File storage server

[onceforlife]

hey guys new member here, would like to know your opinions about setting up a file server for video editing purposes. recently I just tried sharing the external drive connected to my computer to our network so that all of us could edit at the same time but many of them experienced lag and had to copy the file from the drive to their local machine. Now all the computers are out of storage and I need to declutter all those unnecessary files. Can anyone help me or guide me what could be the best solution for our team? we have a dell power edge tower server that i have no idea how to use as of now, and a gigabit switch connected to our computers. 

[WereCatf]

2 minutes ago, onceforlife said:

a gigabit switch

 

2 minutes ago, onceforlife said:

for video editing purposes

Gigabit-network and video-editing over the network by multiple people simultaneously? Yeah, no. You didn't mention how many of you there are, but you'd definitely want at least 10Gig network and SSD-storage.

[onceforlife]

2 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

 

Gigabit-network and video-editing over the network by multiple people simultaneously? Yeah, no. You didn't mention how many of you there are, but you'd definitely want at least 10Gig network and SSD-storage.

any other solutions to this problem? there are currently two main editors in our workplace, with 3 other editors for adding text or transition and stuff. 

[Guest]

Remember if you're editing directly off a server everything is constantly being read over the network.

As stated above you would want a *more than a gigabit connection per editor.

The lag you experience is why Linus goes psychotic over office network upgrades

Edited February 11, 2021 by Sp4gh3tti

[onceforlife]

Just now, Sp4gh3tti said:

Remember if you're editing directly off a server everything is constantly being read over the network.

As stated above you would want a gigabit connection per editor.

The lag you experience is why Linus goes psychotic over office network upgrades

does this mean i would have to configure the switch so that everyone could maintain the gigabit connection? looks like there is still a lot more that i really need to know

[SupaKomputa]

You need to put the files in a high bandwidth storage like SSD or HDD in RAID0.

Gigabit won't be enough for live editing, you need 2.5gb or 10gb network.

[onceforlife]

1 minute ago, SupaKomputa said:

You need to put the files in a high bandwidth storage like SSD or HDD in RAID0.

Gigabit won't be enough for live editing, you need 2.5gb or 10gb network.

im planning to put my files into a tower server. do i have to configure the raid for it?

[SupaKomputa]

12 minutes ago, onceforlife said:

im planning to put my files into a tower server. do i have to configure the raid for it?

If you wanna boost the speed of a regular HDD, yes, but it comes with a caveat, in the event of any disk failing, it will ruin the array (Raid mode 0). So be careful of what you store in those disk. In this mode the Bandwidth and capacity is the sum of all drive. So if a HDD is 200MB/s, 3 drives would yield 600MB/s.

It is better just to use NVME drive, since it can deliver up to 2000MB/s on a single drive, without raid.

Share your active files from there.

 

Solution to your network bandwidth, without buying a whole set of new 10gbps network by getting additional NIC, assign each nic ip address for each editor, example editor A 192.168.0.101, editor B: 192.168.0.102 and so on. This will ensure each editor has 1gbps bandwidth.

[Electronics Wizardy]

36 minutes ago, onceforlife said:

we have a dell power edge tower server

What model?

 

 

This sounds like a get a pro in cause you don't have a lot of experience here. Video editing can be kinda picky and bandwidth heavy

 

 

What type of footage are you working with? Bitrate? How many streams at once per user? How many TB do you need?

[Electronics Wizardy]

11 minutes ago, SupaKomputa said:

Solution to your network bandwidth, without buying a whole set of new 10gbps network by getting additional NIC, assign each nic ip address for each editor, example editor A 192.168.0.101, editor B: 192.168.0.102 and so on. This will ensure each editor has 1gbps bandwidth.

The really lazy way is to just get a 4 port 1gbe nic, and plug them all into the switch and you get a total of 4gbe with smb multichannel. Easy to setup, and each users probalby won't be maxing the connection at once.

[onceforlife]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

This sounds like a get a pro in cause you don't have a lot of experience here. Video editing can be kinda picky and bandwidth heavy

pro in what field? windows server 2016? or networking?

 

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

What model?

dell power edge t140

 

mostly 1080p, as for the bitrate i havent really considered about it yet, and for the tb, we would like to have expandability in the future if possible

[onceforlife]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

The really lazy way is to just get a 4 port 1gbe nic, and plug them all into the switch and you get a total of 4gbe with smb multichannel. Easy to setup, and each users probalby won't be maxing the connection at once.

by nic do you mean the switch or the pcie card for the computers to be plugged on? 

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, onceforlife said:

pro in what field? windows server 2016? or networking?

 

video editing storage. Lots of companies sepcialize here.

 

Just now, onceforlife said:

dell power edge t140

Whats your total budget?

 

1 minute ago, onceforlife said:

as for the bitrate i havent really considered about it yet,

Whats the bit rate of the current footage?

 

1 minute ago, onceforlife said:

we would like to have expandability in the future if possible

How many tb do you have now? How many tb a year do you make?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, onceforlife said:

by nic do you mean the switch or the pcie card for the computers to be plugged on? 

nic is the pcie card, but id really try to get a new switch with 10gbe here if you can.

[onceforlife]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

video editing storage. Lots of companies sepcialize here.

can you recommend one?

 

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

Whats your total budget?

 

Whats the bit rate of the current footage?

 

How many tb do you have now? How many tb a year do you make?

we are just starting as of the moment so i would get back to this if i have all the information

 

before there was only one computer for editing thats why it was okay but now we expanded and the file organization is a mess. would like to ask for some guidance or advice how i could manage all these computers before they keep on getting out of storage and stuff

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, onceforlife said:

can you recommend one?

Haven't worked with any companies, so look around. But expect prices in the 10s of thousands at least.

 

1 minute ago, onceforlife said:

we are just starting as of the moment so i would get back to this if i have all the information

 

before there was only one computer for editing thats why it was okay but now we expanded and the file organization is a mess. would like to ask for some guidance or advice how i could manage all these computers before they keep on getting out of storage and stuff

Get a budget in mind, and some hard requirements. Hard to make sugggestions without know what your requirements are.

 

Yea a nas can be good here, but make sure you get the requirements right, and design a whole workflow around it.

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, onceforlife said:

can you recommend one?

ProMAX, Avid NEXIS, Netapp, Lenovo, Dell. All of the will do initial pre-sales consulting and hardware recommendations with quotes for no cost. They will likely point you towards a local IT company that is a partner for them to do this.

[hirushaadi]

On 2/11/2021 at 12:33 PM, onceforlife said:

any other solutions to this problem? there are currently two main editors in our workplace, with 3 other editors for adding text or transition and stuff. 

i think 5Gbps would be fine for the network (but would be used at least up to 90-100% depending on the occasion ), and please make sure that with 1Gbps you cant do it with...while working with 1080p 120fps and 1080p 60fps footage from my go pro and the dslr, i used around 1.3Gbps for me (i am editing with premiere)

[paddy-stone]

Forgive me if I am totally wrong here, but wouldn't you be able to use like for example. Keep the raw footage on a NAS that has USB 3.2 gen 2 (20Gbps) with suitable external SSD caddies of course. And edit the files on the SSDs before ingesting them back onto the main storage NAS. I know it's not ideal and would maybe be simpler int he long run to just go with 10g networking, but the hardware required would be massively cheaper and simpler.

[Jameszy]

Editing files over the LAN will always lag if they are huge video files over a 1gbps connection. You need the connection between the clients and server as fast as possible..

 

upgrade your infrastructure to 10gbps (new nics, cables, switch), then your next step will be increasing the speed of your storage.. multiple hard drives, raid...  most people do this by buying a NAS with these features..  like a TrueNAS Mini X+ or a higher end option...

Its a process of elimination.. the network is the slowest point when you start... almost always.