Two computers, Kontakt files on only master, slave access via shared network drive?

lahatte · 2023-10-30T05:45:42+00:00

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I have a master PC with my DAW and a slave PC running Vienna Ensemble Pro. I want to use the slave computer to offload some processing from the master, but I would rather not have to copy libraries to that system.

On the slave computer, rather than having to copy the library files there, I want to try to access my existing libraries that have been installed on the master computer via a mapped network drive to where the files are stored on my master PC.

Now, on the slave computer I entered the library serial number into NA. But when I try to assign the library location in Native Access to the shared location it tells me that the path is invalid. Why? It needs to be more specific.

Why will it not allow me to use that library as the location? Is it because the master computer has also been set to use the library at that location? I don't get it.

One curious thing about this though is that after "Locating" to a locally installed duplicate copy of the library, which satisfied NA, when I go to VEPro after reopening it I can then open the library from the share drive location. I then exited VEPro on the slave, changed the name of the slave .nicnt file, and it still worked when VEPro was reopened on the slave. So it seems as if the instance in VEPro is using the info from the shared drive only.

UPDATE: As I suspected, it seems that the network traffic that occurs when doing this is too much for my setup. So, I guess I'll just bite the bullet and copy over full libraries to the slave where need.

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LostInFoundation

Network drives are not suggested by NI. Probably you just discovered why

PoorFellow

In theory the use of "network drives" always sounds so cool. But in reality then even with a powerful system there often are drawbacks or too many drawbacks. Drawbacks includes that in reality the shared network drives have to be kept running at times where a normal drive would have turned off and if not then one could be facing what follows from not having the drive available at all times, including some drives not powering up as fast as your OS making problems for programs trying to access the drives before available. Quality NAS can also take very long time doing back ground processes and the more you have running and the more elaborate the longer things can take - including boot of NAS and shut down of NAS !

Someone I know that uses a 13th generation high tier Intel i7 and all that follows (including NVME drive and what not) shelled out on a brand name raid NAS with two drives , loads of apps in NAS and what not.. The person very soon did regret , not having understood all that it entails.

A very simple single drive NAS without all the bells and whistles may give a simpler and less 'complicated' experience , but still then often it's a lot simpler to use an USB drive or a simple old fashioned internal drive if room for that... The person mentioned above still got the NAS but most likely almost never uses it and instead just bought a 2.5" internal 4TB SSD since after the arrival of NVME the price of SSD also went down..

Kubrak

I think, one can get around network disc "blockage" by NI. But than to get decent behaviour one needs very fast LAN, very fast discs and so on.

It is probably easier to have two installations, not shared...

Some folks say, NAS works fine for them. Again, it should be powerfull one, with fast SSDs and very fast LAN....

lahatte

My network speed is supposed to be 1Gbps. And that's what the machine with the slowest network adapter shows in the adapter properties. But I'm not sure I am getting that much. Maybe if I had the ability for doing 10Gbps it would help.

But yes, it is certainly more likely to work better when the library is installed on the computer that uses it.

Oh well, it was worth a shot.

Thanks.

Kubrak

Well 1Gbps is slow for such a purpose. At least if one uses bigger Kontakt Libraries....

NVMe SSD has read speed up to 7 500 MBps, which might roughly equal 60 Gbps. SATA has 600 MBps, which roughly equals 5 Gbps.

So, 10 Gbps LAN would be OK for SATA disc, but still limiting for NVMe SSD discs. For NVMe discs in RAID0 one would get use even for 100 Gbps LAN....

lahatte

My slave computer is an older Dell server R610 with 96 gigs of RAM, and I have a 4TB SSD in a drive slot. The drive controller speed can range from 300-600 MBps. Its ethernet is 1 gigabit. As I understand it the server can accept some 10Gb cards.

Anyway, I have seen the PCI Gen 5 drives are capable of around 14,000 MBps. So, time to win the lottery.

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