Any good, fast NAS to replace a simple server and HDD setup on the network?

[michael_mutmansky]

Hi folks,

I've been using a headless mac mini and a JBOD array of drives as a file server for my system but I've been thinking about whether that needs to be updated/refreshed...

Many of the NAS devices out there are seem to be either really slow, or are designed to be used as media servers, so I am looking around for a multi-drive NAS in the 6-8 bay range that is fast, but is not loaded with all the crud associated with it being a media server.  I don't need transcoding, mail serving, or any of that other junk.  This is intended for my network at home that supports all of the computers in the house (two iMacs, two mac laptops) with Time Machine, and also as a redundancy backup for all my image and music files.  This won't be used as a primary file location server.

I was wondering if I could dispense with the Mac Mini and improve the overall speed of the file backups by going to a faster network, using a RAID 5 or 6, and then getting a fast NAS.

Are there any suitable NAS boxes out there that could do that?  Most of them can't even match the speed of a single HDD, so it seems pointless to take this approach.  I'd need to take the Mac Mini approach with a RAID on that, but maybe push it up to TB3 and 10GBe, which would mean it needs to be a newer Mac Mini.

[Joe Towner]

As long as it has a 10gb port, you should be fine.  I've got a Synology DS1817+ and as much as I complain about it not having 10gb ports natively, it does a solid job and performs great with a 10gb card.  Size is really the key number here - how much usable space do you need, and what size drives are you going to invest in.

I would do SHR/SHR2 instead of RAID5/6 as it can be grown much easier with more drives or larger drives.

10gb Ethernet is pretty reasonable, and attaching USB disks works great.  What is your primary file location?  How large?  If you're building something new, shifting to using the NAS as your primary with it backing up to your current hardware would be pretty straight forward.

[armand]

I was looking for a similar thing and the Thunderbolt QNAPs caught my attention, some seem to be able to get faster than the SATA speeds, for example: https://www.qnap.com/en-us/product/tvs-872xt . They do offer more than you want though with all the server stuff (I have them on my NAS also without ever using them).
Another option would be a Thunderbay RAID from OWC, not a NAS but simple storage with some redundancy: https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/thunderbay-6/thunderbolt-3-raid

PS. now I realize I don’t know your current interface, TB2 or 3, 1 GbE?

[michael_mutmansky]

Thanks for the comments and help...

I am currently using an iMac (2014) but am moving to an iMac Pro, so I am able to move up to 10GBe for the network.  I need to look around for a switch that has at least 2 10GBe ports on it, the rest can be 1GBe.

Anyway, I am currently using a local JBOD (AkiTio Thunderbay Quad) for my image and other files (plus one SSD in there for Photoshop cache), and I was thinking that I might be able to get that away from the computer and into the closet with my server if I can go to a faster ethernet connection (keep the PS cache local in the new machine).  I would need to upgrade the server to make that work, though, and that's where I decided that I might be better using a NAS instead.

For one thing, Mac OS doesn't support RAID 5 or 6, so I would have to go with a basic JBOD approach and then have a duplicate of some kind, (which I do anyway but I couldn't gain any speed advantages over a basic SATA connection).  The Mac Mini would be fine if I upgraded to the newest for about $1K, but maybe I really don't need it anymore if I just went to a RAID 5 or 6 NAS and then used the existing Thunderbays for backup duties(I have a Quad and a Duo on the server performing Time Machine tasks primarily, plus the Quad on my main machine as the primary file storage location).

I suppose one way to do this with most of the gear I have currently is to get a new Mac Mini with the 10GBe option and use one of my Thunderbays in a RAID 1+0 pairing or as two RAID 0 drives and then put larger drives in the other ones as Time Machine backups, etc.  The new Mac Minis have four T3 ports, and my T2 drive boxes would saturate the 10GBe so I wouldn't have to upgrade them practically speaking.  That's still going to cost me $1k plus some drives minus the value of the older Mac Mini.

If I go the QNAP/Synology route, it'll cost me $800 or so plus some drives and I can still sell the Mac Mini and some of the Thunderbay enclosures for a little cash.  What's not clear to me is if that would ultimately be a better route to go or not.  Could I ultimately get faster file access that way, and would backup activities be better than using Time Machine or CCC or something similar to perform those tasks?

One of my fears is relying on TM too much.  I had a bad experience with it recently because it couldn't perform a backup on a machine that I wanted to roll back from Catalina.  I ended up having to fresh install Mojave, and that was a hassle to say the least. It makes me feel like I need to have actual disk mirrors of files rather than TM backups (which is what I have always done for my data/image files anyway, I primarily use TM for the computer HD with the OS and programs on it).

[michael_mutmansky]

As long as it has a 10gb port, you should be fine.  I've got a Synology DS1817+ and as much as I complain about it not having 10gb ports natively, it does a solid job and performs great with a 10gb card.  Size is really the key number here - how much usable space do you need, and what size drives are you going to invest in.

I would do SHR/SHR2 instead of RAID5/6 as it can be grown much easier with more drives or larger drives.

10gb Ethernet is pretty reasonable, and attaching USB disks works great.  What is your primary file location?  How large?  If you're building something new, shifting to using the NAS as your primary with it backing up to your current hardware would be pretty straight forward.

I looked at that Synology machine and the QNAP TS-832X-2G a bit (man, QNAP has a lot of models)...  I like the 6 or 8-bay machines because it makes sense to have a RAID 6 with at least 5 drives whereas it feels a bit odd to only be using 4 drives in a RAID configuration like that, but it is possible with as little as four drives.

If I got an 8-bay NAS, I could do a 6-bay RAID 6 and then have two bays for large single volume backups, as long as the NAS allows that kind of splitting to occur.

[michael_mutmansky]

I was looking for a similar thing and the Thunderbolt QNAPs caught my attention, some seem to be able to get faster than the SATA speeds, for example: https://www.qnap.com/en-us/product/tvs-872xt . They do offer more than you want though with all the server stuff (I have them on my NAS also without ever using them).
Another option would be a Thunderbay RAID from OWC, not a NAS but simple storage with some redundancy: https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/thunderbay-6/thunderbolt-3-raid

PS. now I realize I don’t know your current interface, TB2 or 3, 1 GbE?

Yes, that's a lot more than I need, and especially the TB connections, etc. won't get used at all.  The more moderately priced models TS-873-4G or TS-832x-2G eliminate some of that and cut the price down considerably.  I'm a single user, so I don't think I need to worry about the machine being taxed with multiple hits at any one time.

I was originally thinking I would get a Thunderbay 3 but the cost of an NAS isn't too far beyond that and that's what made me think about taking that approach.

[faberryman]

How many images do you have? How many are keepers?

[michael_mutmansky]

How many images do you have? How many are keepers?

What kind of question is that? All of them a keepers! Hahaha...

I have about 100,000 images or so and I cull the junk when I import, but I do keep duplicates and various edits along the way.  Of course, this is growing... I'm shooting a GFX 50R now, so the files aren't the largest out there, but they are substantial. I also have images from my father and other family that I am 'obligated' to care for as the photographer in the family, so there are a bunch that I need to maintain.  Plus, at least 2 TB of  FLAC and high resolution music files.

However, I've been thinking about that a bit, and if I can figure out a way to isolate files in a logical manner with respect to LR, I could easily pull a bunch of the files off for more long term storage rather than keeping them all on a server ready for use.  It just requires a somewhat logical approach. It's not as clear-cut as a typical wedding photographer who will be able to archive after the print sales and likely never need to access again. I find myself going into my archives a good bit for various reasons, so I think I need to keep my files close at hand, but certainly most of the other files don't need high speed access.

If I can get a four bay NAS with 10GbE and also the ability to plug high speed drives like the Thunderbay enclosures I already have (through USB3 I presume, or TB), I could do this pretty easily I think, with the expense of a 10GB switch and some fresh HDD and reuse the stack that I have here as backup drives.

[bassman51]

I dropped my QNAP NAS and moved to two T3 attached housings from OWC - one with 2x2TB SSDs (and room for four) and on with 4x6TB HDs. The SSDs hold all of my primary storage photo-related storage (LR catalog and image directories), while the HDs hold all of the backups (LR import copies, CCC and Time Machine). Compared to the NAS (which was only 1G) it flies and it’s been completely reliable (which the NAS was not). 

The internal drive on the iMac holds the system and other files which are mostly replicated in the Cloud (Dropbox, iTunes, etc).

Given that I’m not running a business and can usually tolerate some downtown, I elected not to RAID anything to reduce complexity.  I can restore from either the CCC or TM backups very quickly.  I also have CrashPlan for offsite backup.  Primary data totals about 3TB. 

[Joe Towner]

So you can get a TB2 -> 10gb adapter for $200, so don't use that as a reason to ditch the Mac Mini - https://www.sonnetstore.com/collections/thunderbolt-10gbe-adapters/products/solo10g-thunderbolt-2

Depending on what your 10gb needs are, there are a few Netgear switches to consider:
2x10gb + 8x1gb GS110EMX for $200
1x sfp+, 1x 10gb, 2x 5gb, 2x 2.5gb, 4x1gb PoE MS510TXPP for $350
Keep in mind that 2.5 and 5gb are awesome speeds you'll actually be fine with for most cases - the NAS on either the sfp+ or rj45 connection for full speed, then work your way down from there.  Getting into larger switches quickly gets expensive, but the 2.5x to 5x speed jump over 1gb ethernet is huge & worth it. 

2TB of music + approximately how many TB's of data otherwise, plus how much data did you add/create in 2019?
For any new NAS build I recommend only using 8tb or larger drives.  So a 5 bay with 8tb drives in SHR2 gives bout 21tb of usable space.

[michael_mutmansky]

So you can get a TB2 -> 10gb adapter for $200, so don't use that as a reason to ditch the Mac Mini - https://www.sonnetstore.com/collections/thunderbolt-10gbe-adapters/products/solo10g-thunderbolt-2

2TB of music + approximately how many TB's of data otherwise, plus how much data did you add/create in 2019?
For any new NAS build I recommend only using 8tb or larger drives.  So a 5 bay with 8tb drives in SHR2 gives bout 21tb of usable space.

OK good point about the TB2 to 10GbE adapter... I hadn't thought of that as I was thinking that the computer was going to be too slow (port speeds, not the processor), but since TB2 is faster than 10GbE, it should work OK.

This makes me think that I should go that route and also purchase SoftRAID from OWC... With that, I can turn one of my Thunderbay's into a RAID5 or 1+0 and the other could be used for JBOD large volume backups, and the third I probably won't need, but I could use it as a second backup.

I'm adding about .4TB per year I think, but of course, that will vary.  Probably more like .7TB this year as I have a long trip planned for this summer.

OWC has this page on their site about the SoftRAID:

https://www.softraid.com/pages/features/raid_levels.html#gofaster

Near the top, they have a chart of speeds using RAID 5 in four drives, and the R and W speeds are about 525MB/s, which is about 4.5Gb/sec, and realistically, that's about as fast as anyone can expect things like this to run.  I'm not positive but I think that may be the best way to go.  It's cheaper and it allows me to keep using the Mac Mini and Thunder drives I have, and I'll probably be able to actually use some of the HDDs as well to make the RAID box.

Anyone else make a TB2 to 10GbE adapter?  I am not seeing a lot out there.

[Joe Towner]

TB3 has replaced TB2, but if you're quick there's one on eBay:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/AKiTiO-Thunder2-10G-Network-Adapter/352936563045?hash=item522ca89165:g:8nUAAOSwcABeIQ0z

[michael_mutmansky]

TB3 has replaced TB2, but if you're quick there's one on eBay:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/AKiTiO-Thunder2-10G-Network-Adapter/352936563045?hash=item522ca89165:g:8nUAAOSwcABeIQ0z

Thanks... other than a few dual port adapters, that appears to be the only other one that will work on TB2.

I'm not sure whether a brand new device like the Sonnet would be a better solution than one from three years ago... even if a used one is 1/2 the price.  I've looked around to see if there have been any issue, but don't really see any discussion about either of these that might indicate whether there is better/worse performance or compatibility issues of one or the other.

I'm going to do this approach for now (with the Mac Mini) and if it appears to be a problem for speed (there is only one TB2 controller on the old Mac Minis, so there may be bottleneck issues there), I won't have too much invested, and I can decide to either update the Mac Mini or go to a NAS at that point.


---Michael

[Joe Towner]

I think the difference you'll see is that the TB2 adapters are 1/10gb, while the newer TB3 adapters are 802.11bz so 1/2.5/5/10gb.  Just be aware of it & you'll be fine.

[BobShaw]

Hi folks,
I've been using a headless mac mini and a JBOD array of drives as a file server for my system but I've been thinking about whether that needs to be updated/refreshed...
Many of the NAS devices out there are seem to be either really slow, or are designed to be used as media servers, so I am looking around for a multi-drive NAS in the 6-8 bay range that is fast ...

That was the system I had until I needed to move to Thunderbolt system.
Do you really need to access it from more than 1 computer? If not then better to just direct connect the data disk and have a rotating disk system for TimeMachine backups.
I have a Drobo NAS and just use it for small backups of last resort from laptops and as a means for file transfers between machines. The network drives are slow and don't produce a drag and drop backup. They make a Sparsebundle which is not as convenient or probably reliable. Ethernet at best is only 50% efficient, usually a lot less and hubs and cabling introduce losses.

If I got an 8-bay NAS, I could do a 6-bay RAID 6 and then have two bays for large single volume backups, as long as the NAS allows that kind of splitting to occur.

That is not a backup, at least not a good one. The one power surge or failure of the housing or the software that drives it and all is gone.

[mdelrossi]

I'm using a Qnap 672XT with 4 ironwolf 10TB drives in raid 5 over 10GBE.
I get around 500MBs read and write. It would go up if I populated the remaining 2 bays.
works for my GFX files and 4K video as well. Its in a closet so I don't have to hear it, and it backs itself up every day to an offsite location.

good luck
mdr

[michael_mutmansky]

Just to close this out, there clearly are some fast NAS devices out there that can act as a server for live edits on images and video... You have to look carefully at the specifications and performance of the devices, because some of them, while able to accommodate a 10GbE switch, don't really perform terribly fast due to internal throughput limits.

Others have the capability but also have a bunch of transcoding capabilities that are of little utility for a file server, and so seem to be a bit of overkill.

It does take a bit of effort, but you can find a good blend (especially with Qnap) for a small network with the 10GbE capability and throughput speeds that would justify the money and effort spent.  I think the Synology product (I don't recall the numbers, but they only have one NAS from 4 to 8 bays that can accommodate 10GbE) should be good, and there are a few from Qnap that shold be excellent (and significantly faster than the Synology).

In the end, I chose to stick with the headless server and set up a RAID on it.  I think it will be even better in a few ways, and it will allow me to not mess with learning a new interface and management tools. Time Machine will work straight in, I can set up tasks for weekly backups, and I have the existing infrastructure needed, other than updating the HDDs to matched NAS quality drives.  I'll have plenty of layers of backup locally, and one version remotely, maybe two.

[michalenkolorri]

NAS devices are very slow. In your place, I would transfer all data to the dedicated VPS service and, after that, create the proper system and directories. Using the online VPS services in your situation could be more effective since they will raise the data transfer speed. Try to find a good vps container service, and forget about NAS and slow speed issues, especially with running the Mac mini. In my opinion, this is not a good device to operate with such big volumes.