NAS for Mac Photography Editing

[roofyroo]

Hoping a few people can give their opinion on the general direction to go for purchasing a NAS.

Currently using a single bay 2TB WD firewire 800 attached device which is about to run out of space.

Primary use for new NAS - storing large images for direct read/write (RAW files around 12-20MB each).

Part of the files are critical for backup until through with our clients - wedding photos.

Media Server would be nice to connect to PS3.

Recently setup a Synology J211+ (or something like that) for my parents business. Is working great with great features (for their needs). Using RAID for mirroring the drives so 4 drives but 2TB space.

I'd ideally like 4TB space and to be able to backup 1TB.

My main question is should I be looking at bigger boxes with say 4 2TB drives to mirror so all data is technically backed up and can be rebuilt in a HDD failure, or better to put all the space to good use and buy a secondary device for backing up 1TB of the crucial "present" images?

I worked in IT for a long time building servers, backing up, networking all kinds of devices. Been out of the direct loop for a few years, so while I've been doing my own research I thought you Pro's could give your advice.

Cheers

 

[thiggins]

Do not rely on RAID for backup. Backups should go on a separate device.

You may not be happy with the speed a NAS provides for direct editing of photos. If you're going to do this, you should configure the NAS for iSCSI, which would give you block level read/writes vs. file level access like SMB / AFP / NFS.

 

[roofyroo]

My business is still relatively small with only 2 Mac users connecting to edit images.

I'd like to keep cost naturally as low as possible - $1k give or take.

Looking at the QNAP TS-419P+ and adding in a decent backup device.

- Just checking out reliable and compatible HDDs. Are there any specific ones recommended over others on the list?

- Any recommended backup devices?

 

[roofyroo]

Also checking HDDs the business list compatibility are $200 for 24/7 while SOHO are more 8-9 hours days.

For example is this 8 hours usage and then 16 hours sleeping?

 

[roofyroo]

Is there a big difference between purchasing the SATA II or SATA III HDDs when using the QNAPs, specifically the TS-419P+ I mentioned above?

The Seagate ST2000DL003 2TB is around $80 which is more affordable for my budget when buying 4 of them. They do seem cheaper than other brands for some reason though.

 

[thiggins]

"Enterprise drives" generally run hotter and noisier. They can be worth it if you are hammering on the NAS night and day. But for the use you describe you are probably better off with lower power, quieter "green" drives.

 

[MrFixit]

Is there a big difference between purchasing the SATA II or SATA III HDDs when using the QNAPs, specifically the TS-419P+ I mentioned above?

The Seagate ST2000DL003 2TB is around $80 which is more affordable for my budget when buying 4 of them. They do seem cheaper than other brands for some reason though.

Hi,

I have been running an older TS-509 Pro since late 2008 with 5 disks in RAID 5 configuration. I started with 5 Samsung 1TBs and have recently upgraded to 5 Hitachi 5K3000 2TB drives, also in RAID 5. Although these Hitachi's are NOT on QNAP's compatibility list (for the TS-509 Pro) they appear to be a much better bet than any that are - including the Seagate drives that you mention. Just check out the QNAP forum.

I keep all my RAW files on the TS-509. I also have set up an iSCSI disk on the TS-509 to act like an internal drive so that I can store my Lightroom catalog and cache files there - LR does not support storing these on a network drive.

I should also add that ALL of my valuable data files are backed up onto a separate PC with a stack of singles disks. I use Retrospect (runs on Windows and Macs).

While I use Windows 7 PCs, this setup will work fine on Macs. The latest QNAP firmware also supports Timemachine backups.

 

[roofyroo]

Cheers for the info!

I went with the QNAP TS-419P+ and 4 Seagate green drives of 2TB with RAID5. 1 drive is very slow although eventually shows GOOD on the status - I've sent this back and ordered from another supplier to avoid the same batch.

Issues or annoyances I've had so far involves copying over my current data and various drives being read which are FAT32 - just shows as UNKNOWN. So I'm copying this data to another HDD in order to copy it to the QNAP. It's all a very slow and tedious process.

Didn't realize the Media Server does no support WMA audio files so that's a pain as some of my audio is in this format.

Copied over one video file as a test and so far it gets 16 seconds in and continues to play audio but no picture. This is when connecting from the PS3. Any ideas on this?

For the main purpose of the QNAP - storing RAW files - I read somewhere that 2 users should not connect to the same iSCSI folder as it can cause issues and possible corruption?
There are 2 of us (users) who will not be using the same exact data in Lightroom at the same time so hoping it will be fine? Anytime either of us connects to the same data at different times currently we synchronize the folder.

Looking to backup the 'live work folder' to an external device and will checkout the backup software mentioned.

Any other issues you've had or ideas?

 

[roofyroo]

Noted from QNAS

Note: It is NOT suggested to connect to the same iSCSI target with two different clients (iSCSI initiators) at the same time, unless you are using clustering technologies. Otherwise, this may lead to data crash or disk damage.

Has anyone had experience of this? I have 2 users wanting to connect to the same target but they won't be accessing the same data or folder.

 

[MrFixit]

Noted from QNAS

Note: It is NOT suggested to connect to the same iSCSI target with two different clients (iSCSI initiators) at the same time, unless you are using clustering technologies. Otherwise, this may lead to data crash or disk damage.

Has anyone had experience of this? I have 2 users wanting to connect to the same target but they won't be accessing the same data or folder.

Why do you want them to connect to the same target? Why not create two separate targets if the folder / data for each user is different?

 

[MrFixit]

Cheers for the info!

I went with the QNAP TS-419P+ and 4 Seagate green drives of 2TB with RAID5. 1 drive is very slow although eventually shows GOOD on the status - I've sent this back and ordered from another supplier to avoid the same batch.

Issues or annoyances I've had so far involves copying over my current data and various drives being read which are FAT32 - just shows as UNKNOWN. So I'm copying this data to another HDD in order to copy it to the QNAP. It's all a very slow and tedious process.

Didn't realize the Media Server does no support WMA audio files so that's a pain as some of my audio is in this format.

Copied over one video file as a test and so far it gets 16 seconds in and continues to play audio but no picture. This is when connecting from the PS3. Any ideas on this?

For the main purpose of the QNAP - storing RAW files - I read somewhere that 2 users should not connect to the same iSCSI folder as it can cause issues and possible corruption?
There are 2 of us (users) who will not be using the same exact data in Lightroom at the same time so hoping it will be fine? Anytime either of us connects to the same data at different times currently we synchronize the folder.

Looking to backup the 'live work folder' to an external device and will checkout the backup software mentioned.

Any other issues you've had or ideas?

I store the RAW files on User Shares and not iSCSI targets, so there is no problem with multiple user access. It is only the Lightroom Catalogs that I have on iSCSI targets due to a limitation of Lightroom itself not allowing them to be on User Shares. Catalogs are therefore a pain to share.

I use a PS3 Server on the QNAP to serve media files. It is a QPKG that is easily downloaded and installed. I also use the TwonkyMedia Server QPKG as this is a later release than the built in one.

Retrospect handles open file backup well, though my backups run at 2:30 am, so this is not normally an issue .

PM me if you want more help.