Working on Server/NAS

[balatschaka]

Hey Guys, I'am rethinking our current workflow and would like to make some changes in our network.

Currently we are 4-5 people working in the office. We have a QNAP with dual 1Gbit we use for archive and assets storing. Every user is working locally on their computers and copy the assets he needs from the server to local. After the project is finished it is stored on the NAS.
Now I'am thinking of getting a bunch of dual 10gbit cards, setup a FreeNas Server and move everyones work to the Server.

My expectations:

• no time wasting with export/import of projects if somebody passes on a project to you
• no relinking and less troubleshooting for network rendering/render managers
• easier sharing of material libraries and other assets
• better backup management

My fears:

• It's going to be slow

What do you guys think? Is a 10gb network fast enough for everyone to source their assets/projects from the server? Or is working locally still the better solution?

[clemens_at]

It's a good idea. A centralized server to work on makes total sense.
What is your plan so far?
You will need a new NAS or an upgrade to your existing one, a 10GbE switch, Cat 6a Network Cables and 10GbE Nics.
Don't go cheap on the NAS and the hard drives, 10GbE is quite demanding and you can easily run into bottlenecks.
It will definitely be fast enough, maybe even 2.5GbE will suffice.

[balatschaka]

Hey Clemens, thank you for your response. Here is a little update:

We got ourselves a Netgear 10gb switch and two of those cheap 10gb Asus gaming NIC's. The first idea was to use Truenas (aka Freenas) as a new Server but reading the forums it seemed that the Asus NIC's are not yet properly supported. After a little search we dicided to try Unraid NAS Software.
We took one of our older rendernodes and installed the Asus NIC together with the Unraid Software. The NIC was instantly recognized by the OS and after a quick setup the server was already usable.
And it works great. I didn't finish the finetuning yet but I get stable ~1,1 Gbyte/s transfers on bigger files and around 200-500Mbyte/s on small files.
I also can't say much about the stability yet but working on it seems great too. Project opening, saving times, render start all seemed to be as fast as doing it locally. The measured times of render start and IR start until first pass were even faster than local.

The next step once I'am back in the office will be ordering a proper dual port NIC for the server and couple more Asus NIC's for the clients, along with a bunch of server type SSD's.

Can somebody give some insight if there is a dire need for server memory to have ECC feature in or kind of business? Any ideas on SSD's for the server?

Thanks

[clemens_at]

Dire need no, but you want your server to run as smooth and stable as possible.
As for the SSD's, it all depends what they are used for, but I would say the same principle
as with the ECC memory applies here too. You should look out for 24/7 usage and higher TBW (Total Bytes Written) values as there is
obviously more load on these drives in a multi-user environment.
WD & Seagate have solutions and there is also the Samsung 860 pro.