I'm setting up a small office with 6 graphics workstations on a true peer-to-peer network of XP Professional PCs. We're using 16 GB video files in video editing software like After Effects, accessing files from each others' machines via our gigabit CAT5 network (CAT5e cables).
Each machine is ****ed fast - 2GHz, 2GB RAM, 4-drive RAID0, gigabit NICs. My network is simple: all workstations plug into a SMC 8-port gigabit switch. That uplinks to a DLink router which is my DHCP provider (this is one of those inexpensive DSL-WAN + firewall + DHCP server boxes).
I have two questions. I'll post them separately, so here's the second:
(of course I'm furious Microsoft set this artificial limit!! But putting that aside...)
It seems like Microsoft assumes that there will be one (or few) servers that store all the big data, and lots of workstations in my network. Not the case for me! I want a true peer-to-peer network, where each workstation has the big data locally (for maximum video editing speed), but can access each other's data when necessary (editing over the network runs slow, but is good enough for quick edits).
Q1: What is the "correct" way to set up a true peer-to-peer network using WIndows XP with unlimited inbound socket connections? If I could simply buy an "unlocked" XP Server service, or if there was a third party Server service, that would be a fine solution. But I can't find anything like that - everyone points to the XP Server product.
Q2: (I've never used XP Server or Active Directories, so bear with me here) If I get a XP Server and set up Active Directories, will this cause a network bottleneck? Let's say I copy a big file from \\PCA to a virtual drive \\STORAGE which is actually mapped to a local drive on another client (\\PCB\MYFILES\). DO all those packets go through a single server, or directly from one PC to the other? If all 6 of my workstations are copying massive files back and forth to each other's hard drives simultaneously, will this create a huge bottleneck in network traffic? From what I can tell, yes, unless XP Server can magicly handle 100x the traffic of one of my current machines.
The kneejerk answer is "get a fast server", but I don't think that will work. I think it will be choked by network bandwidth, even with gigabit. Most big fat server machines are designed for internet servers - many slow network connections, so network bandwith isn't their real problem. (unless I can add 10 NIC cards to it...but that's clearly not the right solution either)
Q3. Part of the problem is I don't know what the current bottleneck is, exactly. I would like to test my system's performance ( my benchmark is a simple 2GB file copy - machine to machine) but haven't found any software that tells me clearly what is maxed out. If someone could recommend easy-to-use network performance software, or has advice on how to use the XP built-in software to pinpoint bottlenecks, that would be great.
Whew, this is long. thanks for reading. If there are any EXPERTS in this area - someone who has set up video editing workstation networks before - who live in the Oakland CA area and want short-term contract, I'd lvoe to hear from you - 510-610-4274 cel.
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