iMovie, AD and User Storage quotas

[mnk]

Hi all,

 

I've recently inherited a school, primarily PC's, but they have a Mac lab which is bound to the domain... I'm not very experienced with Macs.

We hit an issue last week where kids were trying to import media into iMovie from iPads/cameras etc. This was importing the data to their user drives on the network, but their storage quotas were getting in the way and the import would fail with an error of "not enough disk space".

I've done a bit of testing/playing with symbolic links in windows, where I was seeing if I could just point the %userprofile%/Movies folder to another server and purge this each term/year, thus dodging the quotas issue on their home drives. However, symbolic links in Windows doesn't seem to translate to Mac/Unix. iMovie doesn't seem to have just an easy option of "Import files to X location", which is frustrating.

 

Yes, an easier solution would be to just bump the quotas on each student, but it's going to be messy trying to manage quotas for 50-100 kids.

 

Does anyone else have a suggestion as to what I can try?

 

Edit: What if I was to get my hands on a NAS? How would I go about having the Macs point to this for the iMovie data?

Edited June 27, 2014 by mnk

[furby]

Is there a way in Windows to do custom folder redirection? I feel like you could make a admin template for group policy but it's not something I've ever tried.

 

A possible option would be to use local folders on the Mac

 

1. Directory Utility app in /System/Library/CoreServices

2. Unlock and double click on Active Directory

3. User experience tab and tick "Force local home directory on startup disk"

 

The disadvantage here is of course that files aren't saved to the network. So they'd have to use the same machine each time

Edited June 27, 2014 by furby

[rdk]

We have quite a few Macs on a Windows network. Having tried everything, the only thing that works properly for us with iMovie is importing and saving locally, with the students logging into the same machine each time. We've had in house techs try different things, and outside Mac experts come in as well, and theoretically everything should work over a network but we've never been able to have iMovie work consistently well unless everything was local.

[AntonioRocco]

Can't you use something else that's more appropriate for your environment? I ask because iMovie was never designed for use with networked home folders. The fact that it sometimes sort of works in some locations (dependant on AD structure, permissions policies and network bandwidth) is a bonus. However it's not something that can be guaranteed. It can be made to work if you've designed your network and users around its use but if you're trying to shoe-horn it into an existing and mature network environment based primarily for Windows then expect problems.

 

All may not be lost though as judging by the error message maybe doing the 'easy' solution by raising the quotas is the way to go.

 

I could be wrong but from reading your post it does seem as if this has been gone into half-cocked with no real thought in achieving what you want with what you've got. For example capturing, rendering and especially storing video anything (especially hi-def) in a networked environment (regardless of platform) is going to be an unpleasant experience unless you plan accordingly. Ideally you should not be looking at quotas; You should be thinking about creating an area specifically for video production etc with workstations (Mac or PC - your choice) to match; Beefing up the network to at least 3-4GB fibre backbone and - if possible - 2GB to desktop; Most of all storage and backup are two extremeley important areas to consider as well.

 

Of course all of the above is not cheap and will stretch most budgets. But if the institution you work for is keen about providing an opportunity for their students to learn something about film production then it should take the steps it needs to take to cater for that opportunity.

 

My question is: if there's no compelling reason to use iMovie for video why use it? If however the teaching staff are comfortable with it, know how it works and they can integrate its use with other aspects of the students work then it is worthwhile. But prepare the ground first.

 

Antonio Rocco (ACN)

Edited June 28, 2014 by AntonioRocco

[seawolf]

It is possible to redirect specific folders to different share locations with login scripts. We've done it, but it can be messy and as AR said editing and rendering video over a network share is not a good idea unless you've got a 10GbE connection to hybrid storage, etc. which is very unlikely.

 

I would recommend setting up your Macs to either use Mobile homes or force local home directories so students are working on the local disk. They can upload their files to a network share when they are done, or store them in a USB3 or Thunderbolt drive if they don't use the same Mac every time. This is what we do and when some raw video files can be 20+GB it works much better than trying to run it over the network.