SHOULD I GET A NAS? PRO ADVICE NEEDED

[VFXGuy]

Hey, I am a filmmaker, editor and VFX artist. Since I am constantly working with massive high quality files so need a lot of storage. I am using about 5TB constantly right now and need at least 3TB for storage of stuff I'm not using.

So 8TB is the minimum for me right now so cloud storage is not an option.

 

I am considering buying a NAS but don't know too much at all about them.

I have some questions. If you know a thing or two about NASs please help me.

1. What are some brands you would recommend?

2. Considering I want to have something for a while so would want to be able to add new drives to it as well as needing a 10 Gigabit connection- what specs do I need and what is a good budget

3. Is there a way to disable all the video player, card game, movie converter or whatever companies call all the rubbish pointless apps no one uses, everyone complains about and are vulnerabilites. I don't care for those apps on it.

4. Is there options to make folders read only (like Windows Defender controlled folder access)

5. What are common ways of backing up everything (files, not OS) on the NAS, of any.

 

Any info or recommendations, would be appreciated. I do have my own network so thats not an issue.

[HanZie82]

If you dont really need to acces it from multiple computers or have it directly backed up.
I would advice going for a big and fast external (USB3 or thunderbolt) HDD.

[Pixel5]

generally it sounds like a NAS could be a good thing for you.

 

What you need to keep in mind is that its probably still the best to work with video files locally and then move them over to a NAS for storage or if you get 10G LAN have the video files on an SSD.

Generally it sounds like what you need is what i currently have here, the question would just be how much storage is gonna be your end goal.

 

what you could so is build a system based on any low power CPU like an i3 10100 or some lower end Ryzen CPU´s buy two large NVME SSD´s that have the size you need for your typical video project plus some extra space just incase.

These two SSD´s should mirror each other to provide redundancy and once a video project is gone you could move these files over to normal HDD´s.

 

for your use case Unraid would be the perfect option because what i described above is a standard feature where you could basically have anything on the SSD´s and once you are done you hit a button to make unraid move all files to the HDD´s while maintaining the same exact folder structure you had before.

 

in terms of the budget you need for this it depends on how much SSD space and HDD space you need as these are typically the most expensive components of any NAS

An i3 10100 with motherboard, RAM, case, PSU and a 10G NIC will cost you about 500 - 600€ depending on where you life this could be a bit more.

two high capacity SSD´s and minimum two high capacity HDD´s will cost you easily another 600€ each depending on what you end up going with.

[VFXGuy]

2 hours ago, Pixel5 said:

generally it sounds like a NAS could be a good thing for you.

 

What you need to keep in mind is that its probably still the best to work with video files locally and then move them over to a NAS for storage or if you get 10G LAN have the video files on an SSD.

Generally it sounds like what you need is what i currently have here, the question would just be how much storage is gonna be your end goal.

 

what you could so is build a system based on any low power CPU like an i3 10100 or some lower end Ryzen CPU´s buy two large NVME SSD´s that have the size you need for your typical video project plus some extra space just incase.

These two SSD´s should mirror each other to provide redundancy and once a video project is gone you could move these files over to normal HDD´s.

 

for your use case Unraid would be the perfect option because what i described above is a standard feature where you could basically have anything on the SSD´s and once you are done you hit a button to make unraid move all files to the HDD´s while maintaining the same exact folder structure you had before.

 

in terms of the budget you need for this it depends on how much SSD space and HDD space you need as these are typically the most expensive components of any NAS

An i3 10100 with motherboard, RAM, case, PSU and a 10G NIC will cost you about 500 - 600€ depending on where you life this could be a bit more.

two high capacity SSD´s and minimum two high capacity HDD´s will cost you easily another 600€ each depending on what you end up going with.

So just make or get make a computer with a cheap processor and motherboard. Can you give me some more info and instructions. I am not the best with this kind of tech. I understand most of what your saying but can't quite picture how everything would go together. The drive mirror thing, I get and would definitely be interested in doing. And putting videos and that on an SSD, then moving them seems a good idea and workflow.

[Electronics Wizardy]

16 minutes ago, VFXGuy said:

So just make or get make a computer with a cheap processor and motherboard. Can you give me some more info and instructions. I am not the best with this kind of tech. I understand most of what your saying but can't quite picture how everything would go together. The drive mirror thing, I get and would definitely be interested in doing. And putting videos and that on an SSD, then moving them seems a good idea and workflow.

Do you need multiple systems to access this storage? If not, just get a das or add somre more hdds to your system

 

Id really just use the nas for older projects, and since your doing that, 10gbe won't be needed.

 

Id just geta synology nas here, how about something like a synology ds420+