Larry Jordan believes in a new Mac Pro...

[yoak]

I get 350MB/s READ, 854MB/s WRITE on my QNAP NAS. Not too bad.

I'm amazed! How do you get those speeds? Can you give me more details on your set up please?
I'm obviously doing something wrong. I would be extremely happy to get anything close to that.
The readynas pro I have is supposed to be their fastest, and I doubt Qnaps are way faster than readynas.
I do however stay by my say about the general type of NAS not being suitable for editing 4K editing (or HD for that matter) though

 

[goMac]

I'm amazed! How do you get those speeds? Can you give me more details on your set up please?
I'm obviously doing something wrong. I would be extremely happy to get anything close to that.
The readynas pro I have is supposed to be their fastest, and I doubt Qnaps are way faster than readynas.
I do however stay by my say about the general type of NAS not being suitable for editing 4K editing (or HD for that matter) though

QNAPs are generally some of the best NASs out there. I'd guess they're a notch above ReadyNAS.

If you have 4 drives at 7200 RPM in RAID 0 you should be able to get those speeds pretty easy. A network connection is going to be far faster than any single hard drive. Even four of them should be far from maxing them out.

You'd also need to make sure you have a gigabit network. I've used NAS's that had their speeds totally crippled by 100 megabit networks.

 

[yoak]

QNAPs are generally some of the best NASs out there. I'd guess they're a notch above ReadyNAS.

If you have 4 drives at 7200 RPM in RAID 0 you should be able to get those speeds pretty easy. A network connection is going to be far faster than any single hard drive. Even four of them should be far from maxing them out.

You'd also need to make sure you have a gigabit network. I've used NAS's that had their speeds totally crippled by 100 megabit networks.

I have gigabit. I have 6 * 2TB 7200 disks in raid 5 (if I remember correctly).
Do you have it wired?

 

[deconstruct60]

I think ideally you'd have a large NAS connected to your workstations connected by 10GbE or maybe thunderbolt.

Thunderbolt isn't NAS. It is Direct attached storage (DAS). It will actually help make the "sneaker net" solution more viable. While technically thunderbolt could be classified a network, pragmatically it is a hierarchical direct attach set-up ( with the computer being the central orchestrator).

At least for the guy that needs 40TB of space. No product from Apple is going to tackle that problem, at today's storage capacities, you'd need at least 20 drives in RAID10 to serve that.

Chuckle there are even storage solutions that won't tackle 20 drives. For example,

http://www.small-tree.com/GraniteSTOR_Shared_Storage_s/94.htm

There is nothing in the line up that tackles 20 drives in a single box and these are video storage oriented solutions. It is easy to pick a "large enough" number that Apple can't hit. They don't make everything.

But for smaller home use, where you need maybe 4TB of space, but don't want a full mac pro, I don't really see a reason you can't accomplish that internally. 4 drive bay form factors are plenty small to double as an HTPC,

There is little to no motivation though to try to fit an consumer A/V storage cabinet console with the form factor. A 1/3 smaller Mac Pro could have 4+ drive bays and fullfill its primary desktop PC mission. If someone want to stick that on the floor beside a A/V center in a living room they could.

The issue is that boxes primarily targeted at HTPC problems are typically much smaller than a 1/3 smaller Mac Pro. They typically not what most users are looking for in a "faster than a Mac mini and iMac " desktop.
The ones with 4 3.5" bay space make tradeoffs for lower power CPU and GPUs and limited power supplies. All three of the latter would be bad for a "faster than iMac because price is higher" Mac offering.


I doubt Apple is going to put a BTO config highly optimized for HTPC. If they really believed there was a big, highly segmented HTPC market they'd probably make one. They don't. For an embedded context like highly dedicated HTPC OS X isn't really a good match. That is probably a large contributor why they don't. Also little to no motivation to adding relatively very low volume BTO options to a Mac product.

 

[echoout]

I'm amazed! How do you get those speeds? Can you give me more details on your set up please?
I'm obviously doing something wrong. I would be extremely happy to get anything close to that.
The readynas pro I have is supposed to be their fastest, and I doubt Qnaps are way faster than readynas.
I do however stay by my say about the general type of NAS not being suitable for editing 4K editing (or HD for that matter) though

Mine has been great for editing in ProRes 1080p. I don't think 4K is going to happen unless it's highly compressed. Going to test some 2K sequences from my Blackmagic Cinema Camera though.

I have 2 RAID5s and 2 hot spares in a TS-1279U-RP 12-bay enclosure using 12 7200RPM 4TB enterprise class hard drives across a 10GbE connection using Jumbo Frames.

 

[wallysb01]

Thunderbolt isn't NAS. It is Direct attached storage (DAS). It will actually help make the "sneaker net" solution more viable. While technically thunderbolt could be classified a network, pragmatically it is a hierarchical direct attach set-up ( with the computer being the central orchestrator).

Ok, we're getting into semantics. If some external box is sharing data to multiple computers, through what ever means, and that's is only real job, its close enough to a NAS for this discussion's purpose. And many things will have both Gbit/10Gbit and thunderbold (http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10607).

Chuckle there are even storage solutions that won't tackle 20 drives. For example,

http://www.small-tree.com/GraniteSTOR_Shared_Storage_s/94.htm

There is nothing in the line up that tackles 20 drives in a single box and these are video storage oriented solutions. It is easy to pick a "large enough" number that Apple can't hit. They don't make everything.

WTF? What is your point of contention here? We are in agreement, are we not? So, you're contesting that I shouldn't point out that its unreasonable to expect apple to make a solution for the poster that needs 40 TB of space? Seriously....? Do you just like to see yourself type or something? Do you have this much need to prove how smart you are?

There is little to no motivation though to try to fit an consumer A/V storage cabinet console with the form factor. A 1/3 smaller Mac Pro could have 4+ drive bays and fullfill its primary desktop PC mission. If someone want to stick that on the floor beside a A/V center in a living room they could.

Exactly.

The issue is that boxes primarily targeted at HTPC problems are typically much smaller than a 1/3 smaller Mac Pro. They typically not what most users are looking for in a "faster than a Mac mini and iMac " desktop.
The ones with 4 3.5" bay space make tradeoffs for lower power CPU and GPUs and limited power supplies. All three of the latter would be bad for a "faster than iMac because price is higher" Mac offering.

This is simply not a logical argument. Many HTPCs are very small, some are not. Just because many are smaller than what I'm suggesting, doesn't mean it should be and thus if it were it wouldn't be "faster than a Mac Mini or iMac." Do not create a straw man.

I doubt Apple is going to put a BTO config highly optimized for HTPC. If they really believed there was a big, highly segmented HTPC market they'd probably make one. They don't. For an embedded context like highly dedicated HTPC OS X isn't really a good match. That is probably a large contributor why they don't. Also little to no motivation to adding relatively very low volume BTO options to a Mac product.

Depends on what you mean by "highly optimized." The Mac Mini already makes a good HTPC. Its major weakness is only that its expensive for its capabilities and can't expand above about 2TBs with today's 2.5 HDDs. This would be something a little different that could also be, as part of its job, an HTPC. In a single form factor Apple could fill a few different rolls it is missing all at once. It could be a combo HTPC/home server with more HDD space than the Mac Mini. It could be a home server/desktop PC for those that might be interested in Mac Pro but its too costly and too big. It could be a nice data server/computational node as part of a larger network. And it could be your primary workstation, if the E5-1600s and other aspects are bit of over kill for you or if you just need something closer to $2000 rather than $2500.

You suggested something very similar that would actually take very little extra effort to expand it functionality and not take away anything from what you suggested.

 

[goMac]

The Mac Mini already makes a good HTPC. Its major weakness is only that its expensive for its capabilities and can't expand above about 2TBs with today's 2.5 HDDs.

Bingo. The Mac Mini is Apple's HTPC. And if you want massive storage, it comes with a Thunderbolt port and Gig-E ethernet.

 

[freejazz-man]

Thunderbolt isn't NAS, sheesh. I've yet to see a storage solution that includes thunderbolt AND highspeed NICs.

I work in a retouching studio with 3 retouchers. We are small yet it's completely impractical for us to sneakernet it. We use NAS's with Gb NICs. If we did video editing, we'd charge more and have a higher end NAS with 10Gb NICs.

 

[goMac]

Thunderbolt isn't NAS, sheesh. I've yet to see a storage solution that includes thunderbolt AND highspeed NICs.

I work in a retouching studio with 3 retouchers. We are small yet it's completely impractical for us to sneakernet it. We use NAS's with Gb NICs. If we did video editing, we'd charge more and have a higher end NAS with 10Gb NICs.

I'm not sure anyone was implying Thunderbolt = NAS. They're similar types of devices (large boxes with lots of drives) that have somewhat similar use cases, but no, a Thunderbolt drive box is not network attached storage.

 

[wallysb01]

Bingo. The Mac Mini is Apple's HTPC. And if you want massive storage, it comes with a Thunderbolt port and Gig-E ethernet.

Right, so you can have a Mac Mini + Thunderbolt or NAS. I'm saying this could be both in one, for roughly the same price as those two together, plus a more versitile machine. Remember, I didn't advocate this be the ONLY usage of this machine. Simply that you could hit the gap between the iMac and the Mac Pro and with only small changes hit this gap too.

 

[goMac]

I'm saying this could be both in one, for roughly the same price as those two together, plus a more versitile machine.

But the question is why? You could do a lot of things, but there isn't much evidence there is a large market for that. By doing so, you make the resulting machine much less flexible, when there is already a good solution for that.

I dunno, I give up. This thread is already starting to get off track and I like the original topic so I don't want it to get closed by the mods.

 

[yoak]

I was the guy that need 40TB of storage, and I'm not expecting a MacPro to give me that. I would like it to have space for 6 disks though and a couple of cards.
I don't want or need a smaller box, nor a stackable solution. I have enough power cables running already under my desk.

I'm amazed that you can edit prores 1080 of a qnap. We tried (3 years ago though) with a qnap and it never worked properly. Top of the kind back then, and caviar black 7200 disks.

I will investigate my setup when I get back from location. Hopefully I can get usable speeds out of it

 

[wallysb01]

But the question is why? You could do a lot of things, but there isn't much evidence there is a large market for that. By doing so, you make the resulting machine much less flexible, when there is already a good solution for that.

I dunno, I give up. This thread is already starting to get off track and I like the original topic so I don't want it to get closed by the mods.

Fair enough. I just think we are under estimating the future requirements of storage space and people's desire to have everything in one box as we move further away from media on stand alone disks.

Anyway, we can carry on with the other aspects of this thread.

----------

I was the guy that need 40TB of storage, and I'm not expecting a MacPro to give me that. I would like it to have space for 6 disks though and a couple of cards.

Just to be clear, I didn't want to suggest that you were advocating/desired for Apple to build a 40TB solution. It was really just meant as a throw away, "we'll obviously Apple isn't going to do that, but...." Kind of thing. Deconstruct seemed to make more of it than I intended however.

And I agree 6 drives would be very nice out of the Mac Pro. Or at least 4 3.5s + 2-3 2.5 bays.

 

[freejazz-man]

I wouldn't hold your breathes, storage is moving off the pc, in the office, studio and at home.

The only reason for local storage is speed and SSDs afford that in even smaller form factors. You might've tried a top of the line qnap a few years ago, but I assure that even a few years ago, a qnap was not a top of the line NAS. Maybe for small and home offices, but video editors took the storage off the local machine decades ago with SANs.

 

[yoak]

I wouldn't hold your breathes, storage is moving off the pc, in the office, studio and at home.

The only reason for local storage is speed and SSDs afford that in even smaller form factors. You might've tried a top of the line qnap a few years ago, but I assure that even a few years ago, a qnap was not a top of the line NAS. Maybe for small and home offices, but video editors took the storage off the local machine decades ago with SANs.

Agreed, but I don't like it
Back then I told our producer I didn't think a NAS would do for editing, as most editors will tell you they are a no-go.

SANs are great, but not so cost effective for a very small shop

 

[goodcow]

Thunderbolt isn't NAS, sheesh. I've yet to see a storage solution that includes thunderbolt AND highspeed NICs.

... Drobo?

Edit: My mistake, I thought one of the new Drobos had both, but it's one or the other.

 

[Tesselator]

... Drobo?

Edit: My mistake, I thought one of the new Drobos had both, but it's one or the other.

You could easily make one that both. Of course it would be DIY and not a "Drobo" though.

 

[echoout]

Agreed, but I don't like it
Back then I told our producer I didn't think a NAS would do for editing, as most editors will tell you they are a no-go.

SANs are great, but not so cost effective for a very small shop

That new Promax Platform Studio just about has me sold. The 32TB version is fast enough to edit pretty high res from several workstations and the price is WAY more competitive than I would've thought.

 

[freejazz-man]

EMC makes this product called isilon that is a balls-to-the-wall fast NAS

the stuff is out there, but it ain't cheap. if you got the chops, you can probably get very nice performing NAS setup with BSD or linux

qnap and synology make high-end products that can utilize 10Gb interfaces, they claim speeds that will work for high-res video editing. drobo makes a NAS as well now, though I'm doubtful of it's capabilities.

I think SANs are a left over from an 80s mind-set on computing. it's very much like sharing terminal access. technology has moved on in such a way that the costs of encapsulating the data in TCP/IP streams are so minimal, that the SAN mindset is becoming irrelevant on the smaller end. on the petabyte scale, I doubt there is anything that comes close still.

 

[deconstruct60]

I think SANs are a left over from an 80s mind-set on computing.

SAN and NAS basically merged. Many boxes can do both at the same time. (NetApp somewhat started the trend a long while back among others). NAS boxes serving up a logical volume management and file system ( where the storage can be managed ) and optionally iSCSI if want to layer a files system from a remote box. Somewhat vice versa for SAN (although typically more purest in their approach. ) but once coupled to a distributed file system (XSan , Lustre ) not all that different.

User -> distributed file system -> SAN
User -> NAS -> SAN

doesn't really make a whole lot of difference at the user end.

There are locking differences between some of the file systems, but storage blocks being stored logically is largely leads to being just as about as flexible.

The goofiness is that NAS somehow excludes vendors like NetApp, IBM, EMC , Oracle/Sun, etc. and doesn't scale. ( and is only folks like Drobo, QNAP , and Snynolgy ) .

 

[infinitech]

drobo has new rack mountable "pro" solutions. i recommend looking into the rack solution before buying a bunch of mismatched drobo units that will reach end of life before the rack versions for small businesses that don't want to invest in FC cards, switching equipment, etc.

still, xsan is such a treat to work with.

 

[anthonylambert]

A couple of directions the new Mac Pro could go in....

make the Mac Pro a smaller box and cut down the number of PCI slots it has and have an external thunderbolt box with more slots and other features. Like this: http://www.sonnettech.com/product/echoexpresschassis.html but maybe bigger. These extender boxes would work with other Mac models too...

Have built in support for Xeon Phi https://wiki.jlab.org/cc/external/wiki/index.php/Intel_Xeon_Phi_%28MIC%29_Cluster
50 cores running at a 1Ghz +

 

[freejazz-man]

SAN and NAS basically merged. Many boxes can do both at the same time. (NetApp somewhat started the trend a long while back among others). NAS boxes serving up a logical volume management and file system ( where the storage can be managed ) and optionally iSCSI if want to layer a files system from a remote box. Somewhat vice versa for SAN (although typically more purest in their approach. ) but once coupled to a distributed file system (XSan , Lustre ) not all that different.

User -> distributed file system -> SAN
User -> NAS -> SAN

well EMC does make a NAS product, and I'm sure a few of those other companies do as well. my point was that the changes in the computing industry dictated the shift towards NAS practicality as opposed to the previous requirement for large distributed systems. the ability of NAS boxes to perform SAN operations is a testament to this fact.

 

[deconstruct60]

well EMC does make a NAS product, and I'm sure a few of those other companies do as well. my point was that the changes in the computing industry dictated the shift towards NAS practicality as opposed to the previous requirement for large distributed systems. the ability of NAS boxes to perform SAN operations is a testament to this fact.

It really wasn't changes as much as simple economics. The problem with most of the distributed file systems is far most costs and availablity to clients than anything else.

All PCs ( Winows, OS X , Linux ) come being able to mount SMB/CIFS. AFS isn't that expensive to add (if not already built-in). NFS is in a similar context also (probably 'free' or not hard to add). These are the common NAS export interfaces. It is all ready to go "out of the box" for vast majority of clients which will consume/produce files.

In contrast, until relatively recently the distributed file systems were prohibitively priced. $500-900 for a file system per client??? Whole operating systems don't even cost that much. Extremely few folks are going to find a value proposition in paying more for something that has substantially narrower scope. Plus throw in on top of that some much higher per client network layer that many SANs lean toward.


Fine grained locking and arbitration isn't that hard to add to NAS (e.g., NFS v4.0 pNFS extension ).

NAS traffic can travel at greater than or equal to 10GbE and higher speeds just as well as SAN traffic so there is no real speed gap now either. (speed is not really the heart of the difference but often folk's "rule of thumb" made it so, because historically there have been pragmatic gaps. )

 

[clamnectar]

Haven't seen these before. I trust this guy's insight more than anyone else's personally.

http://www.larryjordan.biz/app_bin/wordpress/archives/2276

Really? The same Larry Jordan who said FCPX was going to be the best? His faith in Apple's blandly positive PR statements is laughable. Can you imagine Apple saying "We have something half-decent that will probably let down a lot of pros?" Will never happen, however true. If I didn't need a new Mac Pro myself, I would almost enjoy it if Larry Jordan were completely wrong about this one, just for the comedy value.