Hello QNAP Community!
I’m about to equip my small studio with a first QNAP NAS.
I did my homework as much as possible, limiting my choices to two products. Although I would greatly appreciate any other possibilities.
I’m quite green, so please excuse me if there is some information or doubt which are irrelevant to this matter.
My PC network card: Marvell AQtion 10 Gbit Network Adapter
Just to give you a short background. I’m currently in the Co-work space where the internet connection is 10 GbE, and I would love to use that potential. In general, I’m a graphic designer, working in Davinci Resolve, 3ds Max, and many other 2D or 3D graphic software. It means that very often I use the assets that are quite heavy.
I need 4 slots NAS where I’m gonna run RAID 10 ( I’ve read about the differences between RAID 5 and RAID 10, and as I would like to have the highest performance, RAID 10 seems to be the best option). And my current choices are
TS-473A-8G
TVS-h474-PT-8G
And due to the price, my preference would be TS-473A-8G.
As as read, I find out that I will need a switch, which QNAP offers as well, and in the TS model: The Network module.
Could you please tell me if it’s better to purchase the TS model and then start adding the particular PCIes adapters, or maybe consider the TVS model? But because of the budget it would be rather difficult now.
I’m quite pleased that QNAP allows the user to upgrade the NAS and add extra components. But is it efficient in the long run?
Could you also tell me what Network Module I would have to take to run 10Gbe connection in the TS NAS? QNAP offers a few of them, but I can’t tell which one is better. Completely don’t understand the differences.
Unless you need increased IOPS …no need for 50% storage penalty of RAID10…just go with RAID5 (don’t forget the backups)
Please elaborate your network a bit more, 10Gbit internet connection and then what? (router capable of those speeds?) , you have no switch? How is that setup?..If you need large data volumes shuffled around, where does the NAS and the internet come into play? (Direct web exposure of the NAS is VERY dangerous…!)
Right, but when I want to share the NAS storage with someone working 1000km away, isn’t it better for the overall performance to keep RAID 10? Because that will be a case at some point. I will have two PCs connected locally, but I work with freelancer from around the world where I would like to keep the connection as stable and fast as possible from my side. I don’t understand much the IOPS apart from what I’ve just read in Wikipedia in few minutes. Ofc I don’t want to be an ignorant, and you might be 100% right with RAID 5, it’s just my knowledge which is still limited now.
Just an example, let’s say I want to work with a freelancer from different country. Every project I work on, it has the main library and project files in NAS, whenever I update one part of the project, he need to get the quick access and Syncing has to go as fast as we can. I know it depends very much from his/her connection as well, but I want to do the best setup from my side.
So my current situation is that I’m connected to my PC via ethernet wire directly from their socket in the “floor”.
And my idea was to purchase QNAP NAS, and switch (e.g QSW-2104-2T-R2) to be able to use 10 Gbit. and plug directly to both PCs in the Co-work. Can you tell me something more about the direct web exposure? I didn’t think about that, by default I was thinking that I can protect my NAS with password or other method.
Unless the freelancers are blowing through a symmetrical 10GbE pipe as well (that is peered perfectly to arrive with low enough latency) …that plan will not work…also your VPN hardware on both sides need to support these speeds as well …you will not be doing that with port forwards (a criminals dream…ransom)
I am not an expert on shared video editing …but @Bob does this for a living (was it using proxy files?)
With 4 spinning disks, you will never reach 10GbE speeds, even on RAID0 and sequential reads.
If you use a shared network, talk to the admin on site how exactly this is setup…but one thing is certain, you are looking at a NAT situation and not public IPs, so exposure to WAN is not a danger)
You should still setup a local router to keep anyone in your location LAN from snooping around your NAS.
Hi LucaszD -
none of these models are going to work for you. If you are doing heavy duty work with Davinci Resolve, 3DStudio Max, and the Adobe CC suite, all the models you have chosen will not work. A QNAP with eight drive, like the TVS-h874 will do exactly what you want. Over a 10G network you will get 1000 MB/sec on the local 10G network. So the purchase is the TVS-h874, which is about $2200 US, two internal M.2 NVMe drives for your OS (you can use Samsung EVO 980 500 gig drives in a RAID 1 configuration), and then the eight matching 7200 SATA drives. 20 TB drives will give you 120 TB of usable storage after RAID 6. You need all of these drives to get the bandwidth that you will require for this type of work. You are at the mercy of the speed of the drives RAIDED together.
The TVS-h874 also will require a QNAP QXG-10G2T, which is a dual port 10G card. If you plug this into a small QNAP 10G switch, like the QNAP QSW-M3216-8S8T, which is $599, you will have one 10G port for the QNAP, and 7 additional 10G ports for your workstations.
As for long distance work - 1000 kilometers away is too far for a direct connection. That would be a fiber connection, and it would cost a fortune to run a direct fiber line. This is how most people are doing remote work. You buy ANOTHER COMPUTER (another Mac or PC) - and you connect that to the 10G switch. You now load Jump Desktop or Parsec on that computer, and the remote user PAYS for their license of Jump Desktop ($35) - and now they can remote into the computer in the office where the QNAP lives, and they can now work at full 10G speeds (1000 MB/sec) - and work in another country without consequence of trying to download huge files.
There are other details, like if you are editing with Davinci Resolve in 2 countries - how do you collaborate - how do you share the Resolve PostgreSQL 13 database ? You join Blackmagic Cloud, and for $5 a month, you now can have a collaboration database in the cloud, that will connect the 2 systems.
If you feel that all of this is just too expensive - well, then you cannot have what you want. These prices are cheaper than ever in history for this type of equipment. Professional editors and professional graphics people that know things like Fusion, 3D Studio Max, Maya, etc. should be charging a lot of money for this type of work.
I do agree with you @dolbyman , and I have no intention to invest in 10TB SSD disks, as it would cost quite a lot.
I will talk to the admin next week and clarify these things before I will purchase anything, and you’re right I will take the router to avoid the potential snooping.
@Bob much appreciate. As a freelancer, I used to work for different studios using Parsec or other VPN software, so that makes sense. I just thought that there is a way to avoid that and upgrade the server itself, but ofc it will never be as efficient as connecting via wire… I was considering to buy another machine anyways, so I will stick to that plan.
I just don’t understand why these models are not going to work. I understand that the files are heavy but why do I need to purchase TVS-h874 with eight slots, instead of the ones I shortlisted at the beginning? TVS-h874 it would be an overkill for my studio, it’s not even a matter of money, it’s just I don’t need such a massive storage. Why do you think I cannot use a four-slot QNAP? I mean, I can still upgrade the RAM and network module to upgrade that up to 10G, and buy a switch, right? If there is some limitation that I’m not aware and only TVS-h874 can give me, I would be very grateful if you could share a little bit more knowledge.
Thank you again, I’m already getting some ideas that I haven’t even considered before this post.
sorry I’m just trying to understand how people manage to work on four disc NAS servers, doing a similar job. So more RAIDs allow me for faster work, but when I decide for four disc, can I compensate that performance somehow ? For example by upgrading the hardware or even purchasing the SSD disc.
If you want 10GbE speeds you need faster disks (SSD) or more disks (8 or more bays)
I have TVS-h1288X and the 8 bay pool does reach 10GbE speeds. (sequential)
WD Pro, but SSD, you mean? Plus, I would still have to upgrade the network module in the NAS, right?
So conclusion is that for now, if I consider onlya four bay NAS, I have no option to reach the 10G, and that’s already some very useful knowledge.
I’m wondering now why is QNAP suggesting that you can add 10G port “Optional via PCIe expansion card” to your four bay NAS ( the ones I mentioned)?. So basically, you will have a port, but you cannot reach that speed anyway? Doesn’t it sound like a scam? Because that’s the route I took when I was learning about QNAP, and checking different products. As a customer with a little knowledge I thought it’s pretty straight forward
WD Red Pro are spinning disks (speed on spinning disks is varying depending on where the data is on the platters)
The NAS has NVMe slots (Gen3 x2), where you can put a pool on with storage, or you could SATA SSD’s. So there is some configurations, where 10GbE makes sense.
the bottom line here is - the more disks you have, the faster the system will go. So if you are doing 4K video, you need a certain speed of all of these disks working together, to achieve these speeds. You cannot get 1000 MB/sec using 4 SATA drives. Add more drives, get more speed. Caching will not help you, and more RAM will not help you. And once you start adding additional users (more client computers) - the bandwidth requirements will increase. So with an 8 drive NAS, you can have 3 - 4 people working at full res video, but now, if you connect 5 - 6 people, and they are not using low res proxy media - then you will start to see stuttering playback, and slow performance. SO - how do you solve this problem ? You add more drives - you buy a bigger QNAP. So for 5 - 6 users, you use a 12 drive system. What if you have 8 - 10 users ? Now you need an enterprise NAS with 16 drives. What if you have 16 - 18 users - now you need a 24 drive NAS. What if you have 30 editors ? Unless you are using proxy media, you cannot have 30 editors on a single NAS - even if it is a 24 bay QNAP NAS. You now need MULTIPLE NAS SERVERS to split up the load. So one TV episode or commercial or film would be done on one server, and the other TV episode would be on another server. And you have a big 10G switch system that would allow multiple QNAP’s and 30 people to connect to anything they want.
The same applies to multi clip or multi cam editing. Even if you are a single user, if you have a shoot that has 10 cameras (like a sporting event, or a parade) - that is 10 streams of FULL RES VIDEO - and you are now pushing the limits of what a single 8 drive NAS can do. So you create low res proxy media, cut your multi camera job with the proxy footage, and now conform the show back to the full res media with a single stream of video.
This is a typical workflow for Davinci Resolve, or Adobe Premiere, or AVID Media Composer. Davinci Resolve now gives you a proxy generator for FREE, because this is a critical, and very common workflow.
I do not know what your business is - but doing professional video for TV shows and movies, is very different than doing wedding videos, and music videos for your friends bands. Doing professional video editing on a NAS has very demanding requirements, and requires professional high end equipment. It’s like saying “I want to cut this video in 4K, or 8K, but I cannot afford a 10G card in my computer or in my NAS” - well, then you CANNOT WORK in 4K or 8K with your equipment.
Bob Zelin
The comparisons are telling me a lot. I neither do weddings nor music bands, but I got your point.
My work is based on what I render in 3ds Max, it’s all CG with a mix of footage.
But yeah, one sequence, let’s say 4 sec - 25fps gives us 100 exr images, and considering that the animation takes a few minutes, that requires management and speed, not even mentioning the space.
It all makes sense, what you guys are saying, Probably instead of paying a little bit less and buying the 4 bay NAS, it’s good to think about the future and invest money with the one you suggest.
Is there anything else I need to remember before I buy one?
I guess I can buy an eight-bay NAS, I only wondering, in this case, when you have 8 discs. And my initial plan was to keep one disc for the project and the second for the library, now I understand that I don’t need to think about it like one disc= one drive ? Because that’s what I had in mind when I considered RAID 10 …