Hi. I'm looking to consolidate my stock footage library and make proxies available for download by clients on a server. Currently I have external drives and use dropbox for sharing files.

I have approximately 20TB of footage currently but this will expand by 5-10TB per year. Footage is shot on Red cameras in Raw format at 6-8K resolution. I edit using Davinci.

I'm looking at Synology and Qnas. I am not particularly tech savvy when it comes to networks and there is very little local support so something relatively simple to setup would be great. I can install things like RAM and other components.

Thanks for any advice!

Synology or QNAP??? I mainly want to share photos with family and friends, but being very restrictive/selective of the content/folder that can be accessed. AI is important. Additional needs include video creation, editing, and storage, file access, security, and the “future proof” hardware options. Synology’s hyper-raid system is appealing, but QNAP’s control and photo AI is also appealing. Suggestions? Thoughts?

I thought i had everything figured out on my home NAS until I tried to figure out which drives to use. Do Ineed to use the WD red Plus/seagate Ironwolf pro vs the WD Red/Ironwolf. Am I ok using Ironwolf vs the ironWolf Pro? will I see a difference for regular file storage? Reliability?
Thanks for any insight!
Nick
DS1522+

We currently have a Synology DS415+ that we use exclusively as a file server. We are fast running out of drive space so it is time to add a new NAS. I am generally very happy with our old NAS and it has served us well. We have 8 workstations and 2 or 3 laptops on our network. We use an Asus AC3100 series router for DHCP and first line hardware firewall duties, but our workstations are on a static addressing scheme. One thing I would like to do is convert our old .mdb project database to a SQL database (or a compatible derivative) that would only be accessible from our intranet, if possible. Ideally, we could just extend our existing shares to create more space without having to move a bunch of data to the new NAS. We mainly store our project database (under 10 GB), documents, photographs, AutoCAD/Civil 3D dwgs, and 3D laser scans. I was looking at the Synology DS920+ with 4 10-TB drives about a year ago when I started thinking about this. Any ideas?

Just want to thank you for your site, videos, and all of your research. I have been trying to figure out a home NAS for years and have just needed to pull the trigger. Think I have finally narrowed it down to the DS1522+ Thanks to your comparisons to the DS923+. Love how detailed your articles and videos are. So great for someone as noob as myself. I'll make sure to use your amazon links and donate when I can. Really can't thank you enough.

-Nick

I have a DS920+ with SHR 4 x WD40EFZX-68AWUN0 Red Plus and 2 x Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 250GB Cache 8GB Ram.
Would there be any issue to replace 2 of the WD for Ironwolf ST8000VN004 or ST12000VN0008 for more storage or just get the Expansion Unit DX517 since I have 5x  2tb WD20EFRX or go for a 6 bay Synology as I love the SHR?
Hope you can guide me in the right direction.
Thank You in advance

I actually already have a TS-453D. In it, I have two 6TB HDDs and two 12TB HDDs - setup in RAID between the two pairs. I have two 860 EVO SSDs installed for the QTS OS. I thought this would be a powerful enough NAS, but it struggles to play a single 720 video (h264 mkv with AC3 audio) if I tell it to play VOBSUB subtitles. It's playing directly through ethernet to my Samsung Q8FN TV, so I can't figure out why it struggles so much. Turning off the subtitles helps, so my best guess is that it just struggles to burn them in, but I would've thought it wasn't that bad. Is there anything I can do? I could go through my libraries, and try to pull out all of the PGS subtitles and make SRT versions, which seem to work fine. OpenSubtitles isn't reliable and never matches up.

Your review of Teltonika RUTX50 supported my very positive views on this product, however I’m concerned that it is only with WI-FI5 not 6.
Any advise if there is a better 5G router to choose?
requirements top to bottom.
5g with auto switch to 4g if 5g not available
External antenna connections for mimo 2x2 or 4x4 antenna that can work with 5G, 4G and 3G
Antenna to use 5G when available (in port) then high gain 4g when at sea e.g. 10 miles off shore.
Ability to be Powered by 12volt dc
Speed is everything as I need to use 5G for MS team video calls, link to work systems, heavy data or file downloads.
I see the best option as the RUTX50 with their QUMAX antenna. Is there any other out there with the same functionality and robustness but with WI-FI 6?
Or frankly, with connecting only 2 laptops at a time, is the difference of Wi-Fi 5 versus 6 no negligible that it would not matter?
Thank you, Mark.

Hello! First off, THANK YOU for the generous gift of your time and expertise to answer random IT questions from people like me. I'm sure you're busy, so I will try to be as brief as possible below:

I am a freelance Creative Director who works in a variety of locations, though primarily from home. My computer is an Apple M1 MAX. I do not collaborate on-site (physically) with anyone while at home. When I work with clients, files are typically posted to the cloud, through a variety of services – Usually determined by my clients existing systems and workflows. I am hoping to improve my productivity by creating a performant, desktop-like experience while in my office, while also having the ability to unplug and work on the go.

I currently use external USB 3.1 Gen 1 drives for active projects, assets. and backup (G-DRIVE ArmorATD type drives). My internet service is 1Gb, which I access through a Gen 1 Eero setup.

I am an amateur photographer needing a reliable storage device big enough to accommodate 250,000 photographs. I am moving from Drobo to a new sysytem. I am 77 years old and note very computer technically literate. I would appreciate your advice on what system to buy that I can easliy transfer my images to.