Which NAS to work with Autocad?

[sbstuff]

Hi all

I do cad drafting work, usually with cad files smaller than 2MB. There are two terminals (laptops) that need to access the same files, similar to most office setups.

I currently have a wd mycloud but there seems to be a lag when working with cad files stored on this NAS. Also this NAS is particularly unreliable, and will sometimes deny me access midway through copying files etc.

My question is, what NAS specifications will allow me to work with my files without restricting the speed of my work? What NAS features do I need so it will not be the bottleneck in the network?

Other desirable features are compatibility with bt sync and ability to access previous versions of files.

I look forward to any ideas you might have.

Thanks in advance.

 

[stevech]

It may be that the WD Mycloud is not speedy. Tests posted here will tell.

Make sure your computer has gigabit Ethernet and that all network components from PC to NAS are gigabit ethernet (switches, etc). Make sure your WD Cloud is gigabit Ethernet. Verify LAN connection speed is gigabit.

Best of breed NASes, opinion, are Synology, QNAP, Thecus. Opintion: WD, Seagate, La Cie/HP, and most other mass marketed NASes are to be avoided.

 

[sbstuff]

I can confirm that all connections are ethernet gigabit connections with appropriate cat6 cables. Router is also a gigabit netgear router. Computers also have gigabit connections.
My main question is what would be the minimum processor and ram requirements to do what I need?

 

[thiggins]

Editing large files stored on a NAS isn't ideal. A lot depends on how the application treats the file it is working on, i.e. how much is copied back and forth over the network and how often.

Network file system overhead will always make working on a remote file slower than working on a local file. The only question is whether the throughput hit will be tolerable.

For the best chance at getting this to work, you should be looking at at least Intel Atom-based NASes. The WD MyCloud runs on a Marvell SoC, which is not powerful enough. Our tests show writes around 55 MB/s and reads around 80 MB/s. But that is for large sequential file transfers.
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-charts/bench/1475-my-cloud-ex2

The good news is that if you get a faster NAS, file copies across the network will be faster, too, in case you decide to copy the file over to work on it locally, then copy it back to the NAS when done.