Video server optimisations

[Paul Dorman]

Hi everyone,

I've recently installed a file server for a client who does digital 
video production. He captures and edits his footage over a 100MB/s 
connection on his editing and compositing machines. He's real happy 
about the system, but it does have a few niggles perhaps relating to 
performance.

The demands are not great - DV requires 3.7MB/s, there is usually only 
one client, but occasionally two, and the videoserver itself is a 
hardware RAID-5 system employing a 3Ware 6800 card with 5 100GB Maxtor 
hard disks (formatted with ext3, geared for large files).

When doing big captures the capture will just fail (he's using Premiere, 
if that makes any difference to anyone!). I'm wondering if there's any 
way to optimise Samba and the network settings in general for large 
continuous transmission of data streams. My client's workstations are NT 
4.0 boxes with all the good service packs applied.

Any of you Samba/networking experts have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

Best regards,
Paul Dorman.

Samba rocks BTW :o)