help to choose nas that suits my needs

[Enquiries]

Hello,

First, thank you for all the very useful information.
I describe my situation. I work with photo's. (photo libraries, editing, ...). These are large files.
I have two work stations. My home, where there is ethernet connection (and a wifi 300mbs, 150mbs up) And an external, remote work place where there is only a wifi signal (limited to 100mbs down, 50mbs up).
I want the file acces and transfer as fast as possible. I have understand from your info that a synology with nvme for caching will speed up things. Also the use of sata ssd's in the bays. (Or an Nvme as set storage disk).
I will be limited by the up and download speed on the remote location. Will it then still make a difference to add a 10gbe port? As I still have to acces my home network, it is probably a little gain?
At home my router has a 10gbe port also my macs have 10gbe ports.
Besides the fast project disk and will use the nas as cold storage and back up with some HD in the other bays.

Thank you very much!

[ed]

Thanks for your detailed description, and I'm glad the information has been useful so far!

Based on your setup and needs, here are a few considerations to help you choose the right NAS for both your home and remote locations:

1. Speed and Access at Home
Since your home setup already has 10GbE support with both your router and Macs, you're on the right track for achieving fast transfer speeds locally. Adding an NVMe cache to a Synology NAS can indeed speed up local access to large photo files, especially for editing and file management. For your cold storage and backup, using HDDs in the other bays should provide the needed capacity at a lower cost.

2. Remote Location Constraints
You’re correct in thinking that the upload and download speeds at the remote location will ultimately limit your performance, especially with large files. However, a 10GbE connection won’t be much of an improvement for remote access because the bottleneck is your internet upload/download speed (which is only 50Mbps up and 100Mbps down at the remote site). A faster NAS connection won’t help much unless your remote internet connection can handle the increased data rate.

That being said, if you're transferring files frequently from home to remote, having high-speed local connections (like 10GbE) at home will make a difference for uploads, especially if you use compression or direct access over VPN for large files. If you’re working mostly remotely, though, optimizing the remote internet connection would be key to improving overall performance.

3. NAS Recommendations
For your needs, I’d recommend the following:

Synology DS1621+ or DS1520+: Both have NVMe cache support and 10GbE options for local speeds. They also offer expandability, allowing you to mix HDDs for cold storage and SSDs for fast access to your projects.
QNAP TVS-472XT: This one has both 10GbE and NVMe SSD support, and QNAP’s interface is good for handling large files and media-heavy workflows.
If you're mainly editing and managing large photo files at home and occasionally accessing the remote location for smaller edits, SSD caching combined with 10GbE would be perfect for your home base, while relying on the remote location’s internet speed as the bottleneck for larger transfers.

4. Optimization Tips
Ensure remote backups and file syncing are set up with software like Synology Hyper Backup or QNAP Hybrid Backup Sync, which will help you work with large files efficiently even if bandwidth is limited.
Use VPN tunneling to securely connect to your home NAS for remote access, but note that the speed will still be limited by your remote location’s internet.