Shared Fileserver for Capture and Edit?

DavidMcKnight wrote on 9/7/2005, 11:47 AM
I've searched the forum and haven't found an answer about a networked fileserver, but I think it's doable. Is anyone using Vegas in this manner -

My wife and I both edit on separate machines. Currently I"m the only one rendering and creating dvd's, but that could change. We both work on the same dv files, though we each have our own veg's. Depending on the project, some source dv files are on my pc, some are on hers. SOmetimes I make a copy and they are on both. It gets confusing.

What I think I would like is to have a repurposed pc configured as a fileserver with several shared drives. For example, the fileserver would have a C drive for the OS, and D, E, and F would be shared. Vegas Capture would save captured files to this server's D drive, for instance. All editing would go to this one location to work with the source file. To render, drive E and F would be used for rendered files and the creation of dvda temp files.

In the non-Vegas research I've done, there is a lot of advice pointing to using a lower-horsepower PC for a windows or linux fileserver. I just can't help but think that video usage requires more horsepower, at least in the transfer rate department.

Some current limitations -

SD only.
Fileserver would be a 900 mHz Athlon with 512k ram.
Network is 10/100 but could be bumped up to gigabit
No raid in place, drives are a mix of 100 gb and 200 gb

Is this advisable? Given the limitations, is anything grossly inadequate? What specs (besides raid) should a pc have to be an effective editing fileserver?

If this experiment works well in terms of a workflow benefit, I will probably move forward with a RAID solution of some sort. Thanks for your input!

David

<attempt to edit for clarity>

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 9/7/2005, 5:31 PM
What you've got should be quite adequate. I do this a lot, and i used to do it with a 350MHz box with a 66MHz IDE bus. The most limiting factor is ethernet. 100Mbps is sufficient; 10Mbps won't even begin to cut it. I would guess that you wouldn't really notice much improvement with Gigabit except when rendering unaltered DV -> DV or copying large files. Remember that the server isn't processing video at all. Your local PC does all the video work. The file server merely makes the data available. Since rendering is processor intensive rather than disk intensive, you don't need a lot of server horsepower.

If you get into projects with many layers and many media files on the timeline simultaneous with each other you may start noticing some bottlenecks. At this point gigabit ethernet could be useful. I would guess that your 900MHz server is still fast enough. Raid is probably unnecessary.
Liam_Vegas wrote on 9/7/2005, 5:46 PM
I've recently installed a ReadyNAS 600 Network Attached Storage "appliance". It's a small box that I installed 4x250GB drives in a RAID-5 array.

I primarily use it as a central resource when working on some BIG projects where I need access to around 36+ hours of video simultaneously... and then where I use network rendering to distribute the rendering load.

This approach works pretty great for my needs. The sustained throughput is perfectly adequate for DV editing (I measured it at around 25MB/s for reading... and 8MB/s writing).

Previewing from he timeline is a little "jerykier" than from a locally attached drive... although I think with some further tuning of the setup I may be able to improve or elliminate that.

For a quick look at what this device looks like... check out a little "installation" video I created.
p@mast3rs wrote on 9/7/2005, 6:37 PM
How much does the NAS barebones unit in that video cost?
johnmeyer wrote on 9/7/2005, 7:51 PM
I've never been able to tune my network settings to get smooth video playback, even when the only two computers on the network are the server and the Vegas editing computer. I'd love to hear some hints on how to improve this.

I do know a few things which I can pass along:

1. Use a switch, not a hub.

2. Make sure the operating systems are as similar as possible, preferably XP.

There are huge problems trying to access files on any older Windows OS (95/98/ME). I have never fully been able to figure this out, and I even put a sniffer on the network to look at packets. There were all sorts of pauses and re-sends when dealing with the older OS, but only if the XP machine was doing the requesting. I am pretty sure the problem lies either in the validation or in the different date/time stamps used by XP/2000 compared to earlier OSs (if you've ever copied files between these different O/S's, you may notice a one second difference).

But, as usual, I digress.
Liam_Vegas wrote on 9/7/2005, 8:32 PM
How much does the NAS barebones unit in that video cost?

List is $599
p@mast3rs wrote on 9/7/2005, 8:35 PM
After a short search, the lowest I have seen it for was $565 and that included no drives at all.

There was a thread a while back that linked to firewire storage towers that could hold four drives but I havent been able to locate the thread. That is probably what I would use. I know when I searched for them back then, you could get a decent barebones for about $200-$250.
Liam_Vegas wrote on 9/7/2005, 8:39 PM
I got it for less than that on Ebay... and that was when it was listing for $699. (EDIT: although I notice even on Ebay this unit is now seeling for the $599 every time... so I guess it is pretty popular or something)

The point about this box is that it is an "appliance"... and not actually a PC with all the "overhead" of XP. It runs Linux... and does do quite a few "other things" than just act as a file server (it's also a media server for many "home" network media players).

It's definitely not for everyone... but for simple "out of the box" RAID-5 storage - it's pretty amazing.
Liam_Vegas wrote on 9/7/2005, 8:55 PM
One thing I should add... about using networked storage to "Capture".

I found that you cannot capture to network shares using the Vegas Vidcap utility. At least it does not work with my NAS unit. You get a specific error from Vidcap complaining that it cannot capture to a network share. That's a bit of a pain... but the solution was to use Scenalyzer. However... it will likely be a bit of a bigger pain when I eventually start doing HDV capture... although maybe that utility (the internal HDV capture) will be ok.

The NAS is absolutely capable of capturing the footage (it is fast enough).

Something to watch out for anyway.
johnmeyer wrote on 9/7/2005, 9:58 PM
I too capture all the time over the network using Scenalyzer.
Edin1 wrote on 9/7/2005, 10:12 PM
Haven't tried it myself, but I noticed this worked for me in a program that didn't see or work with a network drive; you should map your network drive, so that it will act and appear as local to your programs!
See if that works!
RNLVideo wrote on 9/8/2005, 4:22 AM
Actually, I capture across my network with Vegas despite the Vidcap error. I just click OK to the message box when it pops up and move on.

I'm accessing ~ 600GB of storage on an older PC across my gigabit network. I capture to it and edit from it routinely and it works fine for my needs.

Rick
Chienworks wrote on 9/8/2005, 4:51 AM
John, i usually use a Linux based server running Samba and it is much more efficient than using a Windows based PC. You can pick up RedHat Fedora for free (it's a 2.4GB download) and get it installed and running in under an hour. Setting up the Samba server isn't for the faint of heart, but it's not terribly difficult either. I get transfers in and out of a Linux server at about 2 to 3 times the speed of XP to XP.
DavidMcKnight wrote on 9/8/2005, 8:13 AM
Thanks everyone for the input! I had been curious about linux/samba as well and may try that as an experiment.
DavidMcKnight wrote on 5/24/2006, 7:49 PM
I'd like to bump and revisit this topic for all the server and systems gurus.

Update - the fileserver is a 2.4 gH P4, 512 MB Ram.
XP Pro
Vegas on C drive
4 removable drive bays, each on their own channel using two add in IDE cards.
Each project gets its own drive.
No SATA.
Renders write back to the same drive as the project is on.

Now, the problem. I thought for sure that having projects on separate drives, and those drives on separate channels, would allow for writing to one drive from an editing station without affecting playback or editing on another editing station using a different drive. But it does. I guess because of the single CPU processing requests for both streaming reads and writes to the different drives. Would having a different CPU (hyperthread or dual core?) or a true Windows server OS help? Or Linux/Samba? Would SATA drives help?

It seems like I'm so close with this...