as scalable as the solution with the SuperShare.

You could also look into getting a 10Gb NAS but the speed won't be as good and it won't be as flexible and scalable.

[William Schultz]

As a temporary solution would it be possible then to do as you said and hook two computers directly to the HDPro2? Then when we start expanding to a third system we can invest in the SuperShare. This has been really helpful info. Thanks!

[Tony Lorentzen]

Yes William that is exactly what you can do. That is the power of flexibility :) I love CalDigit. Sadly, I don't get referral fees ;-)

[William Schultz]

Good news. Your help is greatly appreciated! Thanks again.

[Fredrik Callinggard]

Also have a chat with studio solutions - they're EVO and global san solution is not bad if you're looking for smaller set ups as the EVO packs it all

http://www.studionetworksolutions.com/products/product_detail.php?pi=12

[William Schultz]

Awesome I'll check it out. Thanks Fredrik.