I was told that if I use a ethernet cable or firewire not sure which one and daisy chain/connect two macs togehter they will work off of each other. Meaning like my render times will be quicker because they will be working together. Is this true? Is it straight up plug and play with this ethernet cable from one computer to the other?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Linking Computers?
- Thread starter Espnetboy3
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Isnt that xgrid like a server or something very expensive you have to buy?
It's like an Xserv or whatever that system is right?
I thought I was reading somewhere and it mentioned anyone can connect one of there mac HD's to another and they will work simultaniously on projects etc.
It's like an Xserv or whatever that system is right?
I thought I was reading somewhere and it mentioned anyone can connect one of there mac HD's to another and they will work simultaniously on projects etc.
Espnetboy3 said:
nope its software: http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/xgrid/ its a clustering setup, which is what you were dsecribing.
Espnetboy3 said:
First, you need to understand two concepts or learn to read.
The first is the term "Networking". In the computer world networking means the ability to transfer information (data) from computer to computer.
However, with networking you can do things like "serve" files, webpages, e-mail etc. i.e. you need to have a network before you can have a "server". So with a network another Mac A can use the HD in Mac B. As for working on a project at the same time it isn't that case. There are ways to do this, but it is beyond the scope of this post. Read about SAN technology.
The second thing you need to understand is a "cluster". a cluster is a group of computer connected by a "network". there are several different models on how cluster work. The main idea is that computer across a network share memory and their processing power to complete a large task. a good basic example is http://distributed.net or http://folding.stanford.edu/.
Now you understand basically what a cluster is now we can talk about xgrid. Xgrid came about after the System X project. http://www.apple.com/science/profiles/vatech2/
Xgrid is an easy way to organize you computers in a grid and/or cluster. in this example you can use the terms in place of the other.
Espnetboy3 said:
Yes, you can "network" two Macs using a "crossover" ethernet cable or with an ethernet switch (or hub) using regular ethernet cables. You just need to set it up in the Networking section of System Prefs. There is Help to guide you.
Yes, you can network over FireWire using OS X Tiger. Never tried it, but it's there.
No, it's not going to make anything faster - you'll share resources like disks, but not CPUs.
XGrid will allow multiple CPU tasking, but you'll need to be a fairly good programmer to set that up, and if you were, you probably wouldn't have made this post...
There is a way to do distributed rendering of some things, like Shake projects or Compressor batches, but it requires a properly networked group of computers, QMaster, and a bunch of licenses for some pretty expensive ProApps.
As usual, there's no free lunch...
I guess I worded somethings wrong but I know what a network is and cluster. My question was simply without xgrid and or any third party software, can you have two computers work on the same tasks at once using an ethernet cable? I thought I read somewhere you can as did my cuzin. I guess not. Thanks
Espnetboy3 said:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/bonjour/ then click on the technology brief on the right side and read.
Espnetboy3 said:
If you really understood what a cluster was your whole question would have been avoided.
Espnetboy3 said:
I know what a carburator is but how does air get into an engine..
http://prestonandsteve.com/audio/47.mp3