NAS (Synology) fast enough for FCPX?

[Noah Kadner]

I’d go with a Promise Pegasus instead- a lot more robust and built for editing video. The Synology is more like a home media streamer/personal cloud. Speed is not its selling point.

Noah

FCPWORKS – FCPX Workflow
Call Box Training

[Shawn Convey]

Yeah I would love a Promise
but it just in not in the budget…
especially since they come preconfigured (none barebones)
so even if I could afford the $3.5k model it is not nearly as expandable.

many have said that the 1813+ has super impressive speeds with gigabit LAN ports (4 of them)
but still I really don’t know what that means in terms of what I need.
Obviously the quicker the better but if Thunderbolt 2 is a Porsche will the Synology do what I need it to do.

If not then I am prepared to make my DROBO my edit drive and my Synology my storage drive
BUT still I want to know if I can use my Synology (and use it on 2 computers) and then I would sell my DROBO and use that money for more 6TB drives for the Synology…

any perspective about actual speed needed contrasted with the speed capable of the 1813+ would be super helpful.

Cheers

[Noah Kadner]

Yeah in that case you should just order one on Amazon and try it.

Noah

FCPWORKS – FCPX Workflow
Call Box Training

[Brett Sherman]

Let us know how it goes. I would love to upgrade the Synology on my home network and be able to edit home movies off of it via 802.11 ac on my laptop.

[Joe Marler]

[shawn convey] “many have said that the 1813+ has super impressive speeds with gigabit LAN ports (4 of them) but still I really don’t know what that means in terms of what I need.”

As Noah said, directly attached storage is normally a lot faster. Actual real-world file transfer speed of gigabit ethernet is often slower than people expect. A typical figure might be 100 megabytes/sec (on a good day), which is about as fast as a cheap bus-powered USB 3 portable drive.

If your situation absolutely mandates NAS for other reasons such as collaborative file sharing, then the performance penalty may be worth it. However even a less expensive directly attached RAID system will be a lot faster. E.g, OWC Thunderbay 4, or even G-RAID.

[Charlie Austin]

[Joe Marler] “Actual real-world file transfer speed of gigabit ethernet is often slower than people expect.”

FWIW, we run 6-7 systems with a mix of NLE’s (X, 7, Pr) off a mac mini/pegasus2 R8 NAS over GB Enet and it’s fine. Our sources are all generally 720p or 1080p ProRes 422.

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~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~

[Shawn Convey]

Thanks for all the feedback

@ Charlie Austin
Just to be clear you are not using the R8’s Thunderbolt connection at all and just the gigabit LAN port and you have not has issues with 1080p / ProRes 422?
are you using any specific switches or other devices to avoid bottlenecking?

And to be honest I would mainly be using it on the iMac with occasional use on my laptop…
Thanks for your insight!

[Charlie Austin]

[shawn convey] “Just to be clear you are not using the R8’s Thunderbolt connection at all and just the gigabit LAN port and you have not has issues with 1080p / ProRes 422?
are you using any specific switches or other devices to avoid bottlenecking?”

Yes and no. Tbolt 2 from the R8 to the (new) mini running Server app. GB Enet from the Mini to a Netgear switch (ProSafe 24 port GB Enet is the model fwiw) And the edit systems hang off that. All Libraries/projects/cache/scratch discs are local, so we’re mostly just reading. the only time it gets a bit choppy is if all 6 systems are working and someone tries to copy (write) a feature or something large to the server. I don’t think even that would be an issue with fewer systems.

If all you’re doing is running off 1 main system with an occasional need for a laptop to access it, I’d imagine that Tbolt 2 to the main system, and then maybe file sharing over GB Enet to the laptop would work fine. Don’t know if you’d even need the switch.

As we are running a dedicated server I’ve not tried that, but I imagine it would work, just need to set up sharing on the “master” system.

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~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~

[Shawn Convey]

@Charlie
Again thanks for the input.

I guess what this boils down to however is my Synology 1813+ has no Thunderbolt connector.
and what I am curious about is if the gigbit LAN will be able to handle the prores 422 1080p footage for FCP7
I have way too much footage 🙂 (300 hours) My editor starts back up (we are 1/2 way through the edit)
and I don’t want to waster her time but we are running crazy low on space…

Being new to NAS and office networking in general
I would assume that if your LAN port is suppling the rest of the edit suites it can’t be transferring any quicker than the gigabit LAN port coming out of my Synlogoy… is that thinking correct or am I missing something?

again thanks for your patience with this networking n00b 🙂

[Charlie Austin]

[shawn convey] “I would assume that if your LAN port is suppling the rest of the edit suites it can’t be transferring any quicker than the gigabit LAN port coming out of my Synlogoy… is that thinking correct or am I missing something?
“

Not 100% sure, since Tbolt out of the Raid is faster than Enet. But I guess as long as the Enet can get data out of the synology box fast enough it should work. Get a couple cat 6 cables and give it a shot. 🙂
EDIT: with a little 4 port switch you might not even need to set up sharing on the main system. Just plug main, laptop, and Raid into the switch. I’m venturing off into speculation land, so hopefully a brighter mind can pop in to confirm or deny this.. 😉
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~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~