Video Editor DAS solution

[dskessler]

Hi guys! 
I'm a filmmaker and animator. My 4-year-old QNAP TR004 is about to run out of space and it's a bit slow. I looked around and bought the QNAP TVS-x72xt because of the Thunderbolt connection and loaded it with 18 TB drives. The speed is fantastic, but I was kind of under the impression, based on a misleading YouTube video, that I could use it as a DAS, and the drive would show up as local. This was wrong and it seems to mean that my Backblaze cloud backup would cost way more since the cheap subscription does not cover networked drives.

First question, is there a way to have Windows 11 see a network drive as a local one? If not, I think I have to get rid of the NAS and get a DAS with similar specs ie. 6 Bay, Thunderbolt (or equivalent), good software, RAID 5, not crazy loud or crazy expensive. Does anything fit that criteria?

[ed]

You could potentially link the QNAP TVS-x72xt as an iSCSI target, which would allow Windows 11 to recognize it as a local drive. However, keep in mind that iSCSI can only be accessed by one device at a time for writing data, which could limit flexibility if you're trying to access it from multiple devices simultaneously.

Some users have also set up a virtual machine within their NAS, and then run their backup software (like Backblaze) from inside the VM. This can be a workaround, but it adds complexity, and depending on your NAS specs and usage, might not be as efficient or smooth.

If you need something simpler, a DAS would definitely be a much easier solution for your use case, especially since you’re primarily concerned with local access and backups.