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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 :)

Storage type: Is gigabit network good enough?

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FredrikL

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Hi

We are working with 4K red material in premiere CS5.5. We are wondering if a network drive over 1GB LAN is fast enough for editing in premiere? We are considering a Synology DS2411+ RAID5 network drive. It states average reading of 195 MB/sec.

Best regards,
Fred
 
fastest I got off a 1g connection ethernet is about 97 mb/sec. You'll never get past 100 mb/sec, because it's gigabit after all, so you'll never take advantage of the speed of the raid. You'll need something like 10g or something in between to get that. That said, ethernet is a very stable sustained transfer rate. and around the speeds off of 1g connection gives you the same speed as if you had a single disk hard drive connected via esata. if there are multi ethernet connections too, it may allow for multiple users at the same time off the same drive. which is another benefit.
 
Don't know how 195 MB/sec over a gigabit LAN is even remotely possible. The theoretical max of a gigabit LAN could only be 1000 mbps / 8 or 125 MB/sec. That being said, I would say no is the answer to your question based on my experience.
 
Thanks Tom and Richard,

I just checked the synology website, and the 195MB/sec is obtained through Link Aggregation. Both the Mac Pro 2009 (Quad-Core Intel Xeon) with Mac OS X Lion 10.7.1 and the Synology DS2411+ has 2 x 1GB LAN connections. Do you know if it is possible/easy to set up Link Aggregation? If so, would that speed be sufficient for editing 4K red material?

Thanks again,
Fred
 
honestly, working with r3d natively has a lot of factors to it, not just drive speed. but yes you can technically get real time results with drive speed like that, given you have a power house tower, and red rocket to help with the debayer. I can get real time playback off of single disk drives internally or via esata just fine, if i have a rocket card or lower my debayer settings. with Premiere, it's all gonna be a factor of everything, processing, drive speed, GPU for cuda, ram. etc. it will harness everything you have. but the answer for simple playback is, is yes I've done it, but will it be enough for a really heavy editorial of all r3d? that's left up in the air for people who do this workflow day in and day out to chime in. I typically work with offline media all the time and conform later.
 
Fredrik, real-world throughput to your edit bays across a Gigabit network is going to be about 75MB/sec, with jumbo frames enabled. You may see peaks into the 90MB/sec range, but not sustained.

I looked at the Synology site and they describe the DS2411+ as a NAS Server, so I'm not sure that's going to be a good solution for you if you want to edit over your Gigabit network from shared storage. I can't stress enough how important it is to work with a supplier who has experience with video production over a Gigabit network to make sure it works properly. If they're not managing system latency properly you'll see dropped frames and stuttering and it won't be a good experience. The folks at Small Tree and Maxx Digital are well-versed in these areas. (I have no affiliation with either of these companies, though I was involved with a shared-storage start-up that competed with them.)
 
Okay, see your point. I think perhaps we'll then go for the LaCie 4Big Quadra with eSATA. A safer and more future proof option? Thinking also about Epic 5K material hopefully coming soon...more data...

Whatcha think?

Fred
 
Fred, what format will you be editing in, or are you looking at working with native R3Ds? And how many streams do you usually work with? That will give us a good idea of the bandwidth you'll need.

Also, how many editors will be on your network, or is this direct-attached storage for a single Mac Pro?

d
 
Thanks for your input Douglas,

we are in a bit of a hurry as we are working with a documentary right now - concerning the purchase, that is - so thanks. Documentary means quite a bit of footage in our world (6 -7...++? TB) - but, fortunately we work in a simple manner and have this time only one short sequence with two layers of video and little effects other than color correction.

Only a single editor will work at the time and yes it is direct-attached storage for a single Mac Pro.

Fred
 
Fred, I'm sure there are lots of folks here who can advise you on the best storage solution for your needs, down to the make and model of eSATA or RAID adapter. You might want to start a new thread under Apple Workflow asking for recommendations for direct attached storage for your documentary work. I'll be sure to check out the responses as well.

Good luck wrapping up your project!

d
 
Taking our chances and just ordered the LaCie. Its not eternally large in terms of TB, but is more portable and will thus serve as an option in the field as well, the security of RAID5. The Synology solution was attractive as one could once and for all store many large projects under a large umbrella, retouching, reworking older projects, everything available+Mac and Pc/Cross platform available etc.
But that dream will be for next time, and the LaCie can continue as a field disk.

Fred.
 
...or as a backup. Can't forget the backup!

Did you pick up an eSATA adapter as well? (Sorry for asking the obvious, but I'd hate for the drive to arrive and you realize you don't have the adapter.)
 
Glad you went with SATA rather than Ethernet. We have a large Ethernet drive that we tried to use for serving R3D and it is absolutely hosing our workflow right now, and would make it impossible for you to edit your film and keep a full head of hair. Your external LaCie will work just fine from the sounds of what you're doing.
 
Douglas: yes, adapter picked up - we were wondering if it would be long enough though (think it was 45 cm, which would be sufficient for the Mac, i hope...:) - but I think it will be.Pray.

Jake: good to hear you support of our final choice, although Max speed on (Sata approx 240) shouldn't be THAT much more than the Synology solution given that everything worked seamlessly with aggregation etc etc. (I think it was approx 180). But we hadn't the time or money to take any chances at this point with shooting and editing and deadlines, so we went for what we figured the safest solution, for now.

In time, though, given that one is sure it works, something like the Synology, which is able to house 32 TB, would be great in an office environment, mulitiplatform, multiuser and loads of space - The La Cie will then follow us in the field and be great for safe doublebackup.

Thanks for all replies and help in a moment when we had to order as soon as possible.

Sincerely,

Fred.
 
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