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awcopus · Oct 19, 2004, 04:44 PM

My video editing suite is about to get a speed boost to a new G5.

As a video editor who covets gigabytes, I had a hard time justifying plunking down cash for a new G5 because of its lack of expandability. My G4 contains a whopping terabyte of storage, of which 750GBs is pure scratch disk. The G5 can't come close to that.... or can it!

Alas, with progress in my business and the release of Motion, I have given in and purchased the 2.5 duallie and will be serving all of the media stored on my G4 to it via gigabit ethernet. If I am able to access those scratch disks at a useable speed (Apple's pretty confident that this won't be a problem), then I have those same 750GBs of scratch PLUS the extra 250GB drive in the G5. So that's the theory. A way of getting lots of scratch disc space without messing with Apple's cooling system.

This is sort of experimental, so I thought I would share it with the forum and tell you all how it turns out. Because I'm mostly editing DV, I don't expect any bandwidth problems, but I guess I'll find out all about that soon enough.

The dual 1.42 will not be underutilized because I'm basically upgrading my wife to it. Fortunately her use will not interfere with mine, given that I work during the day when she's at her job. She's being upgraded from an ultra-silent Cube. Don't know what I'm going to do with it. Maybe a music server? No idea. But it's too beautiful not to use for something.

My G5 is a refurbished unit I just ordered today, so I should have it within a week (knocks on wood, linoleum, steel, wood again). Stay tuned.

ixavi · Oct 20, 2004, 05:46 AM

I'm no expert in this but you'll have two machines with Firewire800 built in so you can try it also. I know it is possible to create a network with two computers using IP over firewire. Theoretically Gigabit ethernet should be faster (you know, 1000mbit vs. 800mbit.) but maybe practical and sustained read/write speeds are more reliable using firewire800.
If you try it please post your results, it would be interesting to see...
Also be sure to work with the fastest file transfer protocol available, so don't use windows sharing (aka SAMBA), use AFP instead.

Good luck!

Leonard · Oct 20, 2004, 10:58 AM

Hmmm... you only need a measely 750GB of disk space? Why not put in 2 - 250GB HDs in the SATA HD bays of the G5 and then put another 250GB HD in the space above the Optical drive. I think I heard of someone doing this. You can power the one above the optical drive with a Y-splitter from the Optical drive. Shouldn't cause heat problems.

There are other alternatives, but although they say they don't interfere with the cooling system I can see you having concerns with them:

http://www.wiebetech.com/products/G5Jam.php

http://www.transintl.com/store/categ...estTimeOut=500

http://homepage.mac.com/walter_chise...scription.html

http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/am...les/g5bracket/

awcopus · Oct 20, 2004, 11:24 AM

Originally posted by Leonard:
Hmmm... you only need a measely 750GB of disk space? Why not put in 2 - 250GB HDs in the SATA HD bays of the G5 and then put another 250GB HD in the space above the Optical drive. I think I heard of someone doing this. You can power the one above the optical drive with a Y-splitter from the Optical drive. Shouldn't cause heat problems.

There are other alternatives, but although they say they don't interfere with the cooling system I can see you having concerns with them:

http://www.wiebetech.com/products/G5Jam.php

http://www.transintl.com/store/categ...estTimeOut=500

http://homepage.mac.com/walter_chise...scription.html

http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/am...les/g5bracket/

Hello Leonard, thanks for the links. I have reviewed most of these options and, with Apple's FCP Support people's feedback, I have dismissed most of them as impractical.

The most "scratch disk" space I can get in a dual G5 without encroaching on Apple's finely tuned cooling system is 500 GB, and this would be, as you point out, at the expense of having an optical drive, which would be something of a bumber. I don't use the disc that I'm running the system off of as a scratch disc because it's simply too risky.

Preferably, I would have much more HD space. I do a lot of work on different projects at once and would like more HD space. For the time being, an X-Serve RAID is way too expensive, as are other possibilities. I haven't tried editing via Firewire 800, and maybe that's going to be so much more like using internal ATA drives than using FW400 was that it will be practical.

I think that I should be able to use the dual 1.4 as a server via gigabit ethernet, and I will surely report back once I give it a go.

awcopus · Oct 20, 2004, 11:47 AM

Originally posted by ixavi:
...be sure to work with the fastest file transfer protocol available, so don't use windows sharing (aka SAMBA), use AFP instead.

Good luck!

Thanks. So, you are recommending that I use Apple's Personal File Sharing to mount the volumes in my 1.42 on my G5 desktop, and then connect to those files from within FCP, right? That's what I'm planning to do. Does anyone think this adventure would be aided by running Panther Server on the G4?

power142 · Oct 20, 2004, 01:08 PM

I doubt it, at least by much. They are essentially the same code base with some configuration differences. OSX Server just gives you the fancy GUI to configure things with (and in greater depth)

awcopus · Oct 22, 2004, 11:39 AM

The dual 2.5 G5 is *superfast*. As in, o my, this machine is fast, as in...

I figured I should start this baby up before I start installing RAM and hard drives and ethernet cards, just to make sure it shipped in solid working order.

Finally, OS X is as snappy as I remember it being in OS 9. Just, wow. WOW! I'm positively giddy.

Now, hopefully my plan will work. Probably going to take a while to try out.

Weezer · Oct 22, 2004, 03:58 PM

arn't you the same guy who was talking a lot of trash about the new dual 2's and how glad you were that you bought the 1.42?

Scotttheking · Oct 22, 2004, 04:13 PM

Originally posted by awcopus:
Preferably, I would have much more HD space.

bigger

Add in an external tower from here and you'll have plenty of space. Just load it up with the drives linked above.

You could use the dual 1.42 to store files for other projects, and have the files you need for the current project locally, as another solution.
If you are planning on gigE, make sure to get a switch that supports jumbo frames.

awcopus · Oct 22, 2004, 10:49 PM

Originally posted by Weezer:
arn't you the same guy who was talking a lot of trash about the new dual 2's and how glad you were that you bought the 1.42?

Yeah, I fessed up to this in my initial post, but thanks for bringing that up again.

Bottomline is that I had to cave in and get a G5 to run Motion. The G4 simply couldn't handle the load. Of course, as you can see, I'm still sort of trying to make the whole storage/performance thing work without shelling out major bucks.

I decided to go for the top-of-the-line G5 because I consider it the best long-term value. By the time Tiger comes out, I should be able to outfit this machine with an ATI X800, too, so that will add still more life to the purchase.

Meanwhile, so far the experiment is going nicely. As stated above, I'm connecting the machines via a PCI-X gigabit ethernet card and the built-in gigabit ethernet of the G4. Though projects take a bit longer to open up, once open the performance is definitely solid. I will have to do some research to figure out if there are performance advantages to using a separate PCI-based gigabit ethernet card in the G4.

awcopus · Oct 22, 2004, 10:52 PM

Originally posted by Scotttheking:
bigger

Add in an external tower from here and you'll have plenty of space. Just load it up with the drives linked above.

You could use the dual 1.42 to store files for other projects, and have the files you need for the current project locally, as another solution.
If you are planning on gigE, make sure to get a switch that supports jumbo frames.

Scott, thanks for the head's up on the 400 gb drive. Is that thing compatible with the G5? I was under the impression that Apple had said something about 250gb being the limit... or was that simply the largest drive available at the time?

Scotttheking · Oct 23, 2004, 12:41 AM

Originally posted by awcopus:
Scott, thanks for the head's up on the 400 gb drive. Is that thing compatible with the G5? I was under the impression that Apple had said something about 250gb being the limit... or was that simply the largest drive available at the time?

It'll work fine.

awcopus · Oct 23, 2004, 12:47 AM

Just ordered one from NewEgg. This is definitely going to make my workflow easier. The 250GB drive becomes my startup disc and the 400 GB drive is my new scratch disc. Wish there were some use for the 160 GB drive that shipped with the machine! D'oh!

scottiB · Oct 23, 2004, 10:55 AM

Buy a FW case that supports 5.25" drives and use a SATA>IDE adapter to bridge to two interfaces. The larger FW case should be able to accommodate the adapter.

Mafia · Oct 23, 2004, 08:01 PM

Originally posted by awcopus:
Just ordered one from NewEgg. This is definitely going to make my workflow easier. The 250GB drive becomes my startup disc and the 400 GB drive is my new scratch disc. Wish there were some use for the 160 GB drive that shipped with the machine! D'oh!

or send it to me

awcopus · Oct 31, 2004, 08:09 AM

Final report on my new setup.

Wife's 1.42 duallie resides near her desk and is newly outfitted with a Sonnet Presto gigabit ethernet card. Its built-in ethernet connects to my Netgear router/hub for internet and printer access. I run Cat-6 cable from the Presto to a PCI-X gigabit card in the G5. (I use its built-in ethernet for internet and printer access as well).

When I open FCP projects that are looking for files on the G4, there is definitely a bottleneck somewhere because it take longer to find them. But once the project is open, I'm getting excellent playback speeds. Renders don't seem to be affected because I've set my render cache to a drive in my G5 (without which this takes way too long).

In Network settings for these NICs, under Ethernet, I force the cards to operate at gigabit speeds only. Otherwise, I don't do anything special here. I've also set the G4 drives to be connected to when the G5 boots up.

Bottomline is that I'm able to keep my workflow on multiple projects moving forward in a way that would be impossible without the HD space in the G4 or a more costly solution. Given the often cited heat issues of the high-end G5 systems, I'm not comfortable loading it up using the solutions that third party developers have released. I'll keep the above setup until a few more projects go by and I'm able to afford an XRaid. But between now and then, my next big purchase is a jib (http://www.ezfx.com).

Happy to answer any questions people have about this setup.

Mafia · Oct 31, 2004, 11:17 AM

sounds like you got everything working good

btw jibs are cool. what kind of video projects do you do?

awcopus · Oct 31, 2004, 03:13 PM

Originally posted by Mafia:
sounds like you got everything working good
btw jibs are cool. what kind of video projects do you do?

Currently producing a series of instruction videos for an artists' guild and in preproduction on my first independent production. I do all of my own shooting and, obviously, editing. Would never have been able to do this without support from Apple's robust commitment to FCP and DVDSP... and from my wife.