File share that would work reliably with logic

[titch]

Currently, we have a new Imac m3 Mac suite just set up and enrolled with Jamf Education. 1g to desktop 10g connecting switches and a pretty fast SAN.

 

Could someone please enlighten if/how we should best setup a file share where kids can dump their logic pro projects onto. We currently having them saving locally which is annoying but means we dont have any speed issues

 

We seem to try it every few years but with no luck and im sure other places must have got this right. Should we be looking at a dedicated piece of hardware rather than a windows SMB file share on a SAN?

 

Thanks for any advice!

[3s-gtech]

Seems like that situation hasn't improved in the 13 years since we last set up - that is to say, SMB is fine to store projects, but they need to be worked on locally. You may have better results if you can get 10Gb to desktop and have the storage fairly dedicated. You may also find that the typical KS4 use of a DAW doesn't push it too much - but for KS5 it didn't work for us.

[titch]

You may have better results if you can get 10Gb to desktop and have the storage fairly dedicated.

 

I think the Imacs only have gigabit ports. Unless there's some kind of expensive adapter that can go in the Thunderbolt port?

[DalekSec]

Last place we had a Synology NAS (Unix based so likes files better!) on the same switch as the Mac suite purely for logic files.

 

Tied to AD and each user had their own folder

 

1G connection seemed to do the job! Teamed the NAS to 2G IIRC

[dmj]

It's probably not the wire speed being the limiting factor.

You can always test this by setting up a trueNAS on some old hardware and measure how much improvement you see.

[titch]

Any recommendations on which NAS I should get if I get the budget for it? Any features I should look out for?

 

It seems mad a decent SAN properly plumbed in with teamed 10g ports and proper enterprise SSDs raided together can be out done by an off the shelf NAS.

[dmj]

Any recommendations on which NAS I should get if I get the budget for it? Any features I should look out for?

 

It seems mad a decent SAN properly plumbed in with teamed 10g ports and proper enterprise SSDs raided together can be out done by an off the shelf NAS.

 

Anything that uses ZFS. Do try TrueNAS before buying something, it will run on fairly old hardware you can always pay them for the HA if you're flush.

Unfortunately i think Synology is Btrfs

[titch]

I might try out true nas then. Shame Synology doesn't use that file system. I couldn't find any real documentation or best practise online to make it work.

 

This may be a really stupid question.....but could i put truenas on a hyper v VM on our SAN? Or is that just stupid?

[titch]

Last place we had a Synology NAS (Unix based so likes files better!) on the same switch as the Mac suite purely for logic files.

 

Tied to AD and each user had their own folder

 

1G connection seemed to do the job! Teamed the NAS to 2G IIRC

Any idea which model you had?

[dmj]

This may be a really stupid question.....but could i put truenas on a hyper v VM on our SAN? Or is that just stupid?

 

ZFS is usually used to host VM's! it will probably work. Definitely do this for testing and use a raw disk. ZFS is quite memory intensive compared to other filesystems, so be sure to scale the storage and memory requirements together.

Normally I'd recommend using BSD based ZFS but I suspect hyper-v support for BSD is limited and I'd go for a linux based truenas in this case.

[DalekSec]

Any idea which model you had?

 

IIRC something like a DS1522 (would of been older model but that range!)

[dmj]

Qnap business range looks good https://www.qnap.com/solution/qnap-zfs/en-us/

[RobD]

I'm selling a 10 bay qnap at the moment if you want something cheap?

[Brimstone]

Currently, we have a new Imac m3 Mac suite just set up and enrolled with Jamf Education. 1g to desktop 10g connecting switches and a pretty fast SAN.

 

Could someone please enlighten if/how we should best setup a file share where kids can dump their logic pro projects onto. We currently having them saving locally which is annoying but means we dont have any speed issues

 

We seem to try it every few years but with no luck and im sure other places must have got this right. Should we be looking at a dedicated piece of hardware rather than a windows SMB file share on a SAN?

 

Thanks for any advice!

1. Professional applications like Logic do not work well across a network based home directory, in fact files will get corrupted very easily if you try and use this.

2. As previously said if you need users to backup their projects files with redudent storage then Synology is the vendor you need, both the desktop and rack mounted solutions support macOS APFS and HFS+ so users can backup their work.

3. There are also classroom assessment based solutions that support both Logic project and completed file formats, Showbie is the preferred choice for sending both Logic and Garageband files between students and teachers.

 

4. You would use a Synology as a dedicated storage for the music suite only, with 1Gb to the desktop this should be suffiecent

Edited December 22, 2023 by Brimstone

[titch]

 

4. You would use a Synology as a dedicated storage for the music suite only, with 1Gb to the desktop this should be suffiecent

 

Thanks, Brimstone. I know you are a bit of an Apple guru so just wanted to clear the above. Are you saying the above we be ok to store files on or just as a backup?

 

Thankyou

[Brimstone]

Thanks, Brimstone. I know you are a bit of an Apple guru so just wanted to clear the above. Are you saying the above we be ok to store files on or just as a backup?

 

Thankyou

You can you use it for both as long as you have budget for enough storage for 2 volume's. Synology is also Time Machine compatible, which is free if you wanted a good disaster recovery solution.

[titch]

You can you use it for both as long as you have budget for enough storage for 2 volume's. Synology is also Time Machine compatible, which is free if you wanted a good disaster recovery solution.

Thankyou. How come 2 volumes though?

[Brimstone]

Thankyou. How come 2 volumes though?

 

You would need 2 sepaarate volumes, one for the backup and one for project content accessible by users/