• Storage & Archiving

  QNAP NAS for 3 iMac Pros 4K ProRes444XQ

  Posted by Sandy Weber on October 30, 2019 at 5:24 pm

  Hi All~

  I’m setting up a NAS system in which I’ll be working with 3 iMac Pros (or possibly 2 plus the new Mac Pro whenever it is released) running Nuke for VFX work on 4K ProRes444XQ video for a TV series.

  I’d like a hybrid system with SSDs for current episodes being worked on (about 16TB) and HDDs for older episodes, elements and other reference material (maybe 48TB or more). I’d be archiving to either LTO or the cloud (TBD).

  SimplyNAS recommended the QNAP TVS-872XT-i5-32G with 4 Toshiba HDDs and 4 Seagate IronWolf SSDs.

  I’ve seen the QNAP TS-1685 highly recommended here (especially by Bob Zelin). I’m assuming I would be better off going with that, but not sure of what configuration would be best.

  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

  Thanks so much!
  Sandy

  Nathaniel Cooper replied 6 years, 9 months ago 2 Members · 3 Replies
• 3 Replies

• 

  Nathaniel Cooper

  October 30, 2019 at 6:55 pm

  Those are both good units, in pretty much any case just make sure the server has a 10G connection and you have a 10G switch to go to the workstations. Almost everyone uses the lower cost Netgear 10G switches. They are amazing bang for the buck.

  The 10G NICs on the iMac Pros are not as good as external, don’t expect to see over 400MB/s on those, likely closer to 300. For what you’re describing with your workflow, that should be fine.

  Don’t over spend on the SSD’s, here is a blog I did on Do Enterprise SSDs Matter? please ignore that I forgot to button my 2nd button in the video. 😐

  Lastly, if you’re going to be doing LTO or Cloud, check out the MediaHub with 10G and 12 Slots, you’re looking at $3,894, which includes MAM & if you add LTO/cloud it’s immediately integrated.

  QNAP has good products, but if you want to add archival you’re now integrating multiple products/vendors. We also offer more in depth video support and features, as video teams are 100% of our focus.

  If you’re interested, we have a small fleet of test units you can sign up here and we will actual send you a MediaHub to try out.

  Either way, good luck in your set up!

  Nathaniel Cooper
  ProMAX
• 

  Sandy Weber

  October 31, 2019 at 1:36 pm

  Hi Nathaniel!
  Thanks so much for your response!
  What sort of speeds can I expect from the Mediahub? Enough for 4K ProRes444? Am I correct that the expansion is a separate enclosure that attaches to the Mediahub via Thunderbolt 3?
  Also, as far as LTO backup, is there a drive that you recommend (or does that come with the Mediahub system?)
  Best,
  Sandy
• 

  Nathaniel Cooper

  November 1, 2019 at 5:39 pm

  Sustained video performance if you do 4 x SSDs is about 1000MB/s. That’s about 14 streams of ProRes 4K @ 560MB/s. It should be no issue, but, what data rate are your specific files at?

  Yeah, the 8 bay array is external to the MediaHub, we partner with M-Logic for the external thunderbolt arrays. I think they have a sale on them right now for $500 off. So if you order from them you’ll save some $.
  https://www.mlogic.com/products/mspeed-8

  If you want to see a set up one of our tech guys did this video for our test systems https://support.promax.com/knowledge/how-to-media-hub

  We can do up to 4 x SSDs internal on the MediaHub, then the 8/12 bay external gives you a ton more capacity.

  For LTO, we also work with M-Logic, https://www.mlogic.com/products/mtape-thunderbolt-lto-8 this little guy has been pretty solid for us.

  Hope that helps!

  N

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