network card advice

[stevesideas]

I seem to be having problems when rendering large scenes with lots of textures etc...Im not sure if its because of the quality of my network cards so I thought I would ask what people recommend.

I currently have a bunch of D-Link DGE-528T Adapters. These were fairly cheap...about £10 each. Do you think more expensive cards are more reliable and worth the money ?

[jacksc02]

Are you pulling files/textures/proxies off a server?

[stevesideas]

My main workstation has all my textures and proxies/assets on it and so the render nodes all pull these assets from this system.

I did read another forum that discussed external network raid drives....Im thinking this may be the way to go..what do you think ? Maybe this would sort out the issues I have.

[jacksc02]

Yeah that would be a big slow down on large scenes.
We used to have a 4TB server here and we couldnt render large scenes on more than 4 machines as the server couldnt handle it! but now we have a 22TB server that has 4 gigabit network connections out of it and there are no bottleneck or other render issues now!

[stevesideas]

I didnt even know you could get 4 gig networks. Would you recommend a particular manufacturer for the server and cards ?

[stevesideas]

Actually, after looking around that may be overkill in terms of cost for my business. Would probably need to go with possibly a 2gig solution...

[jacksc02]

well its not actually a 4 gig network card.
It is 2 cards with 2 1gb connections.
It mainly allows for a larger number of connections to be made at once without causing a slowdow.

As for the server itself it was made by a local computer supplier.

[super gnu]

maybe he meant he had 4 seperate gigabit connections....

[jacksc02]

maybe he meant he had 4 seperate gigabit connections....

Correct!

You can get some NAS storage solutions that have 2 gigabit network connections on board

[stevesideas]

ok, that makes sense. I guess I'll have to shop around for some double connection cards.

Thanks for the info by the way.

[jacksc02]

Check this out Steve-
http://www.ebuyer.com/189994-buffalo...-wx4-0tl-r1-eu

It doesnt have a dual network card but it will be a massive improvement on using your workstation as a server!

[stevesideas]

Thanks...That looks like a pretty good server.