Small office network for 3D studtio max...

[Jo3y]

My mate has his own company that specialises in 3D studio max and Adobe photoshop graphics design work and has asked for some advice around configuring his small office environment to get better performance.

Currently he's just using his own PC to share out the projects to the two other machines but it's obviously causing it to significantly slow down. He's thinking of moving to a dedicated server to host the projects and would also like to back up the work on a weekly basis.

As he's just using the server for accessing the projects and nothing else I'm going to recommend that he just purchases a decent NAS encloser, probably QNAP or Buffalo, fit what ever size drives he needs and mirror them. He's currently only using a 10/100 linksys hub so I'll also recommend he switches to a 1Gb switch. As for the backup side of things I'll have to ask him a few more questions.

Does anyone here work with 3DS Max or similar software and can spot any problems with my recommendations?

 

[Rob Clark]

depends if he wants a gloryfied file server or anything else. not sure how backup works on a nas device, but failing that a 'simple' server with plenty of space / raid. Also depends if he needs to do anything with emails etc or just access them locally via outlook / pop3. Depending on his thinking / bufget you could do that on xp pro / linux if your feeling brave

 

[Dink]

perhaps building a pc and run something like freenas?

i used to do this used to get about 45MB/s read and write over a gigabit network

 

[Jo3y]

He just wants file storage really, no need for e-mail etc so a NAS should do. I've thought about building a basic PC and getting a RAID card for it might be a bit flakey and require more looking after than a NAS drive which should take care of itself once it's configured.

 

[cava83]

What you have suggested will meet his requirements and increase productivity. It's not a costly option, I would go for that.

 

[Mike_182]

I'd probably go the PC route - bigger processor, dedicated RAID if you want to? And you can get a nice 5-bay or 4-bay SATA hot-swap thing for it. I've got a 1x5.25" to 4x2.5" HDD SAS/SATA Hot-Swap caddy and a 3x5.25" to 5x3.5" HDD SATA Hot-Swap caddy in my computer and it's ace. As long as you do the work to label each caddy properly then it's a cracking way of doing things.

If you want, I've even got a spare 8-port 512MB SAS/SATA controller that you could buy for not the £500 list.

 

[Jo3y]

I'd probably go the PC route - bigger processor, dedicated RAID if you want to? And you can get a nice 5-bay or 4-bay SATA hot-swap thing for it. I've got a 1x5.25" to 4x2.5" HDD SAS/SATA Hot-Swap caddy and a 3x5.25" to 5x3.5" HDD SATA Hot-Swap caddy in my computer and it's ace. As long as you do the work to label each caddy properly then it's a cracking way of doing things.

If you want, I've even got a spare 8-port 512MB SAS/SATA controller that you could buy for not the £500 list.

I considered that option mate and was going to have them set up in RAID 5 with a redundancy but I think it's a bit of overkill for his needs.. still might go for this option if I struggle to find a decent way of backing up from the NAS, as with the PC route I could just have a SCSI card and tape backup drive.

 

[Mike_182]

Yup.

PC/Homebuild server is a good start for a small business - there's just no complete solution with the NAS.

 

[Cliotoby]

What Mike said. lol. I take it network isnt an issue, rarther just lack of space to store the s**t and then share it. Cant you just get a home server/pc and bung it into a cheap assed switch.

 

[KDF]

Did someone say Linux ?


Personaly I would get a Netgear readynas pro. Simple and elegant design.. can take 6 drives and is hot-swappable. Chuck a couple 2TB RAID edition Caviar's in there and then you can expand it as needed up to 10TB raid 5 or 8TB raid 6.

Just upgrading his hub to a switch will give a dramatic increase in throughput.

 

[Jo3y]

Did someone say Linux ?


Personaly I would get a Netgear readynas pro. Simple and elegant design.. can take 6 drives and is hot-swappable. Chuck a couple 2TB RAID edition Caviar's in there and then you can expand it as needed up to 10TB raid 5 or 8TB raid 6.

Just upgrading his hub to a switch will give a dramatic increase in throughput.

Nice but a little too expensive for him I think mate. Probably just going to get a Buffalo Terastation 4Gb which is 630 or 800 quid respecitely if you get the II or III, 16 Port 1Gigabit Netgear Switch and probably new CAT6 cables. Not sure about the best way for him to backup on a budget though... considered Blu rays for archiving off individual projects and a large USB Harddrive for backing up the live projects on a weekly or daily basis to take off site. Obviously far from Ideal but the company is only starting up so the cheaper the better.

 

[KDF]

No offense but too expensive and you are gonna spend 800 quid on a Buffalo which by all accounts is s**t.

The Readynas is about £700 ex. vat and sure you have to add a couple 2TB drives in it as well but the Readynas uses server grade hardware with features such as dual gigabit nic's with redundancy and is highly flexible and fully expandable for future growth in the company. It also provides automatic growth and live reconfiguration of the raid arrays so when you want to add more space just slot another drive in and let it do it's thing.

You also get backup software with the Pro, not quite backup exec but it does the job. Also you get full ssh access so can do whatever you want including setting up rsync cron jobs if you wanted.

Just saying, don't recommend crap hardware.. go for something that is designed for the job.

 

[Mike_182]

What KDF said really, and if you're spending £800 you might as well stick a PC in that you can stick Linux on or whatever and whack in a SCSI card and a tape drive.

More flexible even than the ReadyNAS, for similar monies.

 

[KDF]

The ReadyNas runs linux but I get your point

And I'm always willing to help anyone using/trying Linux..

 

[Jo3y]

Hmmm, the readynas I was looking at was nearly £1400 for a 4Gb one. Do you have a link to the one you're on about?

[EDIT]This one? Not sure why I thought they were so expensive before...

 

[KDF]

The NV+ is okay and only 4 bay but I would recommend the Pro.

http://www.businessdirect.bt.com/pr...oneer-6-bay-diskless-5HGN.html?q=readynas pro

Have a look at the feature comparison list on the netgear site and see if you think it will be worth the extra for what is needed.

 

[KDF]

Looky what arrived today along with an 800Va UPS.

 

[richy22]

Ahhh UPS...good until the dozy bint who shares yours turns it off at the wall at 1pm on Christmas eve!

 

[Mike_182]

Ahhh UPS...good until the dozy bint who shares yours turns it off at the wall at 1pm on Christmas eve!

But that's the whole idea. The dozy bint turns it off at the wall, it beeps to tell you the electricity is gone, and you turn it back on without it turning your computer off.

No?

 

[richy22]

Nope...she properly turned it off ...i.e pressed the button on the front of it. (cant remember what makes we have at work. Turned it off at the front frist.. (hers was already shut-down)...mine goes blank whilst in the middle of writing some software

 

[Jo3y]

You should have seen the "UPS" they had when I was doing a rollout in India.... check it out!

 

[richy22]

I got one of those in one of the containers i work in

 

[Jo3y]

I got one of those in one of the containers i work in

Do you have all the batteries to go with it

 

[richy22]

Downstairs we do!

 

[iain187]

that's quite impressive...

we are having an extension built at the moment, when maintenance cut the power to the area they were working it took out the gatehouse too... good time to discover the UPS on the computer that does the vehicle air lock gates had a duff battery lol.

 

[richy22]

I thought you were on about your house iain! I was gonna call you a flash git!

 

[iain187]

i am....