• Storage & Archiving

  Smaller Shared Storage for VFX/Finishing/4K – SSDs?

  Posted by Jay Smith on September 28, 2017 at 6:54 pm

  Hey guys, just want to tap into your collective knowledge and see whats new and exciting out there these days. We’re a small commercial post facility with 4-6 stations up and running at any time. Dealing with a ton of high res footage these days and our 8 bay 24tb Platform is having some trouble keeping up with the throughput. We’re thinking about having a second small storage array that we can move any demanding active projects to and have everything accessible over our 10gbe network.

  I’ve seen the QNAP 8bay SSD system which is pretty bang on what we’re looking for, wondering if there’s anything else out there in the same ballpark. We’re setting up a 10gbe switch soon to give us some more connectivity options.

  Thanks!

  Jay Smith replied 8 years, 11 months ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  Bob Zelin

  September 29, 2017 at 10:59 pm

  simple answer –
  you can get the following –
  QNAP TVS-871T (end of life)
  QNAP TVS-1282T – (current product, but not best value)
  QNAP TS-1685 (best value)
  all under $3000, not including drives.

  your 10G switch should ONLY be a Netgear switch (XS708T, not E, for 8 port and XS716T for 16 port).

  you will have no issue with 4 – 6 stations and if it’s 4K footage, simply purchase Promise SanLink2 (or SanLink 3 if you have new Thunderbolt 3 Mac’s) – or Sonnet Twin 10G (or Sonnet Presto 10Gbase-T for old Mac Pros) – and you will get crazy speeds that can do 4K, 6k and 8K without issue for ALL systems.

  I might as well start this lecture, now that it’s September 2017. I have no idea of how ALL the companies that I have seen at NAB will remain in business as of now. Between QNAP, Synology, Netgear, Asus, and the recent acquisition of Thecus by Foxconn – what chance does any of the American or Western European Manufacturers have a chance of staying in business at this point ?

  You are making the right decision. And for you young people reading this post – start to learn Chinese, because the end is near !!!!!

  Bob Zelin

  Bob Zelin
  Rescue 1, Inc.
  bobzelin@icloud.com
• 

  Jay Smith

  September 30, 2017 at 1:27 am

  Thanks Bob, this post was largely directed at you! That QNAP TS-1685 looks like a great option. My dream of 8 ssds in a nice little storage system might be a bit overzealous today, but this 12bay + 4 ssd will let us double our storage and futureproof this thing. Then down the road when prices drop we can load this thing up with SSD’s and even a 40gbe connection which should carry us through this decade.

  I’m assuming NAS systems have become a bit more commonplace for use in video production? I know they were seen as a bit of a bandaid solution a few years ago for people that needed shared storage but couldn’t quite afford the proper system like smalltree and promax.

  I’ll send your reco of the Netgear switch over to our IT helpers, those are way cheaper than I thought they’d be. I’ll make sure my station is a dual 10gbe bonded connection because I’m stuck with dealing with uncompressed vfx plates.

  You’re the man!

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