Setting up a photo server.

[lupin]

We're a photography studio, and right now we're overwhelmed with managing our photo files. What happen after a photo shoot is we download the files to one computer. Then if our retoucher needs to work on the photo, they'll have to download it to another computer and work it off there. Then we end up with two copies of the same image, and three copies, and four copies, etc.

I'm thinking of setting up a server to store up all image files. Two or three workstations will be connected to the server, and the workstations will load the image files from the main server for post-processing and image editing purposes. This way we don't need to have multiple copies of the same file on multiple computers. Also it'll be easier for us to manage back up, as we only have to keep backing up files from one computer.

If I do this, my question is:
1. Will working on a file on a network be slower than if we have them on a local disk? (average 100-300MB files)
2. How fast of a computer do I need to have as the server? What kind of specs?

Earlier I made a post about building an opteron machine, or dual opteron for our workstation. Does the server need to be as fast?

Thanks.

 

[windraider]

your main constraints will be mostly network and disk access on the server side.
i'd recommend a RAID-5 array for through-put/redundancy. preferrably SCSI drives for reliability due to this being for work use. a RAID-5 array on a good SCSI RAID Card using 15 K RPM drives on a PCI-X 133 slot should be plenty for a few workstations. 10K drives might work as well.
as for networking, Gigabit Ethernet would be your only real way to go. server could have a dual port Gigabit ethernet card on PCI-X, and it would fly. 125 MB/s transfers to workstations, so for a 300 meg file that's under 3 seconds (ideally)
basically, Giga-E and SCSI RAID. the rest of the system isn't too important, but i'd probably use a single opteron, and make sure you have PCI-x Slots on the Motherboard for the RAID card and the multi-port Giga-ether.
hope this helps some,
Cheers

 

[jackschmittusa]

I set up a budget file server for an advertising company a couple of years ago. You don't need much horsepower for a file server. It has a Duron 800 and 256mb ram. Make sure to use switches instead of hubs.

Raid is fine if it is in the budget, although I feel you would be better served in this case with just mirroring if you decide to use it. Gigabit ethernet is a plus if in the budget too, but not a necessity. A dvd/rw and backup software in the server can be set to automatically burn new files to dvd, which is fine for off site backup. When you take out a burned disk, replace it with a blank at the same time so it is ready for the next backup.

 

[imported_itr]

how much are you looking to spend on the server? like jackschmittusa pointed out, you do not need a very fast cpu for a fileserver.