GigE for Media Drives

A bit of musing on this long weekend. I am the owner of a recent 15" MacPro. Which of course means no express slot. Not a problem, for this machine, as I do little actual editing on it.

I do have a Quad G5 that is about to be retired, and I have been considering my options. I do a lot of remote sports, so the system I buy will do a lot of traveling. For that reason I have been thinking that the new Quad iMac would be an interesting option. With the AJA shoebox plugged into the Firewire, my video needs are handled. There is just that pesky problem of what to do about disk space.

Bob Zelin did that presentation a couple of months back about shared storage using GigE. Now that would work except for purchasing and traveling a pile of extra hardware. But it did get me to wondering if anyone made a NAS RAID that was fast enough to work as a dedicated media drive. I poked around a bit and Western Digital has a 4 bay RAID 5 that they claim will keep pace with Firewire in terms of speed.

Anything else anyone has tried? This would be a big boon to those looking to use newer laptops and iMacs as editing stations.

-Vance

I don't know about the NAS RAID, but I've worked off GigE on EditShare before, and there wasn't an issue, but I was cutting in DV.



www.strypesinpost.com

About a year ago I had to make a last-second change under an insane deadline. The project file and footage were on another editor's system, and he was in session. So in a what-the-hell moment, I Appleshared into his drives from my system, opened up the project file, made the change and exported a new master to my framestore.

It worked. I can't say I'd recommend it, but it worked. Mac OS X is actually incredibly smart about caching sequential disk reads (in that case, since it was over a network, caching was done on both machines), so I got away with it.

This was ProRes 422 1080p24 stuff, so I think the data rate was somewhere in the 130 megabit-per-second range. If I were going to do a science project like what you describe, I'd put a hell of a lot of RAM in the "server" machine so it can cache as much as possible. And then I'd look at myself in the mirror and say "dropped frames are not the end of the world, and I can do my job without real-time performance" three times.

Yea, but this is a NAS RAID drive. Not sure how much RAM you can install into it, unless he plans to pull it apart and hack the hell out of it.

You can pretty much do wonders on a budget once you know how things work..

Here's how to get a cheapo mac. Note, I haven't tried this myself, and I won't guarantee that you can capture ProRes with this:

[www.wired.com]



www.strypesinpost.com

I am actually looking to do little or no hacking. What prompted the question is that whenever I have had a marketable idea in the past I find someone else has beaten me to the punch. I was hoping that one of the storage companies that deals in the AV segment of the market was making a NAS raid that was tested and happy with editorial workflows.

Seems like there is a market along those lines to me as Apple is closing more and more access ports that we need with each new "upgrade" of their systems.

-V

Quote

Yea, but this is a NAS RAID drive.

Ugh, I'm sorry. I skimmed the original post, and got the impression he was talking about turning his soon-to-be-retired G5 into a media server.

No, to the best of my knowledge there are no Ethernet-based storage systems that are, to borrow your words, "tested and happy with editorial workflows."

I agree that it's frustrating that the 15" MacBook Pro no longer has an Express Card slot, but to be fair, the 17" still does. Just as good? Of course not. But it's not like the option no longer exists at all.

Jeff Harrell Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I agree that it's frustrating that the 15" MacBook
> Pro no longer has an Express Card slot, but to be
> fair, the 17" still does. Just as good? Of course
> not. But it's not like the option no longer exists
> at all.

True, and I considered a 17 when I bought my laptop, but in the end decided that I need something to carry for general purposes more than a portable edit system.

What really has me concerned is the trend. Firewire 400? Nah, you guys don't need that anymore. Express buss? Only for the strong of back. DVI? Hey it's just another adaptor. It seems like Apple is always rearranging IO on their boxes. I hope that the Ethernet connector sticks around for a few years. Unless the next move is to go all "Air" on us.

GigE has the speed for many editors workflows, now we just need some choice in products.

-V

If you know someone who has this, you should test this out before buying it. Walter Biscardi has a shared ethernet system too. However, if you do look at it, he pumps more RAM into the server than any of his editing macs... If you can, run a system test on it, and play a 1 hour clip in FCP and see if it drops frames.



www.strypesinpost.com

might want to take a look a the DroboPro (or the new Elite? not heard much about this one)

[www.drobo.com]
[www.drobo.com]

I guess you'll also be bitching that you no longer have a floppy drive.... ;-)


(actually could have used one just about a week ago... those 9100's still haven't got USB)

Trevor-

Want me to bring you one to Vancouver? You will need it to archive your mixer settings too. I wouldn't hold my breath on getting USB on a 9100, though there is an upgrade. You could buy a switcher with the PIE. Got a few hundred thousand pounds for USB access?

I do a weekly gig where I have to send an EDL from Final Cut to Tape to Tape correction. Those guys are still asking for floppies of the lists. So for you and I maybe Apple will offer a floppy on the next generation of machines?

Andy-

Good idea. I also saw someone pitching something like I was thinking of in a magazine ad too. It just might be possible.

=V