On Set RAID for two computer system

[Chandler Tucker]

Hey guys, just wanted to see if anyone had any experience with a RAID system that could be accessed by 2 computers at a time. I would love to be able to connect my Late 2011 MBP to the RAID to dump media from the camera, while accessing the files from my 2010 Mac Pro to do dailies, set up premiere projects for post, transcode, etc. I've seen plenty of great options that would work for one computer or the other. I am not very experience with gigabit ethernet connections to a RAID, so maybe someone can shed some light on whether or not that would work. Thanks for the help

 

[Eric Bowen]

That is what networking is for and yes sharing the direct storage to 1 system over the network to the other is the way to do that. Direct attached storage doesnt share out any other way since the volume is locked to the host system.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

If you're just sharing with one other system, like the laptop, I would go with speedy DAS on your main system and then connect over the network. Setting up a performance-oriented NAS or SAN volume can get very expensive in a hurry and is overkill for just sharing to one or two extra systems for the purpose of offloading or file transfer type operations. You can even connect and work from the storage over the network and do things like editing or whatnot, so it's not really that limited.

The Gigabit Ethernet on your Mac Pro, and on the MBP, will get you about 85MB/s throughput if you have a decent switch. Sometimes a touch faster, but generally speaking that's the upper limit for real-world transactions. If you need to go faster than that, you're kinda out of luck as you would need a faster means of connecting the two. 10GE adapters are easy enough to add into the Mac tower, but there's nothing you can add to the MBP and being a 2011 model, that means no Thunderbolt or other faster interface...

 

[Chandler Tucker]

Actually Jeff, the Late 2011 model does have one thunderbolt port. With that being the case, what possibilities does that open up for me? I was thinking of getting something along the lines of the Sonnet Echo Express Expansion chassis to allow me the capability of connecting PCI-e cards to my MBP if I was working on something where I needed to run less equipment or power. I'm assuming I could put a 10GE adapter in that? or is there a way to run a SAS connection on both computers? I'm doing my best to try to read up as much as I can when I'm not on set, there is just sooo much information out there and so many options.

 

[andrew salkey]

I know that if both computer have thunderbolt, then you can have a thunderbolt network which I would think would have TB1 speeds~
-Also would depend heavily on the RAID as many RAIDs won't saturate TB1
-It will also end your thunderbolt daisy chain if you only have one port

Your Mac Pro doesn't have thunderbolt, and I'm unsure about adding it as a card etc.

Personally I've been in a very similar situation, and decided to go with two RAIDs on set, shuttle data back and forth between them using SSDs. It could be faster, but it's good enough that I am able to do on-set dailies w/sync. I've had a lot of other solutions, but that one let me have two independent systems incase one crashes or needs to be rebooted.

The easiest solution would probably 10GBe in an external chasis of somekind. Not too sure if two systems could be linked via one SAS channel, only ever dealt with one system on set.

I also looked into 10GBe, for me it would involve two thunderbolt enclosures and cards, and I already a bunch of SSDs and other media.

 

[Jason H]

If cost is not a problem ...with 2 x 10GE adapters they can talk? You would not need a switch? Would the raid have to be internal in the mac pro or would an external raid work as well?

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Actually Jeff, the Late 2011 model does have one thunderbolt port. With that being the case, what possibilities does that open up for me? I was thinking of getting something along the lines of the Sonnet Echo Express Expansion chassis to allow me the capability of connecting PCI-e cards to my MBP if I was working on something where I needed to run less equipment or power. I'm assuming I could put a 10GE adapter in that? or is there a way to run a SAS connection on both computers? I'm doing my best to try to read up as much as I can when I'm not on set, there is just sooo much information out there and so many options.

Yep, silly me, I should've remembered it has Thunderbolt... Seeing as I still own a 2011 (pre-retina with Thunderbolt) MBP myself. The Thunderbolt port does open up some possibilities. There are 10GE adapters you can connect directly from makers like Promise and ATTO. Or you can use a TB to PCIe expansion system like the Sonnet or Magma or others. Bandwidth is limiting and also because this is a Thunderbolt 1.0 system, you only get to use 10Gbps at a time or per device. So your PCIe enclosure would only get 10Gbps, but the second channel is still available to pass-thru to other things like storage or to send a video signal.

Thunderbolt networking is a possibility, but it is only officially supported with Thunderbolt 2 for some reason. And we still have the issue of there being no Thunderbolt on the Mac Pro tower and no way to add it. Other things you can do with Thunderbolt is add eSATA or USB3 ports to make it easier to share external storage devices.

A decent RAID attached to the Mac tower is still probably the best bet with network connection from the MBP to the tower. 10GE would give better speed than the integrated gig-E, obviously, but cost really starts to add up. And depending on how and what you would like to offload via the MBP, you may want that Thunderbolt port to add USB3 or eSATA ports or to be used for another PCIe card or something. While the 2011 MBP's did offer Thunderbolt, they were still crippled by USB 2.0. FW800 is there though and gives 80% of the throughput of your gig-E port. The 17" model -- last round of them made -- had an ExpressCard 34 slot. The 15" model traded the ExpressCard 34 slot for an SDXC slot and came with two USB 2.0 ports instead of three. Otherwise connectivity and most specs were the same.

While you can add SATA or SAS to both systems, you won't be able to use it simultaneously on both systems with the same storage setup, that's the point of networking. And it doesn't matter if the RAID or storage on the tower is internal or external. Just set it up as a shared network volume and then the MBP can connect to it.

Some 10GE host adapters will allow direct connection between themselves and one other without a switch in the middle. It's not as stupidly simple as doing it with gig-E connections, but it does work. This can save you a bit of money. I would recommend starting first with a decent SAS or SATA RAID on your mac tower, if you don't already have something like that, then get your network running with gig-E. If you need more speed, then you can look into 10GE connectivity and see if it's worth the cost. You're looking at $350~$450 to add it to the tower and you'll need a free PCIe slot. It's going to be double that to add it to the MBP via Thunderbolt.

 

[Evangelos Achillopoulos]

We still have a FiberPack with 8x4Tbytes HDs on Raid-6 with dual 4G FC to Thunderbolt @ >300Mb/s per port that can run a SAN on two MacBooks or two Mac whatever...