Mac Mini Render Farm

[Joshua Brown]

Hi I've been thinking about investing in a Render Farm of sorts. I'm not sure of the exact proceedure. Does the rendering computer need FCS on it? Or can it simply be delegated tasks?

Mainly though, I want to know if this can be achieved with say, a stack of 4-5 mac mini's? Would this be cost effective? Or would it be cheaper to buy two standard xserv fins?

Can a render farm be made on a linux distro like Ubuntu or must it run osx? Any info on this would be great.

-Josh

 

[Josh Negrin]

it's possible, but not efficient at all. You'll get better results from the nehalem mac pro 2.66 than with 6 mac minis. Here's how you do it:

http://vimeo.com/1799266

I have a mac pro and a macbook, and when I need to render in compressor i link them together using an ethernet cable

 

[Joshua Brown]

it's possible, but not efficient at all. You'll get better results from the nehalem mac pro 2.66 than with 6 mac minis. Here's how you do it:

http://vimeo.com/1799266

I have a mac pro and a macbook, and when I need to render in compressor i link them together using an ethernet cable

Ok, so qmaster is what I'd use for that. Is there a way you can do it with normal Linux fins? Or would xserv be best. Do we need separate licenses of FCS for each computer? Or would a copy of qmaster on each comp work in the osx instances?

-josh

 

[Josh Negrin]

qmaster is built into the os. You won't need separate versions of fcs. There are also render farms you can buy, but those usually run a little pricey.

 

[Todd T]

Do we need separate licenses of FCS for each computer? Or would a copy of qmaster on each comp work in the osx instances?

-josh

FCS allows you to run the command line components (The actual programs that qmaster calls) on as many machines as you need, no additional licenses needed.

 

[Joshua Brown]

FCS allows you to run the command line components (The actual programs that qmaster calls) on as many machines as you need, no additional licenses needed.

I seee... so technically, If I was savvy (or knew someone that was) I could build or buy a cheap server run ubuntu ( or does it have to be an official Unix based on like BSD?) on it and LAN it up? Then Maybe get a NAS on the cheap too and be good to render?

-Josh

 

[Todd T]

Not quite

The reason Apple is so generous on the licensing is because those programs require OS X.

 

[Joshua Brown]

OIC. Ok, so its looking like my best bang for buck really is a Mac Pro or a base configuration of xserv. Hmm I wish there was a slightly cheaper option for render farm. It's not like it needs to be a super beefy system if I'm just going to have it churning data. The main reason I want it is to get the rendering off the system I'm working on so I can do other things while thats going.

-Josh

 

[Matt Mojo]

I've setup a mac mini render farm w/ 5 minis, the last generation, hooked up over gigabit to my mac pro, it worked well but Qmaster is buggy. Also there is a bug so you cant use a render farm if you use the send to compressor command from FCP. I would recommend going with a new mac pro over an Xserve because Xserve's are very loud compared to a mac pro and meant to be in a server room/ case, also they have not been updated w/ the new processors. On top of that if you go with a mac pro you will always have a 2nd workstation that you can use in case something happens to your other one or you need to rent it out.

 

[Joshua Brown]

Thanks for the info Matt!

-Josh