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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

CUBIX Desktop 4 or Cyclone 2707 Expander for Davinci Resolve 5K r3d

Asif Limbada

Asif Limbada

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Guys,

I am building a grading station and wanted to know which expander is the best in terms of reliability and performance when it comes to handle 5K r3ds. The following setup is what I think after reading up on many forums:

Mac Pro 2.26 8-Core 24Gb 240GB Boot SSD x 1, 1.5TB x 2:
Slot 1 (x16): Quadro 4000 (Resolve GUI, CUDA & GUI for AE/PP etc)
Slot 2 (x16): Expander (Cubix or Cyclone, cant decide)
Slot 3 (x4): Capture Card (Any suggestion why we need this?)
Slot 4 (x4): Qlogic 8Gbps Dual Fibre Channel HBA connected to Promise VTrak x30 8Gbps 32TB Subsystem

Expander:
Slot 1 (x16): Red Rocket
Slot 2 (x16): Quadro 4000
Slot 3 (x16 with Cyclone's expander) Quadro 4000
Remaining slots I have not decided yet!
Is there a possibility of using a RAID card for the Mac Pro 1.5TB Drives from the expander?

I want to know if this setup will allow me 5K realtime playback with how many nodes and is this an overkill.
 
I really like my Cyclone 2707. I use it on location and have really abused it and the thing still runs awesome.

I have not used the Cubix, but i liked the specs of the Cyclone better. Plus the staff at Cyclone is awesome.


Dusty
 
Hey Dusty,

Did the Cyclone guys ever work out the issue with the 6Gbps SAS cards? I had not followed up as I ended up with the Cubix. ...Cubix runs great, BTW, had to swap out the annoyingly stupidly loud fan. I swear that all "desktop" enclosure engineers are deaf. Especially the ones working for Cubix and HP....

I have the 4-slot Cubix, 4 single-width slots. I have a RED Rocket, Quadro 4000 and CalDigit 6GU3 (USB3 and eSATA 6gbps) in the expander.

In the Mac Pro tower I have this:

slot1: Quadro 4000
slot2: Cubix x16 interface
slot3: BlackMagic Decklink HD Extreme 3D+
Slot4: ATTO H680 SAS/SATA HBA


Never tried it, but you probably can't use the Mac Pro RAID card from the expander. In fact, I believe that card must be installed in slot-4, if you are indeed talking about the one from Apple, which ties onto the internal SAS/SATA backplane. FWIW, this card should not be used if you can help it... It's better than the previous revision, assuming you have the version compatible with the '09/'10 Mac Pro systems. However, it's still pretty limited and often problematic. If you need a bootable RAID on the Mac, take a look at the ARECA RAID cards. You can run one from the expander, but I recommend keeping your RAID hosts inside the tower -- or at least you really should if you want to boot from them.
 
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Jeff,

Yes they fixed the Atto 6G problem. It was a hardware change and I had to send my cyclone in to have it updated. No charge. I havent tried any 6G cards in my system yet though.

The default fans on the Cyclone are STUPID LOUD too. I change most of my fans to Silenx brand fans.


Dusty
 
Yeah, its a weird shape and loud as hell. But Runs Like a BO$$. Like the idea of changin out the fans, what did you swap them for Jeff?
 
Sorry to hijack with no info but a question. I was examinng a similar need but with some extra complication

I need to be able to deal with 2 streams of stereo from Epic cameras (1080p delivery). I also need to include the following cards.

Myricon 10gig
Atto H680 (for a HP LTO 5 and dragging in media from esata drives)
another card that allows some very fast local storage

What is the minimum I can do 1080p stereo from Epic work (I need to trial this before I go crazy)

I'm assuming

Macpro

slot 1: Gx for Gui
slot 2: Conector to Cyclone (i prefer so I can rack mount)
slot 3: Myricon 10gig
slot 4: BM i/o for monitoring (I assume this is the only what to get a HDSDI Grade 1 monitor attached

Cyclone
slot 1: Nvidia 4000
slot 2: RRocket
slot 3: Nvidia 4000
slot 4: RRocket
slot 5: Atto H680

Ok so here is my problem I have run out of slots and I still haven't put in the very fast local storage connection. My SAN can do up to 700mb but I would like to have local storage for layoffs and 2x2k work.

Any ideas short of putting in another cyclone. Can I pull one of the Rockets or a nvida and still get ok'ish performance in s3d? we could perhaps then strugle through till either the new macpros apear (and then we can externalise a number of the devices with thunderbolt) or we can run Davinci on windows.

thanks for anyone willing to share real world experience

Michael L
 
Michael Lindsay said:
Ok so here is my problem I have run out of slots and I still haven't put in the very fast local storage connection. My SAN can do up to 700mb but I would like to have local storage for layoffs and 2x2k work.
Click to expand...

You're asking a lot in some ways... But there's a couple options. If you don't mind a bit of a hacked solution, you could replace the two Quadro cards in the expander with a single GTX480 and gain a slot that way. Or you could go with the 2710 model Cyclone, which gives you more slots.

The fast local storage really needs to have its interface located in the tower. If you don't mind software RAID or don't mind connecting self-contained RAID systems via a SAS port or two, you could replace the H680 with an H6F0 and get double the number of external connections. I guess the question here is, what do you want for local storage?

The bad thing about loading up the expander in situations like this, is bandwidth. You can only push so much through that single X16 slot.

If it were me, I would probably get a good switch, if you don't have one, for the 10g card and connect a NAS device that way. Or look at an alternate card to replace the Myricon. There are some hybrid cards out there that have 10g copper/fiber along with infiniband and/or fiber-channel.

Or, if the Myricon card is fine and is a single 10g interface, move it into the expander and place the ATTO card back in the tower, consider upgrading it.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
I have the 4-slot Cubix, 4 single-width slots. I have a RED Rocket, Quadro 4000 and CalDigit 6GU3 (USB3 and eSATA 6gbps) in the expander.

In the Mac Pro tower I have this:

slot1: Quadro 4000
slot2: Cubix x16 interface
slot3: BlackMagic Decklink HD Extreme 3D+
Slot4: ATTO H680 SAS/SATA HBA
Click to expand...

How is the performance of Quadro 4000 in the Cubix for Davinci, especially working with native 5k r3d. FPS and node counts? The Cubix reseller said that only ATTO FC HBA is compatible in Slot 4 (cos they are the authorised resellers for ATTO here in Dubai), I am getting the QLogic (better customer service here!) Dual Channel HBA.
 
Andrew clemson said:
Yeah, its a weird shape and loud as hell. But Runs Like a BO$$. Like the idea of changin out the fans, what did you swap them for Jeff?
Click to expand...

What is your slot configuration? I would like to run it like the BO$$.
 
Michael Lindsay said:
slot 1: Gx for Gui
slot 2: Conector to Cyclone (i prefer so I can rack mount)
slot 3: Myricon 10gig
slot 4: BM i/o for monitoring (I assume this is the only what to get a HDSDI Grade 1 monitor attached

Cyclone
slot 1: Nvidia 4000
slot 2: RRocket
slot 3: Nvidia 4000
slot 4: RRocket
slot 5: Atto H680
Click to expand...

How is the performance on Resolve in terms of FPS and node count?
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
You're asking a lot in some ways... But there's a couple options. If you don't mind a bit of a hacked solution, you could replace the two Quadro cards in the expander with a single GTX480 and gain a slot that way. Or you could go with the 2710 model Cyclone, which gives you more slots.
Click to expand...

Ok that is food for thought... my gut instict is that I would avoide a hacked card. (Over the years I have been burned a number of times from clever workarounds that ultimatly landed me in trouble). That said if BM and the guys out there pushing their systems all say go for it? Also I couldn't see anyone using the larger Cyclone expansion systems for running Davinci?

The fast local storage really needs to have its interface located in the tower. If you don't mind software RAID or don't mind connecting self-contained RAID systems via a SAS port or two, you could replace the H680 with an H6F0 and get double the number of external connections. I guess the question here is, what do you want for local storage?
Click to expand...

Makes sense... One question? My SAN can suport 2 streams of HD RGB @ 10bit or 12bit depth. Would that be enough for Davinci? What precision files does the Davince render out for its own renders. I don't want to play out to tape from the Davinci. I want RT play back of 2 streams so I can work on and view stereo material.

The bad thing about loading up the expander in situations like this, is bandwidth. You can only push so much through that single X16 slot.

If it were me, I would probably get a good switch, if you don't have one, for the 10g card and connect a NAS device that way. Or look at an alternate card to replace the Myricon. There are some hybrid cards out there that have 10g copper/fiber along with infiniband and/or fiber-channel.

Or, if the Myricon card is fine and is a single 10g interface, move it into the expander and place the ATTO card back in the tower, consider upgrading it.
Click to expand...

I have a 10gig switch but I can also attach direct to the SAN. If the Atto is left in the expansion for LTO5 backups and SATA drive data ingest I feel this is OK? I wouldn't be doing wither of these while running the Divinci

So my real question is if I can live without a really fast local drive setup, and instead rely completly on the SAN for disk speed could I make the system (as above) good for Davinci? Especially if I accepted no tape layoffs and staying with HD s3d work for a while?

thanks again

Michael L
 
Will using 2 Quadro on the expander boost performance even though it is connected to Mac Pro x16 slot 2?
 
Asif Limbada said:
Will using 2 Quadro on the expander boost performance even though it is connected to Mac Pro x16 slot 2?
Click to expand...

Yes, they will to some extent. GPU processing for nodes actually doesn't take a huge amount of bandwidth for Resolve. But it is something to consider -- as I said above, you can only push so much data through a single X16 slot. Two Q4000's and a Rocket will have you maxed out. There is the option of going with a faster GPU like the GTX480. But it involves some tweaks to get it up and running. Not a big deal overall, I personally went the Quadro route. I can understand not wanting to get involved in hacked cards and other unsupported solutions.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Yes, they will to some extent. GPU processing for nodes actually doesn't take a huge amount of bandwidth for Resolve. But it is something to consider -- as I said above, you can only push so much data through a single X16 slot. Two Q4000's and a Rocket will have you maxed out. There is the option of going with a faster GPU like the GTX480. But it involves some tweaks to get it up and running. Not a big deal overall, I personally went the Quadro route. I can understand not wanting to get involved in hacked cards and other unsupported solutions.
Click to expand...

Do you think its better to get Cyclone as it has 3 x16 slots, especially helpful when using RCX converting dailies from R3Ds to other formats, because 2 Quadros wont be used during the conversion process of RCX. I am leaning towards Cyclone Expander rather than Cubix, because of this.
 
Cyclone 2707 and DaVinci Resolve 8.1

Cyclone 2707 and DaVinci Resolve 8.1

Asif Limbada said:
Do you think its better to get Cyclone as it has 3 x16 slots, especially helpful when using RCX converting dailies from R3Ds to other formats, because 2 Quadros wont be used during the conversion process of RCX. I am leaning towards Cyclone Expander rather than Cubix, because of this.
Click to expand...

Asif,

We have three DaVinci Resolve 8.1 systems at our facility ... two of them are running on the Cyclone 2707 PCIe Extender box ... one of them has 3 x GTX 285s (over clocked and 2 GBs of VRAM each) with a RedRocket card and the other has 3 x GTX 480s with a 12 TB RAID attached. If you want to run the GTX 480s you need to make sure you order the 1500 W version ... the 480 cards are beasts ... but they run like GREASED LIGHTINING ... they are also double slot cards so you will lose a slot (2707 only has two double width slots) ... Cyclone is by far the best PCIe Expansion box on the market at the moment ... we tested all the others.

We just spent the last week demonstrating the 3 X GTX 285s system at the annual SMPTE Conference ... engineers from all the studios were impressed ... imagine what they would have thought if we'd taken our 3 x GTX 480s system? ... we're in the middle of grading a Stereo 3D movie on it so I couldn't take it ... plus I'm not sure Hollywood is ready for that yet ;-) .. lots of people still prefer the expensive heavyIRON approach.

We'll be doing some benchmarking tests with nVidia and Blackmagic over the coming months to verify the optimum configuration for running Resolve 8.2 and nVidia but in the meantime 3 x GTX 480s in a Cyclone 2707 box will serve you well ... very well!!!!

Next time you're in LA come and see us ... we're on the The Lot in West Hollywood ... a couple of blocks down the road from Red Studios.

Neil
 
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Thanks for the info Neil. I really like my 2707.

I have been thinking about going crazy and builing a Resolve system with two Cyclones. Each with two 480s and a Rocket. Raid in one and 10gigE in the other. That would be a smoking fast Resolve system.


Dusty
 
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