New MAC User : Three questions

[Georg R. Baumann]

Greetings,

my first Mac should arrive end of the week. Now I have a basic question. I like the idea to have only monitors and keyboard/mouse/wacom in my office, hence would like to place the mac into the adjacent maschine room which would be round about 8 meters away.

1.
I ordered 10 meter cables for the monitors, but what about bluetooth? I have no experience with bluetooth. Can I use the keyboard and mouse over that distance with a stone wall inbetween?

2.
What about USB and Firewire connections, what maximum cable length can you use without need to boost the signal?

3.
Assuming bluetooth works as described in 1., it is my understanding that the macbook pro cann communicate with the mac pro via bluetooth, hence I can access data on the mac pro via my mac book. But waht about the DVD drive in my mac book? Can I use that to install software on the mac pro?

Thanks!

[Michael Fontana]

Hi George

the FW specs says 5 meter, when coupling two together, a powered hub or repeater is required.
Even shorter with USB, about 1.5 m, as its much lesser voltage.

Does it makes sense?
personally, I doubt, as walking 2 x 8 m for inserting a CD, etc make you becoming a marathon men. Up to the olympics, bear!

BT is not made for heavy data transport, nor is USB. The faster lines are FW, S-ATA, and a 10-Gigabit-Ethernet. The slower device will alwith slowing down the faster one.

[Georg R. Baumann]

Hi Michael,

that was why I was hoping to use my Macbook for CD/DVD purposes to make installations or copies from the Mac Pro.

So if I understand you correct, the BT would not work on that distance with the obstacle of a wall inbetween? My dealer said there shoul dbe no problem with that, he claimed 15 meters would be the distance usable.

The reason for the Mac Pro in a seperate room is simply noise, when you do music, you do not want to have the sound of computer fans or harddrives in your ears at the same time.

[Michael Fontana]

Hi Michael,

So if I understand you correct, the BT would not work on that distance with the obstacle of a wall inbetween? My dealer said there shoul dbe no problem with that, he claimed 15 meters would be the distance usable.


okay, I can see the noise problems, but BT is not made for big data transfer, as you've with big sound files. It's not a distance problem, but the bandwith of the protocoll.

So my suggestion would be FireWire-net, aka IP over FireWire (http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2003/11/11/panther_internet.html).

Don't forget to give the FireWire-net a different IP, than for the router/web, therefore something like 10.0.0.2

[Georg R. Baumann]

I may not have been clear enough. I just need that keyboard/mouse/wacom to work on that distance. The latter posing a problem as it is USB.

Any ideas what I need to achieve 10 meter usb?

[Michael Fontana]

I may not have been clear enough. I just need that keyboard/mouse/wacom to work on that distance. The latter posing a problem as it is USB.

Any ideas what I need to achieve 10 meter usb?

George, you need active, aka powered USB-hubs at the maximal distance of the USB-spec.
The wacom here sucks 500 mA, which is at the top range of the USB-power. The keyboard requires 250 mA, only.

The longer the cable gets, the less power comes through.
I read the USB-info at wiki, it says 5m cablelenght, which is AFAIK to long for a 500 mA-device.
But you should be fine with 3 x 3 m, and 2 hubs.

[Georg R. Baumann]

Thanks Michael, I'll look into that!

[Jack_Flesher]

1) Your bluetooth will work across the room, so 10 feet should be no issue.

2) I have two printers attached to my MacPro via 3 or 4 meter USB cables, no problems at all. Cannot speak to FW as my longest is 1 meter.

3) You can network the two machines across bluetooth, but probably better to use at least FW800 and best to use GigLan as they're going to be a lot faster and more reliable. Mac has support for both built-in, and you won't even need a GigLan hub if you use a crossover LAN cable. Don't know if the DVD drive sharing will work as I've never tried that. But why not get at least one optical drive in your MacPro? They're only a few bucks and save you a bunch of hassle...

Cheers,

[Georg R. Baumann]

Hey Jack :)

Thanks for that, that is kewl, I have my 11880 connected via ethernet anyways, the 3800 is USB.

I got an ethernet switch, so you are right, I just run another cat5 if the wireless should be dodgy.

Thanks!

[Nicolas Claris]

Hi Bear
I received the same Mac a few days ago, here the Temp is between 20 to 33 C° (when I forget to put the aircon on). The Mac Fan never started, they are very well cooled machines.
Mine is silencious as a dead man…
Maybe the BT would work on 10 meter, but I doubt if it has an Irish stone wall to get thru!

FW can be quite long provided that you get the right cable, you should check there:
http://www.touslescables.com/
http://www.abix.fr/cables-connectique,LI.html
Remember I'll come to Ireland soon… I can bring anything (well almost!)

I would have the Mac by me and the external HD drives away… or just shut them down when doing music…

[Jack_Flesher]

Nicolas, the fans are running, just at minimum speed and you cannot hear them :) You can load this utility and keep lots of stats available on your title bar, temps, CPU activity, Memory, Disks and temps: istat menu @ http://www.islayer.com/

Enjoy,

[Nicolas Claris]

Hi Jack
Ok, I agree, but the main importance thing is that one cannot hear the fans!

Unless Georg wants to make a studio for recording…

I have also to admit that my acouphens do cover a lot of little noises :-(

Thanks for the link, I use another one (meter menu) but I'll give a try to yours…

[Georg R. Baumann]

Yeah, the new Mac will serve the purpose as a recording monster as well as running photohsop, lightroom etc.

I just like the idea to ban all those boxes and external HD's from my main office and have it nice and quiet instead.

Then again, may be this latest Mac Pro ain't that noisy as I expect. I just saw a Mac last year in Germany, it was a G5 I think, but boy a hairblower could not be worse that loud this sucker was.
When I asked him whether his Mac is having chronic bronchitis or something he said this noise would be quite normal. LOLOL

Btw Jack, I did not go for the apple cinema display, but decided towards the NEC 3090 Spectraview instead and a smaller 24" Eizo HD2441W. Heck, I had to get a desk build that suits such a setup, but should be really nice. Desk arrived last friday, 2.65 meter long and 1.20 deep, made from toughened satin glas, hanging in a U-Channel that is screwed into the wall and standing on 4 slim stainless steel legs. LOVE IT! :)

[Jack_Flesher]

Georg

The desk sounds wunnurful -- congrats! Monitors are a personal choice, lots of good ones and what you do with them -- not brand -- is what counts in my book :)

PS: If you have a newer Mac Pro and can hear it, you probably have something set up incorrectly...

:D,

[Nicolas Claris]

Then again, may be this latest Mac Pro ain't that noisy as I expect. I just saw a Mac last year in Germany, it was a G5 I think, but boy a hairblower could not be worse that loud this sucker was.
When I asked him whether his Mac is having chronic bronchitis or something he said this noise would be quite normal. LOLOL

Nothing to see, some G5 are… yes noisy

Heck, I had to get a desk build that suits such a setup, but should be really nice. Desk arrived last friday, 2.65 meter long and 1.20 deep, made from toughened satin glas, hanging in a U-Channel that is screwed into the wall and standing on 4 slim stainless steel legs. LOVE IT! :)

We need a snap of it (if you remember how to snapshoot!) !!!

[Georg R. Baumann]

Georg

The desk sounds wunnurful -- congrats! Monitors are a personal choice, lots of good ones and what you do with them -- not brand -- is what counts in my book :)

PS: If you have a newer Mac Pro and can hear it, you probably have something set up incorrectly...

:D,

Thanks Jack, and yeaaaah, monitors are not an easy decision to make, at least in my book. I spoke to all of them on my shortlist, which was Quato, Nec and Eizo.

Boy am I glad I did not buy this bloody G5 he wanted to sell me last year, I think it was 2 month later that it completly broke down. Yup the Mac Pro is the latest version. Really exited about that. :) Will be a change for me as I am used to work on three monitors since 2001, but well, 3x ~19 Inch eye suckers and no where near the quality of a modern monitor.

I have six external harddrives at the moment, but I am wondering whether I ditch the older 250 Gig Lacie FW and Western Digital USB drives and only keep a few larger TB drives instead of having a lot of wall warts.

Nicolas, yup will make a snap when the Monitors arrived. Should be end of July, fingers crossed.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

I have six external harddrives at the moment, but I am wondering whether I ditch the older 250 Gig Lacie FW and Western Digital USB drives and only keep a few larger TB drives instead of having a lot of wall warts.

Ah, choice choices, how recognisable.

I decided that for on-line storage a 4-drive NAS (NetGear ReadyNAS (http://www.readynas.com/) NV+) would reduce the cable clutter and still alow a lot of flexibility (incl. wireless laptop access) with reasonable speed (30 MB/s wired, wireless is obviously bandwidth limited). I run it in X-RAID mode, which allows extendible redundant storage (I know that's not the same as a backup) with hot-swappable Enterprise/RAID quality SATA drives of my choice. The NAS can be run from UPS power, which allows a graceful powerdown cycle by USB connection with power outages.

Backups can be made on physically separate (USB) storage units like Western Digital and LaCie (usually Maxtor drives inside), but they can be kept off-line off-power for most of the time which reduces wear, power/cooling requirements, and lightning/power surge risks.

Bart

[Georg R. Baumann]

LOVE IT!

Add a few WD Raptors and this should perform quite well!

Thanks Bart, I am checking on prices now.

[Jack_Flesher]

I have six external harddrives at the moment, but I am wondering whether I ditch the older 250 Gig Lacie FW and Western Digital USB drives and only keep a few larger TB drives instead of having a lot of wall warts.


I got rid of all my small drives when I went Mac earlier this year. I transferred everything onto a few 1TB externals, and duped those for offsite, redundant back-up. Also put a pair of 1TB's in open bays in the Mac Pro and striped them for uber-fast reads and saves of my image files. However, my drives were filling up and I'm not really satisfied with a jumble of external boxes, so I just ordered one of the new FW800 DROBO units. Not as fast as true RAID 5 probably, but then it's just an external box for mass storage, so am thinking it will be fine. I really like the intelligent RAID 5 format and its capability to use my existing drives in a mix and match fashion. So my new set-up will be a pair of smaller drives striped in the Mac Pro for fast reads and saves on my current working files with all the historical images off on the DROBO, and then the DROBO backed up to a set of drives stored offsite.

For the box, OS and scratch: I know several folks that stripe a pair or more of drives for increased OS and scratch performance. I do not like striped arrays for my OS due to lower reliability, but was considering it for scratch. Issue here is I have 16 Gigs of RAM in my box so don't hit scratch very often in the first place even with my big files. But, Western Digital just released a new 300G SATA2 10,000 RPM Velociraptor that screams! (see barefeats: http://www.barefeats.com/hard103.html) A buddy ordered two for his older Mac Pro, one for OS and apps and one for scratch, and basically halved all his launch times and CS3 processing times. Biggest issue I have with them is they are not standard SATA connector location, so don't fit inside the slide-in bays. (There is a gizmo you can buy that allows you to mount a pair of 3.5 drives in the lower optical bay and utilizes the two additional spare SATA ports on the MB.) Other issue is they're pricey at $300 or $1/gig... Good news though is WD just announced a SATA bus location-compliant version that should be available in a few weeks. When those hit the market I may spring for a pair myself.

Lots you can do to these bad boys :)

Cheers,

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

LOVE IT!

Add a few WD Raptors and this should perform quite well!

Thanks Bart, I am checking on prices now.

Yes, shopping around is always a good idea. I got a better price for a partly filled (2 drives) unit than for an empty one (at the same local supplier)!! Also, should you decide to get a NetGear NAS (there are also other good brands, but the NV+ is popular and availability is usually good) make sure to check their hardware compatibility list (http://www.readynas.com/?page_id=76) for recommended drive models (they are not all created equal, it appears). Throughput can also be improved by choosing a good gigabit network switch, if needed, that allows Turbo-packages.

It's not as cheap as a stack of external boxes, but it looks quite reliable sofar, and it's well supported (spare parts like e.g. a replacement fan are readily available). There is also a huge userbase, so firmware is probably quite stable by now.

Bart

[Sean DeMerchant]

George, you need active, aka powered USB-hubs at the maximal distance of the USB-spec.
The wacom here sucks 500 mA, which is at the top range of the USB-power. The keyboard requires 250 mA, only.

The longer the cable gets, the less power comes through.
I read the USB-info at wiki, it says 5m cablelenght, which is AFAIK to long for a 500 mA-device.
But you should be fine with 3 x 3 m, and 2 hubs.

You might also look into KVM switches which would run everything on shorter cables (video, keyboard, mouse, and USB) as they are inexpensive (~$20 USD last time I checked, but you get what you pay for).

Heck, I had to get a desk build that suits such a setup, but should be really nice. Desk arrived last friday, 2.65 meter long and 1.20 deep, made from toughened satin glas, hanging in a U-Channel that is screwed into the wall and standing on 4 slim stainless steel legs. LOVE IT! :)

Any pictures? I have no idea what U-Channel is. <smile>



I have six external harddrives at the moment, but I am wondering whether I ditch the older 250 Gig Lacie FW and Western Digital USB drives and only keep a few larger TB drives instead of having a lot of wall warts.


An older solution:

http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/sonnet/500p/

Please note that item is old and you can find more options now.

Ah, choice choices, how recognisable.

I decided that for on-line storage a 4-drive NAS (NetGear ReadyNAS (http://www.readynas.com/) NV+) would reduce the cable clutter and still alow a lot of flexibility (incl. wireless laptop access) with reasonable speed (30 MB/s wired, wireless is obviously bandwidth limited).

Going DAS would moderately increase cabling to 1 cable for every 4 or 5 drives depending on if one used SAS or eSATA w/ a port multiplier. Both are hot swappable IIRC. Write speeds will then be bound by the speed of your controller and PCI-Express bus which can hit 600 MB sustained w/ SAS. But even an X1 PCI-Express port can exceed 100 MB/s.

Even for simple external backup, single drive eSATA enclosures with a single modern drive will outperform USB by a large percentage.

NAS is consistently at a performance disadvantage to DAS in the consumer realm without jumping an order of magnitude in pricing. While the slower network link in NAS allows for more features at a pricepoint due to looser real-time performance requirements.


I got rid of all my small drives when I went Mac earlier this year. I transferred everything onto a few 1TB externals...

So my new set-up will be a pair of smaller drives striped in the Mac Pro for fast reads and saves on my current working files with all the historical images off on the DROBO, and then the DROBO backed up to a set of drives stored offsite.


One thing to watch is transfer rates of your drives. At times one can talk a group of older drives and gang them together with RAID To boost performance, but if the drives are old enough then it may not be worth it due to their low aggregate performance (i.e., a single brand new drive and single drive enclose could provide higher performance.




For the box, OS and scratch: I know several folks that stripe a pair or more of drives for increased OS and scratch performance. I do not like striped arrays for my OS due to lower reliability,
but was considering it for scratch. Issue here is I have 16 Gigs of RAM in my box so don't hit scratch very often in the first place even with my big files.


Just move your applications out there or buy an SAS controller and use RAID 5 or RAID 6 (although RAID 0+1 is good enough).

But, Western Digital just released a new 300G SATA2 10,000 RPM Velociraptor that screams! (see barefeats: http://www.barefeats.com/hard103.html) A buddy ordered two for his older Mac Pro, one for OS and apps and one for scratch, and basically halved all his launch times and CS3 processing times. Biggest issue I have with them is they are not standard SATA connector location, so don't fit inside the slide-in bays. (There is a gizmo you can buy that allows you to mount a pair of 3.5 drives in the lower optical bay and utilizes the two additional spare SATA ports on the MB.) Other issue is they're pricey at $300 or $1/gig... Good news though is WD just announced a SATA bus location-compliant version that should be available in a few weeks. When those hit the market I may spring for a pair myself.


A lot of the larger 7200 RPM drives come close for way less money due to their higher areal densities. Western Digital actually slowed down some 7200 RPM 500 GB drives as they outperformed their 10,000 RPM Raptors. More expensive is not always faster (although quality control and warranty are often better).

some thoughts,

Sean

[Georg R. Baumann]

Hi Sean,

thanks for jumping in here. :) What is DAS Sean? I know about SAN or NAS.

A U-Channel is simply a aluminium profile looking like a "U", now turn that 45 degrees to the left for example and have a wall behind it, then screw the sucker into the wall, slide the 8mm toughened glas into it and secure with a gasket and silicon, this way you distribute weight of the table quite nice and need only four slimline stainless steel posts at the front. The desk is designed to easily take weight loads of 80-100 kilogram.

You guys gave me a lot to think about, I will not jump to conclusions and rather spend some time reading up on attached storage solutions to find out what is best bang for the buck. I don't need to jump at it right away, for now I have two 1 TB external Lacie's in addition to internal 3 TB (Western Digital) in the Mac Pro.

While I loved external HD's a few years ago, it really becomes a pest, LOL, they have a habbit to multiply like rabbits.

[Jack_Flesher]

One thing to watch is transfer rates of your drives. At times one can talk a group of older drives and gang them together with RAID To boost performance, but if the drives are old enough then it may not be worth it due to their low aggregate performance (i.e., a single brand new drive and single drive enclose could provide higher performance.
That's a key advantage of the DROBO -- you can mix and match drive manufacturers, spindle speed, capacities and even mix SATA1 and SATA2 all in the same box and the DROBO smart RAID deals with it.


Just move your applications out there or buy an SAS controller and use RAID 5 or RAID 6 (although RAID 0+1 is good enough).

Have you compared prices of SAS drives to SATA2 drives lately? SAS is still running $2 - $3 per Gig, not to mention there aren't very many options larger than 147 Gig. Also, perhaps you aren't aware that with the Mac Pro you have to be either ALL SAS or none, and the SAS controller card for Mac is priced around $1000 all by itself. Bottom line is SAS is NOT a cost-efficient solution for most still digital imaging applications...

A lot of the larger 7200 RPM drives come close for way less money due to their higher areal densities. Western Digital actually slowed down some 7200 RPM 500 GB drives as they outperformed their 10,000 RPM Raptors. More expensive is not always faster (although quality control and warranty are often better).
Indeed, but the original 10K Raptor was/is a SATA1 drive and the new Velociraptor is a SATA2 and whomps the older Raptor in all the tests. (You should take the time to click on the link I gave above for the Barefeats test of it.) But yes, the relatively new WD 640G dual platter SATA2 drive retails for under $100 and has shown excellent I/O specs... Actually considered striping a pair of them for scratch :)
~~~

George, DAS is Direct Attached Storage as opposed to Network... My DROBO is DAS in basic form, but you can also add a NAS base to it for around $200...

Cheers,

[Sean DeMerchant]

thanks for jumping in here. :) What is DAS Sean? I know about SAN or NAS.


DAS is Direct Attached Storage which is the way of directly boosting the disk performance of a single machine. SAN hardware is used to distribute high performance storage to group of machines and adds an expensive layer of hardware. SAS does supports using SAS as a SAN protocol. SAS, Fibre Channel, and many other SAN protocols and transport mechanisms exceed the performance of 10Gb Ethernet.

eSATA is a hot swappable DAS cabling system. There are many possible variations of eSATA. One could use a SteelVine (http://www.sci-worx.com/products/productfamily.aspx?id=3) using eSATA drive collection to support daisy chaining of eSATA drives like FireWire supports with more bandwidth.

One can also use port multipliers to connect multiple drives to a single eSATA cable with 3 or 4 drives in RAID 0 being able to saturate the connection. With up to 5 drives per eSATA cable being common, one can reduce cable and box clutter.

While the bandwidth of a single eSATA cable is lower than other technologies, they are faster than NAS storage and will bring up the bottom line of your workstations performance/responsiveness.

find out what is best bang for the buck. I don't need to jump at it right away, for now I have two 1 TB external Lacie's in addition to internal 3 TB (Western Digital) in the Mac Pro.

While I loved external HD's a few years ago, it really becomes a pest, LOL, they have a habbit to multiply like rabbits.

The next step up from 5 bay eSATA gear tends to be rackmount. But if you find something reasonable and larger (8 bay SAS enclosures are similarly priced, but the SAS controller is much more expensive).

The one thing to note here is that eSATA is faster than FireWire but not as expandable (shorter daisy chains). I think a nice eSATA card on a laptop could really boost its performance with a 5 drive enclosure.

some thoughts,

Sean

[Sean DeMerchant]

Have you compared prices of SAS drives to SATA2 drives lately? SAS is still running $2 - $3 per Gig, not to mention there aren't very many options larger than 147 Gig. Also, perhaps you aren't aware that with the Mac Pro you have to be either ALL SAS or none, and the SAS controller card for Mac is priced around $1000 all by itself. Bottom line is SAS is NOT a cost-efficient solution for most still digital imaging applications...
[quote]
You can use SATA drives on SAS controllers too. You only need the SAS drives if you need reliability feature or 15K spindle speeds. What going SAS yields is fancier controller cards with more bandwidth (x4 and x8 PCI Express) and onboard XOR processors for RAID 5 and RAID 6.

You can get a cheaper SAS controller (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115050) but may sacrifice features (cache, battery backup, ...). I would not rule out SAS (I would rule out SAS drives) for most digital imaging needs. eSATA is likely in the cost sweetspot for a small number of TB of data.

[quote=Jack_Flesher;53799]

Indeed, but the original 10K Raptor was/is a SATA1 drive and the new Velociraptor is a SATA2 and whomps the older Raptor in all the tests. (You should take the time to click on the link I gave above for the Barefeats test of it.) But yes, the relatively new WD 640G dual platter SATA2 drive retails for under $100

I read the reviews months ago. The SATA I versus SATA II does not matter (the drive design in the old Raptor could not saturate a SATA cable so additional bandwidth at the transport layer cannot do very much to improve speed).

Heck, the old Raptor was being beaten by 7200 RPM drives.

The DROBO looks cool, but using old drives rather than a some cheap new ones will often kill performance w/ DAS.

some thoughts,

Sean

[Jack_Flesher]

Heck, the old Raptor was being beaten by 7200 RPM drives.

And the new one beats the current best 7200 drives. So while SATA1 may not have been saturated, the newer SATA2 drives are faster, and that's what counts for us in the real world, is it not?


The DROBO looks cool, but using old drives rather than a some cheap new ones will often kill performance w/ DAS.

Of course, I was just pointing out that it CAN use them. Personally, I'll be stuffing mine with 4 @ 1TB drives :)

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Personally, I'll be stuffing mine with 4 @ 1TB drives :)

Are you planning to get the version 2 model, or do you already have one of the early V2 models (since it has just been announced)?

I have not read any user feedback, but I did read about the version 1 that it tended to run very hot, which is not a good thing for drive longevity. The version 1 model also was rather expensive for what it offered, and local availability was problematic in the Netherlands until recent.

One of the main concerns I have about Drobo's proprietary protocol, and fed by anecdotal user experience sofar, how good can it survive power failures? Proper RAID (e.g. RAID 5) implementations seem to be quite reliable in rebuilding files/file systems after catastrophic events (which is not the same as hot-swapping). Is the Drobo up to the task?

Bart

[Jack_Flesher]

I ordered the V2 unit and am waiting for it to ship. Drobo is fine in a power out, but needs power if it is in the middle of a rebuild or that rebuild will fail. Fortunately it only needs to rebuild after a drive change or addition, but obviously a good idea to have it plugged in to a UPS. As for heat, the drives drive that (ha!) but the new unit is supposed to have more efficient and much quieter fans and run cooler.

I'll be able to share more once I get it up and running.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

As for heat, the drives drive that (ha!) but the new unit is supposed to have more efficient and much quieter fans and run cooler.

Yes, the drives probably generate most of the heat (I don't remember if the box has internal power supply or external brick), but the long intensive processing of redundant data also caused more than healthy drive usage in the previous model. Hopefully they solved that as well.

I'll be able to share more once I get it up and running.

Looking forward to that.

Bart

[Michael Fontana]

hm drobo,
I'm not to sure about that, as it has its own proprietairy file system.
So if things go wrong with the drobo itself/internal raid controller, whatever apart from the harddisc, you can't just put a harddisc out of the drobo in the mac/external enclosure, as it will not be recognised.

The only way to access the data is buying a new drobo and waiting to be delivered...

[Jack_Flesher]

hm drobo,
I'm not to sure about that, as it has its own proprietairy file system.
So if things go wrong with the drobo itself/internal raid controller, whatever apart from the harddisc, you can't just put a harddisc out of the drobo in the mac/external enclosure, as it will not be recognised.

The only way to access the data is buying a new drobo and waiting to be delivered...

And it works pretty much that way with any RAID5 system :)

And if you read my entire protocol I outlined above, you'll note that my DROBO will be redundantly backed up to individual drives stored offsite, so for the most part my data files are totally re-constructible.

[Michael Fontana]

hey Jack

that wasn't a offense towards your new baby; I simply wanted to make George - a newbee in terms of HFS+ - aware of the fact:

"Using an intelligent mixture of industry standard practices to protect your data, Drobo can offer significantly more storage capacity than standard RAID solutions."

Other data storage systems allow RAID 1, aka mirror-RAID, whithin HFS+.

Sure, the add a disc-feature of the drobo is nice, its just the "intelligent mixture of industry standard practices " beeing the price you pay for.

[Georg R. Baumann]

SAS:

I read a review in the last Sound on Sound magazine, they do tests concerning sample streaming and audio track replay at rates such as 24 bit and 96 khz, loading Reverb Units and playing virtual instruments.

The conclusion was that SAS did not provide a considerable boost in performance concerning the required audio performance compared to non SAS mac's. The Tester concluded that the perfomance boost probably makes sense for people that use HD video streaming in programs such as Adobe Premiere or similiar, but questioned the capital expenditure for other applications.

As Jack said, the prices for the RAID controller and (here) 300 Gig SAS drives are extraordinary high, and you can not mix it with regular SATA 2in the Mac Pro.

My thoughts concerning such storage solutions are:

- Performance

Does it really give me an edge in terms of real world applications? Programs such as NUENDO seem not to benefit THAT much from it, and sample playback does not need it either, here RAM is rather important. Current SATA 2 drives already have a high performance for such applications.

- Reliability

That is a different cattle of fish. Raid 5 allows to have a fully mirrored OS and Dataprotection. But do I really need that? Back in 2001 I decided that I have more advantage from a striped Raid-0 with Raptor SATA 1 drives, but this was at a time where these babies outperformed literally everything else on the market in terms of datatransfer and speed. This has changed now, may be not with the new Velociraptors, and I will have a look into them as well, also because they are really enterprise class HD's.

- Cost/Benefit

What does it bring in terms of benefits? Photoshop and other stuff will hopefully feel comfortable with 16 Gigs, so a scratch disc as fast as possible is not really needed for me.

OK, I can see one more practical point, say I come home from a Trip with my MBP and transfer files on a DAS/NAS/SAN whatever, (at least for NAS) I do not even need to start the MCP to acess and transfer files. Then again, My maschines are on most of the time when I am in the office, I can't see that "bad" habitt changing. LOL :)

Then again, it is not likely that I will add another Mac any time soon, so I literally have 2 to deal with, apart from PC's, this might be different for you guys.

So, I think I can just run a Gigaswitch and connect MCP, MBP, Printer, DAW controller etc. and my MBP has access to all drives on the MCP, admittedly, the MCP has to be switched on including external drives.

An empty NAS controller box for example from linksys would cost me in the region of 600 euro.

Then again 600 euro would buy me 2x 2GB Lacie Ethernet Discs, or 2x WD 2GB NAS Discs.

....choices, choices, choices

Then again, it sure has the Uebergizmoeffect <grins>

http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10458

;)

[Jack_Flesher]

Georg:

I think your above strategy is sound, just know that for whatever reason Mac doesn't like to work well with all NAS storage protocol -- yes it's weaker than PC here -- so stick to names that show up as working in the various Mac forums. Frankly that is one of the reasons I chose the DROBO over other options is I knew it worked well with Mac. Of course there are others too, just do your homework.

One last thought. Since it is only your two machines and since you can network the machines through GigLan, you might want to consider simply attaching a true RAID DAS to your MacPro and share it across the network. THat way you can easily write to it across the Lan from your MBP yet get all the added performance benefit of DAS when massaging the files on your MacPro. And unlike NAS, there are plenty of good DAS RAID boxes that work perfectly on Mac -- if it's all about performance, then I'd get one of the 4 or 5 drive multilane hot-swap SATA boxes and a good card, you'll have speed and redundancy.

Just a thought,

[Sean DeMerchant]

SAS:

The conclusion was that SAS did not provide a considerable boost in performance concerning the required audio performance compared to non SAS mac's. The Tester concluded that the perfomance boost probably makes sense for people that use HD video streaming in programs such as Adobe Premiere or similiar, but questioned the capital expenditure for other applications.

As Jack said, the prices for the RAID controller and (here) 300 Gig SAS drives are extraordinary high, and you can not mix it with regular SATA 2in the Mac Pro.

That could be a controller limitation.

Regardless, after market RAID cards support more drives at that price point (8-12). Most brands advertise the ability to mix and match SAS and SATA drives.

But where I am advocating the possible use of SAS controllers is with 6+ drive raid arrays where aggregate read and write speeds exceed the speed of an x4 PCI-Express port. On an x8 PCI-Express 2.0 electrical connection one can move 4 Gbytes per second to the controller making the drives the limiting factor. But you can get controllers that support 12 or more drives, allowing growth.

Bringing up hard drive performance can greatly improve performance. Just putting new drives on an older machine can greatly boost bottom line performance (load times, disk writes, ...) which makes you seem more in control of the situation.

16 GB of RAM is nice, but for the $3500 USD Apple wants for it one could get 16 GB of after market RAM and a SAS or eSATA RAID.

Do not forget that a fast RAID will also fill that 16 GB with data faster. You do not buy disk for benchmark measured performance, you buy disk to speed up slow processes in your business workflow. This is about taking a coffee break rather than going out to lunch while running a batch. If all your work fits into RAM and if it loads fast enough, then you do not need RAID.


My thoughts concerning such storage solutions are:

- Performance

Does it really give me an edge in terms of real world applications? Programs such as NUENDO seem not to benefit THAT much from it, and sample playback does not need it either, here RAM is rather important. Current SATA 2 drives already have a high performance for such applications.

What higher performing disk gives you is the ability to not have to say wait as much on the phone while talking with a client. This has more application to 32-bit systems than those supporting 8+ GB RAM.

RAID allows the creation of huge disk volumes so you can more easily keep all your data in one logical locale (the DROBO is good for this too).


- Cost/Benefit

What does it bring in terms of benefits? Photoshop and other stuff will hopefully feel comfortable with 16 Gigs, so a scratch disc as fast as possible is not really needed for me.

OK, I can see one more practical point, say I come home from a Trip with my MBP and transfer files on a DAS/NAS/SAN whatever, (at least for NAS) I do not even need to start the MCP to acess and transfer files. Then again, My maschines are on most of the time when I am in the office, I can't see that "bad" habitt changing. LOL :)

The more RAM I have, the longer my computer stays on. This is because of load times and how convenient it is the just sit and work. But I am a power user in computing style so whatever RAM I have will fill.


Then again, it sure has the Uebergizmoeffect <grins>

http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10458

;)

Looks like a fun toy. But at that $1500 price point one could buy 16 GB RAM in 4GB sticks after market. At the end of the day your business needs should define what you buy. Do you need a silent system? Do you need more responsiveness? Do you have enough RAM? What do you need?

some thoughts,

Sean

[Jack_Flesher]

Sean mentioned acoustics, which we have not really discussed... One of the huge benefits to the Mac Pro is it runs nearly silent, even when working hard. I have mine on the desk literally right next to me and cannot hear it most of the time. However, the drives you choose are paramount! Most of the newest SATA2 drives are pretty quiet. For example, I have a pair of 500G Seagate 7200.11 drives that I cannot hear. But the OEM OS drive for my MacPro was a previous generation Seagate 500G 7200.10. Both have virtually identical specs, but the 7200.10 has noisy heads -- I've relegated it to an external SATA box as my Time Machine disk and moved it as far away from the main box as the cables allow. But TM runs every hour and the head seek noises are obvious even though TM usually only runs for 15 or 20 seconds. The buzz-clicking drives me nutz, so as soon as the DROBO arrives this drive is going to become one of the dedicated off-site back-up drives so I don't have to listen to it any more...

FWIW, here are other drives I use that are very quiet: WD 1TB Greens, Seagate 7200.11's, both 500G and 1TB versions, and Samsung 1TB spinpoints.

Cheers,

[Georg R. Baumann]

Regardless, after market RAID cards support more drives at that price point (8-12). Most brands advertise the ability to mix and match SAS and SATA drives.


Hi Sean,

do you use such a mix, and if so what Raid controller did you build in? - Fiber channel seem to be the non-plus-ultra, but well, too expensive. -

I know there are many mac foras out there, but can you guys here recommend one to watch? I suppose this subject is beyond the normal Mac User and probably more to be found on the Server side of things.

I was looking up this box for DAS

http://www.macobserver.com/review/2007/09/21.1.shtml

but what is a deal breaker is the max. cable length of 2 meters, simply because the Box is apparantly very noisy! Bummer.

Jack, this is re assuring, I was expecting a loud box, and already looked up foam material to put into the side panels, but I wait until I have it up and running. I was talking to my dealer about the Velociraptors, he talked to WD, no ETA yet here in Europe for the Mac Version. <shrungs>

[Jack_Flesher]

Georg:

Just be aware that not all cards work in Macs and usually need to specifically say they will work in Mac. A few places to shot for Mac-specific goodies:

http://www.macsales.com/ -- I buy all my RAM here, same spec as the OEM sticks and about 1/4 the cost. Also has a nice assortment of DAS and NAS for Mac as well as a good assortment of bare drives.

These are pricey, but get consistently excellent reviews, the DAS units bundled with their cards work perfectly in Mac, and styling to match your main case ;) : http://www.g-technology.com/index.cfm

[Georg R. Baumann]

Geeze, soooo many out there, LOL!

Thanks a lot Jack!

[Jack_Flesher]

PS: A few other interesting links for Mac users:

http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/macosxhints.html?lsrc=mwhints

http://www.macfixit.com/index.php

http://www.macrumors.com/

[Sean DeMerchant]

Hi Georg,



do you use such a mix, and if so what Raid controller did you build in? - Fiber channel seem to be the non-plus-ultra, but well, too expensive. -

Sadly no. I still run XP w/ 3 GB of RAM and some 9 odd harddrives to in 6 volumes with 4 older drives condensed to a RAID 0+1 and a noisy case (lots of fans to move air in a full case). As I work with computers I follow the industry regardless, but as I am close to out of drive space and want more storage with better performance so have been watching this area closely for a while (it's a recurring problem). The faster disk greatly reduces the number and severity times when you must tell someone on the phone to wait while computer loads something. This small performance bump is probably best felt in human productivity as the computing process intrudes less on the creative processes of the mind by not stopping your creative flow. It is disk access that slows my workflow and wastes my time, not CPU bound processes.

There is no joking about Fiber Channel. <smile> It is simply not a technology intended for consumers, it is intended for industry where reliability is more critical. You would not buy an industrial dump truck (http://www.cat.com/cda/layout?m=172963&x=7&f=151583) to move some dirt around your yard when a wheel barrow will do. Slighlty exaggerated, perhaps. SAS is the next step down in terms of entry price.

eSATA w/ a port multiplier on an external case will probably be my next upgrade as my system will likely be a notebook (my computer is fast enough for my needs except w/ disk). This is a solution to saturating an x1 PCI-Express/Express Card link using RAID.

More RAM would be nice, but I do not need it for work. But, an SAS controller w/ SATA drives is still there as I would love to have a disk controller that is designed with more reliability in mind and a fair bit of expandability (more interface bandwidth, large cache) and it would cost less than a new computer and do more for my workflow in terms of performance.

Also remember, RAID is not a substitute for backups as the RAID controller and driver are both single points of failure. RAID 5 needs a hardware controller to perform well from the tests I have seen.





I know there are many mac foras out there, but can you guys here recommend one to watch? I suppose this subject is beyond the normal Mac User and probably more to be found on the Server side of things.

I do not follow platform based fora much so I cannot help there. This is beyond the realm of the average Mac user on the streat ("it works") but with video people on Macs this should not be an unknown problem.


I was looking up this box for DAS

http://www.macobserver.com/review/2007/09/21.1.shtml

but what is a deal breaker is the max. cable length of 2 meters, simply because the Box is apparantly very noisy! Bummer.


You can buy longer cables (http://tmcscsi.com/SASext.shtml) (SFF-8088/SFF-8088) up to 10 m leaving only the question of signal integrity in a longer cable. You should contact the manufacturer to ask about signal integrity versus cable length . This specific SATA controller uses SAS cabling. So there is likely an independent link to each drive so it should be upgradeable in the future so as to saturate each link with a single drive. eSATA port multiplier solutions are lower cost, but 3 or 4 drives in RAID 0 will saturate a link leaving no upgrade path except larger drives and future use as nearline storage.

There are also drive silencing kits out there. Rubber gasketed screws and rubber/silicone gaskets to damp vibrations and a high quality replacement fan would likely fix that. But what will work depends on the drive sleds and how well damped they are among other factors.

some thoughts,

Sean

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

It is disk access that slows my workflow and wastes my time, not CPU bound processes.

Yes, in the situation where a client is waiting on the phone, that's important to consider. However, not all practices are the same. What works best for me, doesn't necessarily work best for someone else.

My specific tasks are often slowed down by limitations in processing power and slow internal storage (should one run out of RAM). My secondary requirement is secure secondary storage capacity (and optionally remote access), which reduces access speed constraints.

Last night I replaced the 2 smaller of 4 drives in my NAS, in 2 sessions, by hot-swapping one disk at a time. This was as much a stress-test for my relatively new NAS (and to build my confidence), as it was an operation to boost the RAID storage capacity to almost 2.1 TB with affordable 750 GB drives in a small box. I now have 2 Western Digital and 2 Seagate drives in the box, which allows me to compare between the two (the more expensive Seagates run a few degrees hotter, according to the SMART data, and the hottest one of them already reallocated a sector).

When it was done, the NAS sent an email with the results, as it does whenever something noteworthy happens with the hardware, while it automatically manages problems should they happen. That can be a great help if you are not physically on the spot but want to follow progress and keep access intact. It also allows to leave the NAS running without having to have the computer on at the same time (which also saves power and wear).

So, different strokes for different folks ...

Bart

[Georg R. Baumann]

Bart, what about noise levels, are the fans in the box constantly running or is it a managed system with temperature/fanspeed control.

[Georg R. Baumann]

Btw. talking about data integrity, backups, volumes etc.

Do you guys have any idea whether the ZFS from OSX Server will find it's way into Leopard?

This is mighty impressive:

http://opensolaris.org/os/community/zfs/whatis/

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Bart, what about noise levels, are the fans in the box constantly running or is it a managed system with temperature/fanspeed control.

The NAS model I have (the NV+) has a single 92mm fan at the rear which varies its RPM with temperature. The built in powersupply is a fan-less type to reduce the noise, but of course that demands more of the rear fan, and requires the fan to also run (slowly) when it's asleep. I therefore also purchased a spare fan as an insurance, just in case something goes wrong during a weekend or at night and I don't want to wait for a replacement.

The fan itself is a Y.S. Tech FD129225HB-N rated at 37.5 dBA at 2800 rpm. My unit with 4x750GB drives on average runs at 2027-2083 rpm in a 23 degrees Celcius room temperature, which keeps the drives at approx. 40 degrees Celcius when in operation. During a Fan calibration the RPM varies between 1648 and 2816 as far as I could see, so it has capacity to spare (global warming and all ...). In addition to the fan there is of course the sound of the drives which is very low, but audible.

It is much less noisy than my old PC (modern PCs are much improved with large diameter fans), but I wouldn't place it too close to a analog sound recording setup, if only to avoid the occasional clicking sounds of the drives. You could place the NAS anywhere you want, it only requires an AC wall outlet for power and an Ethernet cable to your Router/Splitter/Computer.

Bart

[Sean DeMerchant]

Do you guys have any idea whether the ZFS from OSX Server will find it's way into Leopard?


It is allegedly out in beta format: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS#Mac_OS_X

So it looks like either a late release just before 10.6 or in 10.6 would be my bets.

[Georg R. Baumann]

It is allegedly out in beta format: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS#Mac_OS_X

So it looks like either a late release just before 10.6 or in 10.6 would be my bets.

Most interesting.... <grin>

About time they make the swap happen and leave mickeysoft where they belong.... behind!.... <grin>

[Jack_Flesher]

For anybody interested, I posted some comments with screenshots from my DROBO experience on this thread: http://forum.getdpi.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2560

Cheers,

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

For anybody interested, I posted some comments with screenshots from my DROBO experience on this thread: http://forum.getdpi.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2560

Hi Jack,

Seems you are sofar enjoying you new Drobo. Can you say anything about drive temperature (which is a good indicator of the amount of abuse drives are subjected to)? Does the Drobo software allow to monitor the health of individual drives (e.g. SMART data like temperature and other early warning signals) other than by the general LED feedback?

Bart

[Jack_Flesher]

Hi Jack,

Seems you are sofar enjoying you new Drobo. Can you say anything about drive temperature (which is a good indicator of the amount of abuse drives are subjected to)? Does the Drobo software allow to monitor the health of individual drives (e.g. SMART data like temperature and other early warning signals) other than by the general LED feedback?

Bart

Hi Bart:

No, you do not have access to any SMART drive info such as temperature. Would be a nice feature, for sure. If the drives are still running normally, you do get an "I am healthy" report.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Hi Bart:

No, you do not have access to any SMART drive info such as temperature. Would be a nice feature, for sure. If the drives are still running normally, you do get an "I am healthy" report.

Okay, thanks for the info. It then might be interesting to find a utility that allows to read SMART data via FireWire, if the Drobo and/or FireWire controller allows such access. I don't even know if SMART readout via FireWire is possible at all. Other than that, if the unit doesn't get hot to the touch (there were reports about that with the Version 1 model), or the fan exhausts a moderate temperature airflow, I suppose things a fine.

Bart

[Jack_Flesher]

Other than that, if the unit doesn't get hot to the touch (there were reports about that with the Version 1 model), or the fan exhausts a moderate temperature airflow, I suppose things a fine.

Bart

Mine isn't even warm to the touch, the top of the box is basically room temp. BUT I suspect unit temps are a direct function of drives installed, and I am using drives known to run reasonably cool; I have a mix of Samsung 1TB Spinpoints and Seagate 7200.11. I also tested it with some WD 1TB Green's and it didn't get hot either, FWIW.

Cheers,

Jack

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Hi Jack,

Seems you are sofar enjoying you new Drobo.

While I don't want to detract from the potential positives of a Drobo solution (I've been tempted to try one myself), I've also been really put off by the following:
http://www.drobo.com/buydrobocare/?s...TDF072604820;: (http://www.drobo.com/buydrobocare/?s...TDF072604820;:)

I have lots of sympathy for (small) new initiatives, but find their 'extended coverage' policy (having to pay for e.g. firmware upgrades beyond the first year, if I read them correctly) an uncommercially short term orientened one (for a proprietary solution). If so, they've lost me as a potential customer.

Bart

[Will Thompson]

This is doing good! 3 Questions and 52 answers, WOW!