XSAN - FCP - Home Folders on XSAN Drive Questions

My question is that I would like to station the Home Folders on the XSAN drive in which AFP would be running on the MDC and the OD server would point that user to the MDC AFP share. We will be using Final Cut Pro 4.5, but I have seen users talking that it is not a good idea and then I see some say it is fine to run FCP when the Home Folder is on an XSAN drive. I was going to test it out but for some reason when I log into a user on the XSAN drive it says it cannot find the User Home Folder. Any help or ideas would be great. Thanks.
My set up is as follows:
-Xsan 1.2 on MDC (also back-up OD Replica) and 13 Clients.
- OD Machine (No Fibre Link)
- All client machines are only using 1 fibre uplink the MDC is 2
-Asante Gig switch with a Vixel 375 Fibre Switch
-2 Xserve Raids
Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.2)

Hi Jesse,
I don't quite get this -- you're going to use Xsan and then share out the volume using AFP, and then edit the clips from within FCP on that?
I don't like it. Performance won't be good.
Especially with Xsan 1.2 -- 1.3 is a lot better with AFP resharing, but still, the point of Xsan with FCP is so you can edit "online," and online means over fibre.
I also don't like FCP 4.5 -- I'd suggest getting up to 5.1, if you're going to use it with Xsan.
Finally, I wouldn't suggest you run the AFP service on the MDC machine. Your setup isn't one I would consider optimal. I might not even call it adequate. I may be missing the big picture, but I'd say you're cutting enough corners to be heading for "whitewater."

Similar Messages

How bad is it to have 4 network mounts for home folders?

I am the tech curriculum guy at a middle school and also manage the servers. I am not an expert at all. Learn enough to make it work efficiently. We got a new server (intel). I am in the process of migrating all the users, groups, home folders and data etc. Had some problems so I called Apple, in my discussion with the tech support there (3-4 hours solving problems) one of the techs questioned my setup. Here is what I used to do:
Server one has all the users in workgroup manager. The home folders for the 6th, 7th and 8th graders are on two separate drive bays on server one. Each grade level folder is a network mount. I then have the faculty home folders on a server two. There is also a shared folder called "Stuff" which mounts for all users and has clipart, movies etc. It is basically a read only mount. The faculty home folders are network mounts of their home folders.
I service between 400 and 500 students a day in the lab, it is quite busy, with anywhere from 60 to 90 users logged on at one time. My thinking last year was that if I could spread out the home folders on different drives, the students wouldn't all be hitting the same drive for saves, data etc. So that one drive wouldn't be spinning its brains out to keep everyone going. That is why I have the 4 network mounts for the home folders. One for each grade level (6,7,8) and the faculty.
My new server has three drives, two of them for home folders. The drives are 750 gb each. He (apple tech) suggested I create a folder in each drive, set it as the network mount and within that folder put two sets of home folders. So, then I would only have two network mounts, but retain my four sets of home folders that would be within the network mounts.
I guess my question is, which is better, to have the 4 network mounts with separate home folder locations on 2 different servers, or consolidate the home folders into 2 network mounts on one server.
He said that the more network mounts, the longer it takes to get computers started up.
Any expert advice here would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks, hope I explained this well enough.
Intel Imac Mac OS X (10.4.8) Lab- Education Intel iMacs - PPC eMacs

I don't think the logins take too long, we may wait 30 seconds or so for the students to login. We have had problems when 60 kids leave and 60 more come in, some login and after the username and password are entered, the login begins then locks. The Apple tech guy thought that could be aggravated by the 4 network mounts. I just sort of thought that with students and teachers accessing 4 different hard drives, that it wouldn't tax one drive as much. I agree that a longer login is a small price to pay for faster working speeds.

Multi-OS installation and one home folder on another drive?

I wish to use Nikon Scan with my film scanners I need to install Snow Leopard because it is the last supported OS since it includes Rosetta.
I currently have Lion on the boot drive of my Mac Pro and will install Snow Leopard and Nikon Scan on a dedicated drive.
My homefolder is on yet another drive.
My question is if this setup will cause any problem for my home folder?
I would have thought no, but want to be sure.
Many TIA
Philip

If you desire different backgrounds, screensavers, network, etc. You also cannot have any preference panes installed in the /Home/Library/ because they will not all work on each OS. Same for any Application Support files, possibly Mail data/configurations, and Safari. Anything in the /Home/Library/ folder that may be OS dependent cannot then be used by both OSes.
I don't think it's a good idea. Doing this is mostly intended for different versions of the same major OS version. For two different Snow Leopard versions, for example. I do it when I'm testing a new OS seed. But for separate OSes I would not.
Now, if you desire to keep a Home folder on a separate drive, then I would keep the two different Home folders on that drive and select the one intended for use with each OS. This would be a much cleaner approach.

Moving Network Home Folders

I would like to consolidate our network home folders onto one drive, into one volume. Is there a "best practice" limitation on how many home folders you should have per volume, disk, etc?
/Volumes/Disk1/users move these (aprox 50) to:
/Volumes/Disk2/users currently contains 350 HF
What is the best procedure and tool to use to move the home folders?
Thx in advance for any advice!
G5 Dual 1.8 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

we did this in our district over the summer....went from 9 drives on 5 servers down to 2 drives on 2 servers
insofar as copying is concerned, we found the quicked(and least user-intesive) was to just mount the "old" drive to the new one and use the ditto command via terminal
it was most useful because we could set it and then go do other things

Final Cut X 10.1.3 won't export with media on a xSAN drive

We have a new Facillis xSAN drive and about 36 computers logged onto the drive. The computers are all running 10.9.4 and edit fine with media on the SANs drive while in Final Cut X v10.1.3. However when we attempt to export and click on the share button nothing happens, the share menu stays there as if it wasn't even clicked on.
When we move the footage onto the local computer HD it exports fine. Any ideas as to how we fix this problem?

Hi,
I have run into the same issue with Terrablock. They have sent me a fix, but I have been too busy to test it yet. So, this year all my students will be keeping libraries locally with external media and cache on the Terrablock. What we are also doing is they will have a backup libraries folder on the Terrablock and at the end of the day, they copy they're library over to that. This means even if the person who edited on the previous day is off they can still access the latest version of the library. As, it seems as long as the library is initially created locally you can copy it back and forth, and export from it as long as you have opened from a local drive. If you create the library on the Terrablock and copy it to a local drive you still can't export.
We are also going to use Backups for FCPX Pro from NP Associates. It lets you set backups to 5 minutes or any time you require as in FCP classic. It's on the App store.
VJIse

How TO Share XSAN DRIVE for Windows PC

Good day .
I spend 1 day for sharing Xsan Drive for Windows Users.
For Mac Users it is not problem , But Mac can share only User Documents and share files with Windows PCs.
I found 1 solution with SAMBA. SMB.
I whant to get Apple solution for it. I dont whant to use anothere software to share files.
Thanks.

It is not clear what you are asking.
Do you want to share the XServe RAID data to Windows clients?
What machine is the XServe RAID connected to? Is it connected to a Mac?
By default Mac OS X Server will only share user home directories. To share other directories you can use Workgroup Manager (Tiger) or Server Admin (Leopard) to specify additional share points.
The Mac will not automatically share any volume to network users. That is a security risk, so you have to tell it which directories to share.

Network home folders: iCloud password question re-appears at every logon

Hello,
Is there any way to enable iMessage and Facetime together with Network home folders. Im using Mavericks server (Directory services enabled) and two Mavericks clients. Every time a user that was using machine A logs on to machine B the iClouds password prompt re-appears and subsequently security questions are sent to iOS devices that a new device was added.
Is there a way to circumvent this? I think I tried once in combination with mobile home folders. However, even if I excluded iMessage/Facetime system files from syncing, questions still re-appeared.
The more iCloud services are tied into the system, the more you would like to use them; even if you are using network home folders.
Regards,
Thomas

I also have this question.

Question mark on windows of folders and hard drives

I have noticed a question mark in the window of all folders and hard drives after installing Snow Leopard and still there after installing Lion. Is this something new or possibly a problem with my load?
Thanks

I failed to include the "traffic lights" in my screen shot, but all is there. When I click on question mark it says....

Newbee question on network home folders

I have 3 or 4 networked Macs in my home and I want everyone to have access to their own home folder from any Mac. Therefore the necessity for networked home folders. But I know nothing about how to set them up or even if it is possible in this situation. I have a copy of Mac OS X 10.5 server but have not set it up yet. Some Macs are a mix of 10.4 and 10.5.
How do I go about learning how to set this up? What are PHD (portable home directories)? How does mail work in a network home directory environment? All family members are on .mac mail.
Thank you for your help in getting this set up in my home.

A Network Home folder is simply where your Home Directory is stored on the Server rather than locally on you Mac.
The experience of using the Mac does not change so Mail and all other applications behave as they do with a normal local home. As you say this allows you to log in from any Mac. but before you set this up it is advisable to make all of your Macs identical, e.g make sure they all have the same Application, fonts, plugins etc because it is only the files that are normally in HD > Users > yourhomefolder
that are stored on the server, everything else stays local.
As for setting it up http://www.afp548.com/ has some good guides for Tiger server that can be adapted for Leopard
Portable home directories are similar in that the Home Directory is stored on the server, but a PHD syncs the directory to your local mac as well, so in theory this is the best of both worlds in that you work on a local home folder and everytime you log in and out your changes are sync'd back to the server.
This still allows you to log in from another Mac, and also means you can work on a laptop away from your network.
But like I said "in Theory" this is best of both worlds, and for the majority of the time it works well, but you can run into complications, such as errors syncing and the potential to loose work if you log into the account on two macs at the same time.

Thinking XRaid to connect 2 PowerMac towers for OD Home Folders... thoughts

Here is what I was thinking, tell me if this is along the correct lines...
Getting an XRAID (not sure of the drive config yet, suggestions are appreciated!) and dual Fiber cards, one for each PowerMac towers. Connecting both PowerMacs over fiber to the XRaid. Having a Mirrored set of drives (possible 4 total drives- mirroring 2 spanned sets- possible correct?). Then having that RAID connected to both systems, one as an OD Master, the other system as an OD Secondary.
Will this work? I want to have a central shared RAID array that both systems can see, should one box fail, and the other need to access the same data. Users entire desktop, home folder, etc will be pulled from the RAID though the PowerMac to the local desktop, which authenticates to first the Primary and if unavailable the secondary. All clients are 10.5 (latest revision) and the Servers are 10.5.4
I don't have the XRaid yet, about to order here in the next week. Would it also be recommended that if I buy a refurb that I buy an extended warranty on the unit- how often are they guys failing?

Hi
I'm in total agreement with Camelot. If I might add some views of my own? I do have some experience with your proposal but only in theory. It might be advisable to cross-post in the XSan Forum:
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=810
For perhaps more detailed answers to your questions?
Some things I have noticed about your post is you do know that Apple have discontinued the XServe RAID? Unless you already have at least one or have already purchased prior to phase out or are planning to buy second hand then you won't get any joy with any Apple branded products. Apple do recommend:
http://www.promise.com/product/productdetail_eng.asp?segment=VTrak&productid=121
Which I have never used. What I have used in a mac environment is:
http://www.united-digital.co.uk/sub_hyperstar.php
But not in the scenario you're proposing. Something you should be aware of is XSan limits you to 64 licenses. This includes MDCs, RAIDs, and Workstations. It might also include the Fibre Channel Fabric? Although I'm not sure? I'm not sure what repercussions this may have in your desire to host networked home folders as theoritically the license would be with the OD Master rather than its clients. Something to double-check on possibly? What I have seen on Apple Training Seminars is this scenario:
XSan (2 or more XServe RAIDs or any other RAID of your choice), 1xMDC and 1xBackup MDC (both XServes) and finally OD Master and however many Replicas you want depending on load. Again all XServes. Of course this is Apple's recommended configuration and assumes limitless budget. One thing for certain though is you will have performance problems if you don't dedicate something as the MDC. Although this does depend a lot on load. I guess you could have an OD Master as MDC provided you had at least two Replicas (possibly?) hosting the home folders. Again your mileage may vary.
Tony

Open Directory and Mobile Home Folders

Hi All,
I am a bit confused about Open Directory and Mobile Accounts! here is our scenario. We have an Open Directory setup and all Accounts are set to mobile, accounts are almost 250+, my main problem is the Synchronization Conflicts, the accounts are automated to sync every 30 mins, the problem is every now and then schronization conflict windows popups, our users are complaining almost everytime, another problem is all of the users home folder has a qouta of 5GB, problem is there are users who excedd on the qouta some goes up to 60GB and 100GB, how do i solve this two problems. i am about to loose my mind. We setup like this in order for us to have a backup of all files of the users in case problem arises in the workstation. i have notice that synching file error comes up if you have temporary files used by any applications. the home folder of each user will exclude library, trash, music and entourage databse. Please Do help me.!!! Anyone who knows..?
Environment
OD Server - MacOS X Server Tiger 10.4.4
Workstations - mix MacOS X Tiger 10.4.4 - 10.4.7
AFP Home Folder - MacOS X Server Tiger 10.4.6 mounted Xsan Volume for home folders
johnaris
PLEASE HELP!

Thanks for the info, by now i will look into that little utility that is very helpful (console!)
Yes, I was thinking of synching our users at login and logout, the problem here is that, users here has bigger home folders.. mostly about 3GB, and it will took time to login a user, about 6-10 mins, depends on the network, we have networks users that that has slow networks and fast network on video editing users. What I did is that i excluded the Library in the synch options on each unit here, since we are not using Apple's Mail and iCal, it did minimize the synching error but the temp files and date discripancies are mostly that will generate an error, I am having really problems with this.
thanks for the info i really appreciate it.

Best setup for iMac with SSD & HDD? Best location of scratch & home folders

Best setup for iMac with SSD and HDD? Best location of scratch & home folders?
Computer:
iMac 2.93 GHz Quad core i7, 8GB RAM, 1 TB HDD + 256 GB SSD
There is not much info from Apple about the best way to set up an iMac with a Hard Drive and Solid state drive. I’ve looked at a few of the forum posts across the web and came up with a plan and lots of questions. (I do use photoshop frequently, but not on a professional level):
1. I will keep OS and Applications on SSD
2. About moving the home folder: I saw some posts about moving the whole home folder, but it makes more sense to me to only move selected fodlers withing the home folder tomake the best use of the SSD. So will keep the home folder on SSD, but move certain folders (document /music/iphoto/download) to 1 TB HDD via instructions I found on the macintoshperformanceguide website:
cd
sudo cp -r Documents /Volumes/Master
sudo rm -rf Documents
sudo ln -s /Volumes/Master/Documents Documents
3. I would like to get 8 more RAM when I can afford it
4. I will attach an external hard drive for most of my documents and backup storage
5. Now here is where I’m not sure what’s best:
a. Should I partition my internal 1 TB hard drive and use the first partition as a scratch disc for photoshop and other applications? How much should I partition? Is there any benefit to this if the rive is partitioned?
b. Should I use an external drive as a scratch disc?
c. Any advice on a good 1-2 TB external drive?
d. Should I just leave things in factory settings?
Don't assume I know the basics - I got all the above just by searching around. Any advice and commentary is appreciatedThanks.
Message was edited by: sfandtheworld

Thanks for the advice and the links. yes, I would like to speed up ps as much as possible.
I wonder if putting the scratch disc on the same drive as the OS would cause them to interfere with each other? Even if they are on different partitions, they would not be able to be accessed at the same time, or could they? That's why I was wondering if I should place scratch disc on the internal HDD -- but then I don't know how much to partition for it (or to partition at all?)
ALso, I read on a few places that too much read/write on the SSD wears it down over time? Is this more of a theoretical concerns - it does not make sense to me since it has no moving parts!
thanks again for the advice ... I'm gonna go digest those links

Moving home folders of existing users

Small office, 4 users so manual file moves or individual user settings updates arent a problem.
My question is, how do I go about moving the home directories of our users from one hard drive to another? My thought is just copy their existing home folders to the new location. Make the new location an automount and a home folder location. Then go into WGM and change each users home folder to the new location. Is this going to work? Anyone foresee any issues? Has anyone done anything like this?

Just wanted to post the outcome of this for posterity. Here are the steps I took.
1. Copy off the user home folders
2. Unmount and unshare the user folders
3. Create the raid array
4. Copy all the user data to the raid array
5. Set up the shares and automounts, setting the userdata folder to automount for home folders
6. In WGM, making sure the url for the home folders was appropriate. Since the new sharepoint name matched the original sharepoint name for me, I didnt need to do anything.
7. Updated the ACLs for each user. These were all erased during copy.
Thats it, users were able to log in again. However, one unexpected thing is that iCal shared calendars stopped working. Users are seeing an error when they log in saying their shared calendars are not online. I dont even know how to go about fixing this. I made sure permissions were correct on the shared calendar folders...

How to manage local user home folders?

We are using Mac OS X 10.6.8 in a classroom. Hard drive has two partitions, one for OS and apps, the other for student's files. Computers are bind to the Active Directory. Unfortunately, local home folders are on the boot parition. Over a time when apps FCP and Avid are frequently used, the boot partition gets filled with files and finally it's full. With zero kb available, users cannot even login anymore. Manually deleting files by admin is cumbersome and time-consuming task.
I'm looking for a way to keep /Users folder clean. Putting user's home folders to server is not an option, because of latency issues etc. Unfortunately the local home folder is the default saving place when user issues the Save As command. I've tried to tinker with the User Template to lock the Documents folder but apps like Microsoft Word and Final Cut Pro go crazy when they cannot save there.
Forwarding /Users to other partition does not solve the problem, it just moves the problem to another place.
Logout Hook to automatically purging the files could be an solution, but there's always one hapless soul who saves his or hers files to wrong place and loses them. Or maybe a script which looks at the modfication date and deletes old files.
Any ideas?

You need to set the scratch disks in FCP and Avid to fix the problem.
Files coming from word etc, will be so minor that it'll take forever to fill up the HD with that kind of stuff.
If you wanted to move the whole home folder to another place on the system, you need to do so using OS X server. It's called Augmenting Active Directory User Records.
If you don't have an OS X Server, you may be able to change the Users Home directory on each individual computer, but it's going to be pretty cumbersome. Do so in the Accounts pane in the System Preferences.
Once you've changed the User Home folder location, you need to copy the users home folder using rsync in the terminal.
Like this:
rsync -av /Users/*username* /Volumes/*drivename*/*homefolderlocation*/
HTH
-Graham

FCP thinks iMac's second drive is a camera

My iMac has 2 drives, the SSD and a 2TB HD, FCP only reconizes the SSD drive as a device and the HD as a camera. It didn't take long before my SSD was full and refusing to copy any more files to it. I moved the "Final Cut Events" and "Final Cut Projects" folder off the SSD and onto the internal HD drive. As expected FCP is now empty so my question is this.
How do I link FCP to the new location of the Events and Projects folders and how do I force FCP to copy all future importered material to the new folder location instead of insisting on putting them on the SSD..?
thanks.

The drive is formatted as: Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
Found no folders or files named "Private" or "DCIM" located on that drive. Even checked the hidden files on that drive and this is all I came up with:
.apdisk
.DocumentRevisions-V100/
.DS_Store
.fcplock
.fcpuser
.fseventsd/
.Spotlight-V100/
.TemporaryItems/
.Trashes/

XSAN - FCP - Home Folders on XSAN Drive Questions

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