RED Rocket for Multiple Machines

[Steve Johnson]

Okay, here's the scenario.

I currently have a MacPro 2.26 8-Core.

I am getting a MacBookPro 17" with TB port which I will use to connect to a Magma TB Expansion Chase housing a RED Rocket and then onto a 12TB Promise RAID.

What I'd like to do is utilise the RED Rocket card for both the MBP and my MP.

I will probably use the MBP setup most of the time, but on the off chance of a large gig for a client, I can crank up the DIT station to the MacPro. So for my MacPro setup, I am thinking:

Slot 1: ATI Radeon Card 4880 (currently the graphics cards)
Slot 2: NVIDIA Quadro 4000 (so I can use this with Davinci Resolve!)
Slot 3: 4GB Fibre Channel Card (see below)
Slot 4: Free

I'll use the 4GB Fibre Channel Card to connect using a PROMISE SANlink adapter to link to the RED Rocket card in the expansion chase.

Anyone got any thoughts about if this is a viable working solution?

Thanks in advance.

Steve

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[Eric Santiago]

Were currently in the same boat.
Would love to use the TB route but until its been tested on prisoners, we cant jump on that.
Any word on the Magmas release date?

 

[Steve Johnson]

Were currently in the same boat.
Would love to use the TB route but until its been tested on prisoners, we cant jump on that.
Any word on the Magmas release date?

Just a pre-order on the Magma website - no release date yet though.

I can't see any reason why this process won't work, I might go for it and test it once I have got my EPIC stage 4 which might time nicely by the time I get it together with when the TB products are coming to market.

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[Eric Santiago]

We were so close to ordering a MAXX box.
Since availability was sparse we cancelled.
Im glad since that was prior to TB release
We can wait till the new year.
We have a BT RR in an CUBIX doing fine and another RR in a MacPro humming along.

 

[Tim Whitcomb]

So will this get rid of the PCI bottleneck that is prevalent in all the current 1X LANE expansion chassis?

 

[Steve Johnson]

So will this get rid of the PCI bottleneck that is prevalent in all the current 1X LANE expansion chassis?

Hey Tim,

I think so. If Apple updated their MacPro line with TB, then everything would be running through these expansion chassis's - so in theory, you would have a MacPro with TB, connected to say a 12TB TB Drive, daisy chained to say another for 24TB storage, daisy chained to a RR card. Not sure how something like a NVIDIA Quaddro 4000 card would work in the chain as and additional GPU for running say Davinci, but I guess it should be okay since TB is based on PCIe technology and it works fine if you have a CUBIX expander at the moment through PCIe.

I think its still in its infancy, but the near future could look quite rose.

Steve

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[Eric Santiago]

I guess the only question is what about this 4x speed that TB tops at? Or is that a myth?

 

[Christopher Barrett]

I know the SonnetTech Chassis maxes at 4x per the specs on their website. When I was setting up my system for Resolve, I initially put the RR in a 4x slot and my Quadra 4000 in a 16x. RR performance sucked so I switched them and all is good now. If you start daisy chaining PCI Chassis and RAIDs, I can't imagine it will be very log before you saturate the TB channel. I would love to have a new TB Mac Pro, but will the ever build one?

 

[Steve Johnson]

See, the easy way in my eyes, if have a MBP with TB with a RR in it and transcode using that onto the Promise 12TB RAID and have that connected to my MacPro via a 4GB Fibre Channel card, and leave the MacPro with the NVIDIA for Premier Pro & Davinci.

Does the RR in Premier Pro have any advance for playing back 1/2 res?