Hi All. Long time listener, first time caller.
We are working on a project for a broadcasting company that involves capturing/ingesting a lot of 4k60 SDI feeds and encoding them to pro-res. The project was almost dead because the desired software is mac based, and the number of records needed were hitting many bottlenecks that pushed the price skyward. Now that apple announce the M2Ultra on the MacPro, the project is back alive. Thunderbolt and pci bottlenecks no longer apply, and I can capture up to 24 channels of 4k60p on 1 machine and encode all of that to prores as needed. Now the problem is storage. Before, each Mac Studio was going to have 8TB per 2 channels of record, and the world was going to be fine, but with the number of channels of records we will be doing (20 4k60p ProRes HQ), we will be recording at 6 GB/second (21TB/hr)… per machine… thats right, there will be 2 of these running at the same time for redundancy.
Now I need to solve the storage problem. Each machine will be putting out 48gbps of data in real time, consistently as long as the record button is rolling. I originally thought about doing 1 traditional NAS per unit, to keep true redundancy, but the more and more I learn about TrueNAS Scale and Clustering, I think this might be a great option that still offers redundantly in a little bit of a different way. The only truly non redundant item in a Cluster of 3-4 nodes, is networking (am I wrong?).
I am truly lost in the details of performance. Having a convo with IX systems right now, but communication with engineers through the sales peeps is slow. I might buy a system from them, I might build my own. I think ultimately budget will decide that.
Where I need help getting answers knowing is if a system of this style will even be able to handle the throughput. SMB would be the first route I would take with the MacPro’s. I have never taken SMB to speeds anywhere near this. 2 Streams of 48gbps entering the cluster.
IXSystems recommended their R30 systems, but so far wont tell me what Epyc CPU is being used. It seems like its either a 16/32/64 core Gen 3 with 3D VCashe according to their sheets. Does 3D Vcashe make a big difference in a system like this? How would I go about sizing up the Proper Single Socket Eypc CPU, and the right amount of RAM for a system that needs performance like this.
If I build my own system, right now it looks like the most affordable U.2 Drives on the market are the Micro 9400 15TB & 30TB drives. Anyone have advice on how to properly think though proper RAID config per Node, and then how redundant the cluster is itself? I dont have an exact target, but anywhere between 400 to 800 TB final usable space. If anyone has advise on how to build it out for that amount of space, with the needed performance, in the best money saving way possible, I’m happy to buy a beer 