Blackmagic Forum

What are the minimum/ideal system requirements for running a dedicated Project Server on Windows? We're expanding and looking to set up a collaborative environment for the first time. We want to run Project Server on a dedicated machine but I'm having trouble finding specific information on its system requirements and the network architecture in general. I'm planning to use NAS, at least at first, over 10Gb ethernet. A post from Peter Chamberlain (https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=97362#p540329) leads me to believe that it wouldn't be ideal to run Project Server on the media server (I assume because there's so much traffic on the media server). Can I run Project Server on the same server I use for remote rendering?

And another question, if I may: would it be asking for trouble to use a Mac Mini as the project server when the workstations are all Windows? It would be cool to be able to use one of the new M1 Mac Minis for both a project server and remote rendering. But our workstations will always be Windows.

Any advice at all is appreciated.

I use a Mac Mini as a project server with Windows/Mac/Linux workstations/laptops. It's completely seamless as it all comes down to just TCP/IP communication. For a project server without media, any recent quad core Intel i5 or better on any platform should suffice. Depends on the number of clients of course, but you're not likely to saturate the CPU or network with just project data unless you're a large company. I know the old DaVinci Resolve 14 Configuration Guide recommended a dual core 3GHz Intel i7.

If you don't want to mess with the database server installation/configuration yourself, it helps if it's a system where Resolve can be installed (it doesn't have to run well), but it's not a requirement.

If all your workstations are Windows you don't even have to set up mapped mounts in Resolve as they will all use the same path to the NAS.

Technically the project server can be any machine that is always on, but I like running it on a small standalone Mac Mini or Intel NUC. If anything should happen you can get a new one on short notice, perform a complete restore from the backup and be up and running again very quickly.

Fantastic. Thank you very much!

Do you mind sharing our Mac Mini M1 specs for the project server? Should one get more than 16GB RAM and 512GB HDD? TIA

itsjohnny wrote:Do you mind sharing our Mac Mini M1 specs for the project server? Should one get more than 16GB RAM and 512GB HDD? TIA

Sure. It's a Mac Mini M1 with 16GB RAM and 250GB disk. I've had it in continuous operation for about three years now with no problems. I keep daily server backups on it and I've still got ~50% free disk space. It's been doing a great job for me. Would recommend.

It doesn't have to be a very powerful machine. I know this is vague. We're running ours on a VM, it's hard to make a straight comparison to an actual physical machine.

What's more important is fast storage (NVME would be great) and low latency network. If you're overloading your switches with heavy file traffic your Resolve will actually slow down. The UI will become less responsive at around 50 ms latency.

Fort those with DR under Windows, the additional plus will be ProRes encoding in hardware.