I am by no means an expert on the topic but I do manage to produce 3-4 gallons of syrup on a good year.
A few things I do that may or may not work in your situation.
-Buckets I pick up at a local store bakery, they get various ingredients supplied in them so they always have plenty on hand.
Food grade app 2 1/2 gallon with lid cost me 50 cents each.
Drill a hole in the lid, stick your hose in and you are good to go.
On an exceptional day 1 tree can fill a bucket but typically if I collect sap every other day they are about the right size.
A gallon a day per tree would be a real good day.
Collection system consists of a couple of plastic totes in the back of the yard truck to transport the sap to the cooker, lids help cut down on how much splashes out on the ride.
Evaporation I believe they say 1 gallon per square foot of surface area so a 2 x 4 cooker would do about 8 gallons per hour if everything is working perfectly.
I built my own evaporator out of an old livestock water bowl
2 foot by 4 foot stainless steel pan on it, below that I gutted out all but the shell and lined it with brick.
A heavy steel plate on top of the bricks protect the stainless pan from the fire getting it too hot.
A door on one end to load wood and 6 feet of chimney on the other end.
This whole contraption I have mounted on a heavy old steel wagon so I can tow it to the yard in the spring and get it out of my way when I am done with it.
Often if I have a bunch of scrap trees around I will leave the door open once the fire is burning and just push long wood into it, as it burns and falls I put it in again, saves a bunch of time cutting wood to size.
If I get off to a late start I do not bother scrambling into the wee hours to finish a batch, just let the fire burn out on it's own and start it back up in the morning.
My pan holds about 40 gallons, I cook it down until about 2 gallon remain (any less and it starts to burn on the sides) then transfer it into a 3 gallon stainless stock pot and finish it on a propane burner.
Don't know exactly how true it is but I have heard it said that if you are going to do syrup with anything other than free wood your fuel will end up costing you more than the sap is worth.
Only other advise I can think of is scout out your trail system and trim any branches in your way long before tapping time, one year I got ambitious with a chain saw just before the sap started to run and the sap from every tree I trimmed flowed out onto the ground instead of into my buckets from wherever there was a fresh cut.
Probably a few things in here that will make the pro's roll there eyes but it's what I have and it works for us.
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