420+ vs 920+ for media library and editing (scroll to bottom)

[cbergerman1515]

Hello everyone,

 

I’ve been eying a home (now home office) NAS lately, but have been held back by a few unknowns that I can’t find reliable advice on. 
 

I just finished installing a UniFi Dream Machine and routing cat6 through the house, so the infrastructure is in place for 10Gig communication, though I don’t have a rack (yet).

 

My NAS needs are lots of 4K archival video storage. Note I said storage, not streaming. 4K streaming using Plex would be a great bonus feature, but will not be a primary requirement for this NAS. 
 

The hang up I’m having is that we have 3 Macbooks, a windows laptop, and a windows desktop for editing footage. I want a solution that makes it easy for me to set a separate partition for Time Machine for the Macs, and it needs to be wireless and reliable. 
 

I found this article on some of the Synology UI and setting up Time Machine. Is it really this easy? Could I create a shared folder for each Mac (or a single folder for all of them) and the time machine backups won’t swell to consume the entire storage array? https://www.synology.com/en-us/knowledgebase/DSM/tutorial/Backup/How_to_back_up_files_from_Mac_to_Synology_NAS_with_Time_Machine#t3
 

If so, it looks like a Synology device would work well for me. I don’t mind a bit of research, but there are so many models and it’s so hard to distinguish the proper one for my use case without spending way too much. 
 

If I wanted a 4-bay device what are some models y’all would recommend? Is there a significant benefit to getting 10Gig hardware if I’m only using the NAS for archival storage and not editing footage off of it? How about the 4K streaming feature to smart TVs? Is that a significant increase in cost? Or can they all do that easily and cheaply. 
 

I was planning on putting Seagate ironwolf drives in it unless there is a WD model you would recommend instead. I’ll start with 2 drives and plan to purchase larger drives as spare money becomes available, so flexibility rather than matching drive size is preferred. Does that mean I can’t use “hardware” Raid like 1 or 5, and instead have to rely on “software” raid like, say, Synology’s flavor of whatever they call it. Are there drawbacks to software raid? Like if a drive dies do I have to rebuild the array within a synology enclosure?
 

Thank you for your recommendations and helping me understand a bit more. If I can keep the total cost below 500 without drives I think I’ll be happy. 

 

 

Edited September 9, 2020 by cbergerman1515
Realized I had written 1Gig instead of 10Gig

[cbergerman1515]

Also, to be very clear, it’s 4K drone and camera footage as a hobby, not security footage. I don’t ever plan to connect PoE+ cameras to the NAS

[shoutingsteve]

I have a FreeNAS server I use at home.  I really like it.  And is immune to ransomware (snapshots on ZFS file system).  I have no problem connecting my PC and my husband's macbook to it.  We had some troubles with time machine, but got is solved with a program called "SmartBackup" for mac).  It is made to be built from old hardware, my 10 TB system only cost me a couple hundred bucks, and a lot of that was the case in order to fit the 6 HDD drives.

 

Just make sure to properly set NFS and SMb shares so each of the computers can access what you want them to, and not access what they shouldn't.

 

[cbergerman1515]

Thanks for the advice shoutingsteve. 
 

I’m hoping some others could chime in who have experience with Synology’s software vs FreeNAS (or even UnRAID). 
 

I’m ok with a little research and money spent on this solution. I’m more interested in convenience and reliability, automated backups, etc. Rather than saving money. 

[cbergerman1515]

Bump. Can anyone else chime in with some model suggestions?

[Electronics Wizardy]

I have aused a few synologys in the pas, they seem to work well, and the software works well.

 

10g is nice to have, but probably not needed for your use. But since you have the money, might as well get it. WOn't be cheap on a synology. 

 

take a look here for 10gbe compatible units.

 

https://www.synology.com/en-us/products?lan=10gbe_built_in%2C10gbe_optional

 

here is the cheapest one it seems

 

https://www.amazon.com/Synology-4bay-RackStation-RS820-Diskless/dp/B07YBX86C2

 

seems to be about a 1000 with the 10gbe

 

if 10gbe doesn't matter, a ds920+ seems like a good pick.

 

22 hours ago, cbergerman1515 said:

ll start with 2 drives and plan to purchase larger drives as spare money becomes available, so flexibility rather than matching drive size is preferred. Does that mean I can’t use “hardware” Raid like 1 or 5, and instead have to rely on “software” raid like, say, Synology’s flavor of whatever they call it. Are there drawbacks to software raid? Like if a drive dies do I have to rebuild the array within a synology enclosure?

Its all software raid on almost all of these nas units, but software raid is basically always better. Just use shr on these units.

 

 

 

[Salacious B Crum]

21 hours ago, cbergerman1515 said:

Thanks for the advice shoutingsteve. 
 

I’m hoping some others could chime in who have experience with Synology’s software vs FreeNAS (or even UnRAID). 
 

I’m ok with a little research and money spent on this solution. I’m more interested in convenience and reliability, automated backups, etc. Rather than saving money. 

My recommendation is to download and install unRAID and use the free 30 day trial it is the full os not a partial give it a dry run it is a great NAS solution but you will need to provide the hardware I built mine around an i7 6700 pre built that I retired its been flawless for a few years now

[cbergerman1515]

12 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

if 10gbe doesn't matter, a ds920+ seems like a good pick.

 

Its all software raid on almost all of these nas units, but software raid is basically always better. Just use shr on these units.

 

Thank you Electronics Wizardy!

I did some more reading and you're right. 10gbe is a little overkill for now. I'm thinking a ds920+ or a ds420+. I'm finding it hard to understand how many 4K streams the 420 can support vs the 920 and why I would need the higher processing power in the 920.

Does anyone have a "rule of thumb" for determining how much processing power will be needed? I'm thinking maximum bandwidth needs for me would be a single 4K stream to a smart TV. What I'm finding hard to determine is if there will be an appreciable difference between the two when trying to edit photos/videos over the network from the Synology device. 

Does anyone know if that will be a good experience for the 420+? Will it be more dependent on the RPM of the drives I use? Again, I'm still planning on using Seagate Ironwolf drives. But it would be nice to know if I have to use the Synology device strictly as archival backup or if I can use it as my iTunes, Lightroom, and Photoshop libraries.

So, to sum that up nicely, can I go with the 420+ as both archival storage and as the main directory for my media libraries? Or will I need the more beefy 920+ for that? And for either of them, will I be able to edit photos/videos over the network from the Synolgoy drives, or will I have to copy the files locally before using them in a workflow?

Thanks to this wonderful community for your support!

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, cbergerman1515 said:

Thank you Electronics Wizardy!

I did some more reading and you're right. 10gbe is a little overkill for now. I'm thinking a ds920+ or a ds420+. I'm finding it hard to understand how many 4K streams the 420 can support vs the 920 and why I would need the higher processing power in the 920.

Does anyone have a "rule of thumb" for determining how much processing power will be needed? I'm thinking maximum bandwidth needs for me would be a single 4K stream to a smart TV. What I'm finding hard to determine is if there will be an appreciable difference between the two when trying to edit photos/videos over the network from the Synology device. 

Does anyone know if that will be a good experience for the 420+? Will it be more dependent on the RPM of the drives I use? Again, I'm still planning on using Seagate Ironwolf drives. But it would be nice to know if I have to use the Synology device strictly as archival backup or if I can use it as my iTunes, Lightroom, and Photoshop libraries.

So, to sum that up nicely, can I go with the 420+ as both archival storage and as the main directory for my media libraries? Or will I need the more beefy 920+ for that? And for either of them, will I be able to edit photos/videos over the network from the Synolgoy drives, or will I have to copy the files locally before using them in a workflow?

Thanks to this wonderful community for your support!

How many streams do you need to transcode? File copies won't be limited by the cpu at all, so its mostly transcoding and other tasks on the gpu.

 

Any hdd should work, but ironwolfs are a good pick.

 

Most of those programs can run on a network share, but things like lightroon will only run on a local drive, but you can get around that with iscsi. But a nas is probably too slow for lighroom, so id run that on local drives if possible

 

 

[cbergerman1515]

6 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

How many streams do you need to transcode? File copies won't be limited by the cpu at all, so its mostly transcoding and other tasks on the gpu.

 

Any hdd should work, but ironwolfs are a good pick.

 

Most of those programs can run on a network share, but things like lightroon will only run on a local drive, but you can get around that with iscsi. But a nas is probably too slow for lighroom, so id run that on local drives if possible

 

 

Just one 4K transcode at a time. I can’t imagine ever needing more for the next 5+ years. 

What is iscsi?

 

Do you know if an NVMe cache drive will make an appreciable difference for the live-edit use case? Of course the applications will run off of an x86 device, but I’m curious what the performance would be like with the main library directory as a NAS. Perhaps I could just do some testing after purchase. 
 

So if I’m understanding correctly, you think the 420+ would be fine because it can handle a single 4K transcode. I’m not familiar with the other programs Synology can run. Are there others I should be aware of based on my simple backup/media library use case?

[Electronics Wizardy]

9 minutes ago, cbergerman1515 said:

Just one 4K transcode at a time. I can’t imagine ever needing more for the next 5+ years. 

What is iscsi?

 

Do you know if an NVMe cache drive will make an appreciable difference for the live-edit use case? Of course the applications will run off of an x86 device, but I’m curious what the performance would be like with the main library directory as a NAS. Perhaps I could just do some testing after purchase. 
 

So if I’m understanding correctly, you think the 420+ would be fine because it can handle a single 4K transcode. I’m not familiar with the other programs Synology can run. Are there others I should be aware of based on my simple backup/media library use case?

the 420+ seems fine for your use case.

 

I don't thine the ssd caching will help too much, I think network will still be the big limited. But for editing, Id just store them on a local ssd, then copy to the nas when your done with them.

 

 

[cbergerman1515]

21 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

the 420+ seems fine for your use case.

 

I don't thine the ssd caching will help too much, I think network will still be the big limited. But for editing, Id just store them on a local ssd, then copy to the nas when your done with them.

 

 

Great. Yea I have a 1TB NVMe portable drive that I’ve been using but was curious if I could offload it to the NAS. I wish it was easier to manage a library across drives. 
 

Thanks for your help. Going to mark this as the solution.