Which NAS TVS-h674 or TS-873A with graphic card

[kmaulsby18]

Hello all, I am deciding which NAS to purchase, the TVS-h674 or the TS-873A. The TVS-h674 is out of my budget, but sometimes you must do what you must.

I would like to purchase the TS-873A if I can get away with it. I own an eight-bay NAS, but it is not flexible for future upgrades.
This is what I have now in Hardware. I have six 12TB hard drives, two 1TB NVMe for Caching, 32GB of memory, and two 500GB 2.5 SSDs, which I can use for another pool for ISCSI and VMs. I also own a 2.5GB switch.
The NAS will be used for a Plex Media server for videos and music files and for backing up five computers, four PCs, and one MAC. I will be running one to two VM' s at different times. Docker Minecraft Server for the grandson, which will be running most of the time, Photo editing using Adobe Lightroom, and the big one will be storing my completed 4K Video editing projects and playing back on Plex, which will need Hardware Transcoding. For 4K projects, they will be h264 and h265. My thinking, if I can get away with it, is to purchase the 8 bay TS- 873A and install a Graphics card, install the six hard drives and NVMe for cache, and install the SSD into the last two bays raid 1 ISCSI and VM'S. Purchasing the TS-873A will only cost me around $1350 with a Graphics card the TVS will be $1700 and I still have to purchase an Expansion card for NVMe SSD. Will be using the QTS operating system for flexibility. Should I cough up the money for the TVS -h674? I am on a budget.
I would like to hear from others.
Thanks.

 

[L&LD]

Buying 'only' enough NAS for 'today' is a false economy when those servers last a decade or more (typically) and are still useful for basic storage even after that time.

Buy the most hardware you can afford, always. The difference between the two is laughable (the Intel-based system is almost 4 times faster, which is certainly not the dollar difference between the two).

Spend the money. 2024 needs to be celebrated in style!

 

[DiliMe]

TS-873A has a cpu model AMD Ryzen V1500 with benchmark note of 4500.
TVS-h674 has a CPU i5 or i3 12100 with a CPU benchmark note of 13500.
The difference is pretty big, but at a cost that you do not want to pay.

I see many people do not pay huge amount of money on a monster NAS just to get a better CPU for transcoding, but instead are using a separate miniPC (similar to an Intel NUC) with Intel QuickSync eGPU. Usually such a MiniPC consumes less power than any nVidia GPU card.
You can find MiniPCs with Intel N100 proc for ~ 200$ (including 16GB memory and 500GB SSD, 2.5GB NIC) and it consumes < 20 Watt. As a plus it adds benefits of flexibility, security and future expandability running.

 

[coxhaus]

I would not recommend running a large NAS without a battery backup. You are asking for trouble. I like and run APC but there are lots out there.
Plus, with a battery backup you can turn on write caching which will speed up your system. If your system supports write caching. This not the same as read caching. Write cache is way too dangerous to use without a battery backup. Either way you need a UPS to protect your RAID.

If you run JBOD you can probably get away with not using an UPS, but I think any large NAS needs a UPS.

I guess you know JBOD stands for "Just a Bunch Of Disks" which are just independent disks.

 

[kmaulsby18]

I would not recommend running a large NAS without a battery backup. You are asking for trouble. I like and run APC but there are lots out there.
Plus, with a battery backup you can turn on write caching which will speed up your system. If your system supports write caching. This not the same as read caching. Write cache is way too dangerous to use without a battery backup. Either way you need a UPS to protect your RAID.

If you run JBOD you can probably get away with not using an UPS, but I think any large NAS needs a UPS.

I guess you know JBOD stands for "Just a Bunch Of Disks" which are just independent disks.

Yes I already own a UPS

 

[sfx2000]

a separate miniPC (similar to an Intel NUC) with Intel QuickSync eGPU. Usually such a MiniPC consumes less power than any nVidia GPU card.

Yep - and those work quite well, and most can run bog-standard linux...

 

[coxhaus]

Yep - and those work quite well, and most can run bog-standard linux...

When I setup my Windows 11 PC as a NAS I don't use any aftermarket video card. I just use the onboard Intel video. I would not want a video card drawing power 24/7 as they draw a lot of power. Don't use a video card in a utility server or PC as it draws unnecessary power.