how do you hook up multiple computers to a harddrive?

H

heroicarts

Member
ok so here is my question...

how do you hook up multiple computers to a external hard-drive?

What I am trying to accomplish is have one of my three macs access raw footage off a single source. So that one person can be editing/special effects and another and be scoring/fooley and the other work on dialouge and color. What is the most economical answer with out simply disconnecting the drive and moving it to the other computer?
 
You need to create a server. The simplest way is you connect one machine to the drive, then setup Sharing in your system preferences. Then the other machine needs to be connected via Ethernet cable to the first. Then have the second browse the network and connect to the first, using either the main user and password or a new one you create. It will then be able to access the hard drive as a shared volume. This is the simplest method.

However long-term this is poor performance especially for high bandwidth work like HD and VFX. You want a NAS- network attached server- essentially a special computer with attached hard drives whose job is solely to centrally store your files for quick access from any computer on the network. It's like a mini website in your own network. Here's a couple of options:

http://www.drobo.com/

http://www.pcworld.com/article/125072/top_5_networkattached_storage_devices.html

-Noah
 
okay so what do i need for a NAS? I have an old QS G4 that i could use. What apps will i need and do i need any special hardware. I have many external hard-drives or will i need something more specific?

mitch
 
heroicarts said:
okay so what do i need for a NAS? I have an old QS G4 that i could use. What apps will i need and do i need any special hardware. I have many external hard-drives or will i need something more specific?

mitch
Click to expand...


The G4 running Mac OS X will be a server. Go to the Apple sites if you are not familar with setting the 'sharing' options in the System Preverences, to get more details.



A Network Attached Storage device, is a server, which has had a bit of optimization for handling network traffic, and may include such implementations as 'RAID', to speed up disk access.

Using a network server has performance impacts. All data goes over the network to the server, or comes from the server, for the files that you are working with (ok, some data is cached... but basically keep it in mind that the network is used for everything...)

For 'Standard Definition' projects, where you are just splicing and dicing your footage, and only occasionally previewing, perhaps this network connection may not have an impact.

For HD projects, the impact is pretty obvious, and may even require improving locally attached disks to be higher performance, like use 10,000 RPM devices in a RAID configuration...

For these types of questions it is very difficult to answer them in such a way that people understand, who have not dealt with setting up a network, shared disks on a network, and the various types of disk configurations and types.

The 'simplest' is use the G4, and put a couple of Firewire disks on that system... set up sharing, and then more machines on the network can use the disk resources... until two users are fighting over slow access to the same drive where their project data is located...
 
okay but how do i connect the other comps to the g4 which is acting as the server. cause ethernet isnt fast enough is it? thats what i am confused about is how everything is actually wired.
 
heroicarts said:
okay but how do i connect the other comps to the g4 which is acting as the server. cause ethernet isnt fast enough is it? thats what i am confused about is how everything is actually wired.
Click to expand...

Use an Gigabit Ethernet switch/hub and accept that the 'cost' of sharing, is at the price of performance. Anything more will cost money, and be more complex to setup, so I won't really mentioned Fibre Channel, or 10 Gigabit iSCSI solution...
 
okay so i get cat6 cable and it just plugs into the ethernet port on the back or the computers or do i need a special card. Am i looking at the right switchs if they are only 100 bucks?
 
heroicarts said:
okay so i get cat6 cable and it just plugs into the ethernet port on the back or the computers or do i need a special card. Am i looking at the right switchs if they are only 100 bucks?
Click to expand...


For Macs since 2001 just getting a Gigabit switch, and cable is sufficient. Apple put a gigabit Ethernet interface on the Mac, when Gigabit switches were in the $7,000 to $10,000 range...

It is rather odd, given how now Jobs says that he is 'eliminating' Firewire on the low end laptops, because 'consumers' don't buy equipment with that kind of requirement...

Given this pass history, I'm surprised that a Mac doesn't have a 10 Gigabit Ethernet interface on it...
 
Hello,

I'm new to this forum, which I found when googling for "multiple computers to one hard drive".

I'm in the process of switching from two stand alone Windows machines to two Mac's that I hope to link. I'm not very technical and haven't worked with let alone set up a network, but my idea(l) would be using a single hard drive for storing all data (documents, photos, music, movies, bookmarks, address books, etc.) so that I/we can save/access/change/delete files from either machine whilst avoid to, for example, synchronize bookmarks; ideally I/we would access mail from either machine too.

I'm currently in phase one (i.e. I replaced one 7-year old basic Windows 98SE PC with a Mac mini and getting to grips with OS X - very happy so far !) and would like some advice on phase two: what to buy (apart from a second Mac) to do the above the easiest & most stable?
Reading the above I was thinking of buying a switch (Apple Airport Extreme?) and attaching the two Mac's to it through Gigabit ethernet cables as well as an ethernet (external) hard drive (to store the above mentioned data rather than on the internal hard drives; I could/would also attached the cable modem (through ethernet cable) for internet access and a (shared) USB printer (through an USB hub).
It may be simpler to attach an USB hard drive (and using the rather than an ethernet one, but I wonder whether that would be too slow? I would also like to attach a second (shared) HD for back ups (maybe three partitions : Mac1, Mac2, and shared external HD ?).

Maybe want I want/would like is not possible or maybe it's much easier to achieve in a different way - any advice/suggestions is most welcome!

ps: I don't know any Mac users where I live (rural France)...
 
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