Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

Hello, brand new here, was browsing the web for this topic you all seem
knowledgable.
I have a (customer) that does video animations. He has a main computer
for "rendering", and is setting up a second for mostly data backup, but
may in future want to utilize it as well in a 'render farm". He has
software with the ability to utilize multiple machines at once for
rendering.
He basically wants the fasted possible connection available between 2
computers, and in future if his business grows he may add additional
machines to the "farm".
What is the fastest possible connection between 2 machines? I'm
thinking firewire, but open to options...
Perhaps a little off topic in here but video/animations are similar
beasts with huge amounts of data (one render can be as much as 30 gig)

Any help would be appreciated!

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

http://www.netgear.com/products/details/GS608.php


"kaptankrunch" <kaptankrunch@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1127352913.570066.152810@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> Hello, brand new here, was browsing the web for this topic you all seem
> knowledgable.
> I have a (customer) that does video animations. He has a main computer
> for "rendering", and is setting up a second for mostly data backup, but
> may in future want to utilize it as well in a 'render farm". He has
> software with the ability to utilize multiple machines at once for
> rendering.
> He basically wants the fasted possible connection available between 2
> computers, and in future if his business grows he may add additional
> machines to the "farm".
> What is the fastest possible connection between 2 machines? I'm
> thinking firewire, but open to options...
> Perhaps a little off topic in here but video/animations are similar
> beasts with huge amounts of data (one render can be as much as 30 gig)
>
> Any help would be appreciated!
>

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

With all due respect, I am using this very same Netgrear 8 port gigabit
switch which "Fan" has linked to below, connecting some PCs and a Mac, all
of which have built-in gigabit adapters. I am seeing way below gigabit
transfer speeds.....perhaps more like 120 to 200 MBits/sec. This is still
plenty fast, but I am now personally wondering if Firewire 800 or fiber
channel may not have been a better choice. On the bright side, these Netgear
switches are dirt cheap so you can get a lot of improvement for a very small
investment.


Smarty


"Fan" <Jfisher65@pronet.com> wrote in message
news:4XnYe.141966$Ji4.110562@fed1read03...
> http://www.netgear.com/products/details/GS608.php
>
>
> "kaptankrunch" <kaptankrunch@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1127352913.570066.152810@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
>> Hello, brand new here, was browsing the web for this topic you all seem
>> knowledgable.
>> I have a (customer) that does video animations. He has a main computer
>> for "rendering", and is setting up a second for mostly data backup, but
>> may in future want to utilize it as well in a 'render farm". He has
>> software with the ability to utilize multiple machines at once for
>> rendering.
>> He basically wants the fasted possible connection available between 2
>> computers, and in future if his business grows he may add additional
>> machines to the "farm".
>> What is the fastest possible connection between 2 machines? I'm
>> thinking firewire, but open to options...
>> Perhaps a little off topic in here but video/animations are similar
>> beasts with huge amounts of data (one render can be as much as 30 gig)
>>
>> Any help would be appreciated!
>>
>
>

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

Smarty wrote:
> With all due respect, I am using this very same Netgrear 8 port gigabit
> switch which "Fan" has linked to below, connecting some PCs and a Mac, all
> of which have built-in gigabit adapters. I am seeing way below gigabit
> transfer speeds.....perhaps more like 120 to 200 MBits/sec. This is still
> plenty fast, but I am now personally wondering if Firewire 800 or fiber
> channel may not have been a better choice. On the bright side, these Netgear
> switches are dirt cheap so you can get a lot of improvement for a very small
> investment.
>
>
> Smarty
>
>
> "Fan" <Jfisher65@pronet.com> wrote in message
> news:4XnYe.141966$Ji4.110562@fed1read03...
>> http://www.netgear.com/products/details/GS608.php
>>
>>
>> "kaptankrunch" <kaptankrunch@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:1127352913.570066.152810@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
>>> Hello, brand new here, was browsing the web for this topic you all seem
>>> knowledgable.
>>> I have a (customer) that does video animations. He has a main computer
>>> for "rendering", and is setting up a second for mostly data backup, but
>>> may in future want to utilize it as well in a 'render farm". He has
>>> software with the ability to utilize multiple machines at once for
>>> rendering.
>>> He basically wants the fasted possible connection available between 2
>>> computers, and in future if his business grows he may add additional
>>> machines to the "farm".
>>> What is the fastest possible connection between 2 machines? I'm
>>> thinking firewire, but open to options...
>>> Perhaps a little off topic in here but video/animations are similar
>>> beasts with huge amounts of data (one render can be as much as 30 gig)
>>>
>>> Any help would be appreciated!

This is a copy and paste from another NG:

Gigabit NICs are cheap and you
get what you pay for. having been intimately associated with a similar type
of installation, we ended up throwing out 23 Netgear GA311 NICs and a
variety of other breeds. The majority of them just cannot reliably stand
intense high volume traffic as occasioned by hundred megabyte file transfers
running 24/7. They randomly and intermittently buckle resulting in a few
more retries which takes precious bandwidth. Commercial installations
usually run at sub 5 or 10% network utilisation. Graphics and imaging sites
often run at 80%+ utilisation for minutes on end.

After a lot of experimentation and testing of various NICs, we replaced all
the NICs on the network with genuine Intel Pro series NICs which were a bit
dearer and have never had a problem in the three years since and it flies.
And no, I am an independent contractor with no interest or shares in Intel!

Peter

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

"Smarty" wrote ...
> With all due respect, I am using this very same Netgrear 8 port
> gigabit switch which "Fan" has linked to below, connecting some PCs
> and a Mac, all of which have built-in gigabit adapters. I am seeing
> way below gigabit transfer speeds.....perhaps more like 120 to 200
> MBits/sec. This is still plenty fast, but I am now personally
> wondering if Firewire 800 or fiber channel may not have been a better
> choice. On the bright side, these Netgear switches are dirt cheap so
> you can get a lot of improvement for a very small investment.

Google returned 5,080,000 hits for: firewire networking
I'd bet there are some good candidates on the first 2-3 pages.

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

Well, that's a very interesting comment, since the author treats the root
cause of the problem as being the NICs rather than the Netgear switches. I
happen to have 4 different machines connected, 2 with Intel NICs, one with
an Apple gigabit NIC (not sure whose chipset they use in the Apple G5 dual
processor machines), and one with a cheapo third party PCI card gigabit NIC.
I have not experienced network failures of any type, but these certainly do
operate well below the claimed gigabit 1000 Mbit/sec rate. A 4.4 GByte DVD
might take 2 or 3 minutes to transfer which is a lot faster than my older
100MBit/sec network but still about 1/5th of the rated speed..

Jumbo frames are recommended for high volume / high speed transfers, and
some NICs and gigabit switches apparently do not support jumbo frames.

Smarty



"DanR" <dhr22@sorrynospm.com> wrote in message
news:zSoYe.891$9E2.476@newssvr11.news.prodigy.com...
>
>
> Smarty wrote:
>> With all due respect, I am using this very same Netgrear 8 port gigabit
>> switch which "Fan" has linked to below, connecting some PCs and a Mac,
>> all
>> of which have built-in gigabit adapters. I am seeing way below gigabit
>> transfer speeds.....perhaps more like 120 to 200 MBits/sec. This is still
>> plenty fast, but I am now personally wondering if Firewire 800 or fiber
>> channel may not have been a better choice. On the bright side, these
>> Netgear
>> switches are dirt cheap so you can get a lot of improvement for a very
>> small
>> investment.
>>
>>
>> Smarty
>>
>>
>> "Fan" <Jfisher65@pronet.com> wrote in message
>> news:4XnYe.141966$Ji4.110562@fed1read03...
>>> http://www.netgear.com/products/details/GS608.php
>>>
>>>
>>> "kaptankrunch" <kaptankrunch@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>>> news:1127352913.570066.152810@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
>>>> Hello, brand new here, was browsing the web for this topic you all seem
>>>> knowledgable.
>>>> I have a (customer) that does video animations. He has a main computer
>>>> for "rendering", and is setting up a second for mostly data backup, but
>>>> may in future want to utilize it as well in a 'render farm". He has
>>>> software with the ability to utilize multiple machines at once for
>>>> rendering.
>>>> He basically wants the fasted possible connection available between 2
>>>> computers, and in future if his business grows he may add additional
>>>> machines to the "farm".
>>>> What is the fastest possible connection between 2 machines? I'm
>>>> thinking firewire, but open to options...
>>>> Perhaps a little off topic in here but video/animations are similar
>>>> beasts with huge amounts of data (one render can be as much as 30 gig)
>>>>
>>>> Any help would be appreciated!
>
> This is a copy and paste from another NG:
>
> Gigabit NICs are cheap and you
> get what you pay for. having been intimately associated with a similar
> type
> of installation, we ended up throwing out 23 Netgear GA311 NICs and a
> variety of other breeds. The majority of them just cannot reliably stand
> intense high volume traffic as occasioned by hundred megabyte file
> transfers
> running 24/7. They randomly and intermittently buckle resulting in a few
> more retries which takes precious bandwidth. Commercial installations
> usually run at sub 5 or 10% network utilisation. Graphics and imaging
> sites
> often run at 80%+ utilisation for minutes on end.
>
> After a lot of experimentation and testing of various NICs, we replaced
> all
> the NICs on the network with genuine Intel Pro series NICs which were a
> bit
> dearer and have never had a problem in the three years since and it flies.
> And no, I am an independent contractor with no interest or shares in
> Intel!
>
> Peter
>
>