NAS buying advice for design studio

[balancegfx]

Greetings,

We are a 2 Mac design shop, primarily working with AfterEffects, Maya and Photoshop. Recently, more and more HD projects.

What we currently have: two Linkstations on Gigabit Ethernet, one set up to backup the other.
Problems with this: too slow for HD, unpredictable backups due to software crashes etc., random glitches like folders making themselves invisible, occasionally it can take up to 30 seconds to list contents of a folder from within an application.

What we need: pretty much the fastest drives we can afford. Looking at RAID to simplify backup. Optional would be some kind of 'one-button backup' that is independent of software and future expansion capabilities.

Budget: ideally about $1500-1800, but we can spring more for the right drive if that will really make a difference.

Size: Ideally 2-TB minimum of working space (so pardon my ignorance, that would be 5TB if we do RAID-5?)

What I have been looking at:

MicroNet MaxNAS

THECUS N8800
http://www.eaegis.com/thecusn8800sas-4tbenterprisest31000340nsdrives.aspx
With this one, I like that it is 10GbE Ready. Seems like a better long-term investment? Or not?

READYNAS PRO BUSINESS EDITION 6 TB NAS (this is out of the budget, but if it is really the best on the market we can try to cut corners elsewhere.)

and

SANS DIGITAL
http://www.sansdigital.com/towerraid/tr8xha.html


Some (likely silly) questions:
- if a drive has 2 ethernet ports, would it be any faster to connect each system directly and bypass the router?
- if a drive has 2 eSATA ports, is it possible/wise to connect each system directly via eSATA?
I guess from those two questions, you can guess that speed is the #1 factor of importance here. The second is backup ease and reliability.

Many thanks in advance,
Maria

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[thiggins]

If both your computers are Macs, why not use a NAS or solution that is Time Machine based?

RAID doesn't simplify backup. It creates larger storage volumes out of smaller hard drives. In most cases you'll get a speed penalty by using RAID 5.

You won't go faster by connecting one computer per port to a NAS with two Ethernet ports. Dual Ethernet ports are primarily for network redundancy. Most NASes aren't fast enough to take advantage of the higher bandwidth provided by using the two ports in aggregation mode.

The eSATA ports on NASes are for connecting external drives. You can't use them to connect computers.

To take advantage of the 10 GBe NAS, you'd need to install a 10 GBe network. Big $ and you probably wouldn't see any speed advantage because your clients would be too slow.