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Final Cut files across network?


steve317

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I'm about to build an unRAID system, and the primary usage will be for our Mac Pro to read Final Cut Express files off of it, as well as for iTunes on that same Mac Pro to store its library on it (and share that library with other computers on the LAN).

 

I was planning to connect the unRAID box to the same network switch as the Mac Pro.  My understanding is, with GB Ethernet, this would make it even faster than a direct Firewire connection.

 

However, we are now realizing from a logistical standpoint for our office and data integrity, it would be better to mount the unRAID box (it's going in a rack mount Norco 4220 box anyway) in our server room APC server rack. 

 

However, integrity and logistics aside, I'm wondering what this means for performance: Because, this means the unRAID box will be directly connected to the LAN's main 48-port Level 3 switch, while the Mac Pro will be connected to a smaller managed 8-port switch which is in turn directly connected to the aforementioned main 48-port switch.

 

I have not yet used unRAID at all, so I don't have any firsthand experience with the nuances of its behavior, performance, and needs.  Can anyone tell me what kind of performance etc. hit it will create to have the workstation accessing the unRAID through this "sub-switch" rather than directly on the same switch?

 

 

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  • 2 months later...

I've always found editing full res files over a network to be a bit hit and miss. You can do it, but because your connection to unraid is using a file level protocol (smb) rather than something block level like firewire, sata, iscsi, fibre channel etc, I find things like scrubbing through media, starting from paused etc to be quite a bit slower. Its usually fine for just playing video in the timeline, but it has the potential to frustrate the hell out of your editors if they're searching through long clips etc.

 

I don't think which switch you place the box on will make any noticeable difference. I suggest you give it a go, using a standard windows pc if you dont have unraid running yet, and see what its like to edit with. SD or HD will make a big difference as well.

 

You could possibly look at using low res versions for editing, then replace the clips with full res counterparts for export, Final Cut Server automates that for you, but its not hard to do on your own.

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First, your network infrastructure should be ok, however everything else is not. SMB is not ideal for this type of work because of performance, try NFS instead. NFS on the Mac Pro should be configured to use resvport,intr (in /etc/auto_master & autofs.conf), otherwise you wouldn't be able to NFS mount unRaid shares on a Mac (the other way round, to configure unRaid to use unprivileged port for NFS is also ok, this would be the "insecure" option on unRaid).

 

Second, unRaid isn't very performant at all. You will hit single disk performance at best and not more than 50MB/s in the best case. Practically you will get something like 35MB/s at best.

 

Third, consider iSCSI (and mount the network disk as "local") as this will eliminate the TCP/IP overhead. unRaid doesn't support iSCSI out of the box but it may be installed if you have deep technical knowledge. You still will be hit by single disk performance as unRaid is designed to be a media/data tank and not for HD video editing...

 

So, I would recommend you get a decent performance NAS with several disks that will do 95MB/s and thus be able to saturate GigE, have iSCSI out of the box and use it exclusively for your FCP and iTunes files. There are cheap rackmount solutions available from Qnap, Iomega that will make you happy. Anything like a TS-509 or TS-809 (or the rackmount equiv) will do. Don't get me wrong, I love unRaid and have several running, it's just that what you want to do is not a pefect fit for unRaid. On the Mac Pro you may use the GlobalSAN iSCSI client, works really good.

 

 

 

 

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While I haven't tried this specifically yet (editing with FCP using unRAID as the media drive) I am more than a little skeptical about it.  I have tried to use unRAID at work for purposes "strictly Mac" I shall say... and what I have found in the past is file naming issues crop up more than I'd like.

 

We have relegated our two unRAID boxes as archive and backup archive servers, and in these roles unRAID works well. But when copying from AFP shares and/or Macs in general, file naming issues often prevent 100% reliable copies of folders, and the Mac OS doesn't play nicely with them after that.

 

I look forward to hearing more successes with unRAID in a Mac environment, though, if you have some to share!  And with AFP support coming, it should make a few things a little more integrated, too.

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