Part List Question for VFX

[Enquiries]

Hey there, I've been watching a lot of your videos & there's so much great info!


I was curious if you could give me a part list suggestion for purchasing a NAS setup. If you gave affiliate links I'd make sure to purchase through those, & I could tip/pay you as well if you have a place to donate, I'd make sure to do that.


I'm a solo VFX artist working from home & I'd like to use centralized storage through NAS to do render farming with my multiple workstation PCs. I will soon have 4 computers that I'd like to hook up to a centralized NAS, as well as access the NAS when on trips when away from home. I'm US based, and price isn't really the biggest concern; I was just mainly wanting a smooth fast storage system. I do 3d rendering, 3d simulations, & work with heavy pro res & raw files often.

I'm looking at the Synology 1821+ & figured I'd need a 10g switch with enough ports for every computer, the 10g upgrade part for the Synology, the max 16GB ram, 10g PCie for the desktops, lots of SSD cache, & a split of SSDs & HDDs for the bays. I wondered if you would have any advice on a part list for the best parts & wires I'd need to purchase, or have a place to point me in for a good list.

Thanks so much!
- Logan McNay

[ed]

Yes, having a NAS gives you access to this large storage space with speeds faster than SATA SSD. Some Qnap models will also feature NVMe/ U.2 SSD slots which are the fastest storage technology in the work. This can be used for storage or caching.
Synology also features NVMe slots. It can only be used for caching and not for storage. Which is fine for repetitious access use cases such as video editing. The most frequently accessed data will be copied to NVme storage. Also, all incoming data will be first stored on the SSD which can speed up HDD volumes quite a lot.
In order to be able to edit 4k heavy video files, you will need somewhere around 300-400MB/s bandwidth. This means that for each 10GbE port you add, you can have 2 simultaneous editors working via this channel.
If you need dedicated 19gbit speed, you can connect a PC and NAS directly. Otherwise, your switch will ensure each connection get the best possible speed.
If you have multiple 10GbE ports on your NAS, Synology will allow you to enable load balancing. You connect all 10gbe ports to the same switch and all traffic will be equally balanced. Or you can use link aggregation for this.
With 4 computers you will need a NAS with 2 or more 10gbe ports. DS1821+ is an option. I would personally prefer XS series models such as ds1621xs+/ ds3622xs+. But you may not like the limited HDD choices you can install in these models.

Here is a NAS card E10G18-T2 and other cards listed https://www.synology.com/en-us/compatibi...ge_log_p=1
Here are few cards for PCs (you can use Thunderbolt to 10gbe adapter as well) https://nascompares.com/2017/12/14/cheap...ards-rj45/
You will need CAT6a/ CAT7 LAN cables.
Switch with 8 LAN ports or more (10GbE). https://nascompares.com/2018/01/19/cheap...-switches/
Here are few:
QNAP QSW-1208-8C https://amzn.to/3VmamLG
TP-Link TL-SX1008 https://amzn.to/3ewkBfw
NETGEAR XS712T https://amzn.to/3ViWuSj
Buffalo Bs-Mp2012 https://amzn.to/3g0EDzo
Ubiquiti ‎ES-16-XG https://amzn.to/3CR8jrJ

When choosing NVMe for caching you need to look at reliability ratings such as DWPD/MTBF. Here are a few on the list
https://nascompares.com/answer/nvme-m-2-...dwpd-mtbf/
Caching means a lot of read and write operations, unlike regular storage situation.
You would need to look at models with 0.5DWPD and above

970 pro – 0.66DWPD
Seagate FireCuda 510 – 0.7 DWPD
Seagate FireCuda 520 -0.9 DWPD
Seagate IronWolf 525 – 0.7 DWPD
Seagate Firecuda 530 – 0.7 DWPD
Synology SNV3400 – 0.68DWPD
WD Red SN700 – 1.0DWPD

Here is a handy video about 4k editing NAS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyvU6QB_4yY

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