After Pixar render farms, I thought Weta Digital render farms. According to the BBC "it runs the third largest supercomputer on the planet if you count the number of processors, 3300, it can call on, says Scott Houston, chief technical officer at Weta."
Read the rest of the BBC article
Visit Weta Digital
Lord of the Rings special effects stats (Wired):
Number of [special] f/x shots: 1,400
Minimum number of frames per shot: 240
Average time to render one frame: 2 hours
Longest time: 2 days
Total screen time of [special] f/x shots: 2 hours
12/31/2008
Pixar's Render Farm
I wrote earlier about external enclosures, then I thought Pixar render farms. I can guarantee you Pixar render farms are in the top 50 fastest super computers in the world.
Check out theses other images courtesy of Rotten Tomatoes.
Check out theses other images courtesy of Rotten Tomatoes.
External Enclosures
On a graphics workstation, hard drives do a lot of hard work. Many people have talked to me about DROBO four drives hot-swappable enclosure. My only droback is that it does not support eSATA connections. Drobo only connects to USB 2.0 and Firewire 800 even though you can only install SATA hard drives.
Drobo is fast but not as fast as eSATA. Drobo will let you know if drives are starting to fail, but many Firewire and USB enclosures do not, eSATA does this by default. One main drawback of eSATA is that you may need to purchase the PCI card, USB 2.0 comes as a standard in desktops and laptops and in a majority of cases Firewire as well. I suspect that eSATA will co-exist with USB 2.0 and Firewire 400/800 in the external enclosure market. Also, buyer beware about enclosures without fans. Hard drives can generate a lot of heat if they are hard at work.
Some enclosures I have been looking at:
AMS DS-2350S 5 bay eSATA enclosure. At $217.99 it is good price and great investment if your thinking hard drive replacing/expansion of at least 5-7 years. It also comes with the PCI SATA card. It can become noisy, because it also includes two fans.
Macally 1 bay USB 2.0 eSATA enclosure. Best of both worlds. At a price of $19.99 and stackable, it's a decent product for its price. No fan though.
Macally USB 2.0, IEEE 1394 (Firewire 400) and eSATA enclosure. Sort of the best of three worlds. Ideally it should be Firewire 800, but at $39.99, it's not a bad price. Plus they're stackable. No fan either.
If you happen to render a movie, then you can go to an 8 bay enclosure.
Enjoy new year's eve and prosperous year!
Drobo is fast but not as fast as eSATA. Drobo will let you know if drives are starting to fail, but many Firewire and USB enclosures do not, eSATA does this by default. One main drawback of eSATA is that you may need to purchase the PCI card, USB 2.0 comes as a standard in desktops and laptops and in a majority of cases Firewire as well. I suspect that eSATA will co-exist with USB 2.0 and Firewire 400/800 in the external enclosure market. Also, buyer beware about enclosures without fans. Hard drives can generate a lot of heat if they are hard at work.
Some enclosures I have been looking at:
AMS DS-2350S 5 bay eSATA enclosure. At $217.99 it is good price and great investment if your thinking hard drive replacing/expansion of at least 5-7 years. It also comes with the PCI SATA card. It can become noisy, because it also includes two fans.
Macally 1 bay USB 2.0 eSATA enclosure. Best of both worlds. At a price of $19.99 and stackable, it's a decent product for its price. No fan though.
Macally USB 2.0, IEEE 1394 (Firewire 400) and eSATA enclosure. Sort of the best of three worlds. Ideally it should be Firewire 800, but at $39.99, it's not a bad price. Plus they're stackable. No fan either.
If you happen to render a movie, then you can go to an 8 bay enclosure.
Enjoy new year's eve and prosperous year!
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