New Fibre Storage for my SAN – or integrated NAS solution?

[Alex Gerulaitis]

SAS expansion is nice, don’t think either Synology or QNAP allow that kind of expansion. Eric, have you worked with any of their rack boxes (N12000/N12K Pro)? How quiet are they?

(Just shipped an 8-bay 2U 10GbE QNAP box to a client – while really well engineered, it’s fairly loud even with fans in “low” mode; CPU usage is 30-50% during array rebuilds – a little high for my taste; makes me wonder what the loads will be with lots of random I/Os over 10GbE and SMB/AFS. iSCSI should be fine. Support is good so far – but not on their forums. Same with Synology. Features and value-wise, I like Thecus boxes the best – thanks for the tip.)

[Ericbowen]

Yes I have sold and tested several up to the 8800Pro V2. I have not tested the 12 or 16 bay units yet. The 8800Pro V2 was quiet compared to most SAS chassis units I have worked with other than 8 bay SAS tower units from Enhanced Technology/Pro Avio. I have tested Qnap but not Synology. I was not impressed with Qnap considering the cost. Synology is the current IT standard used in Enterprise. I wouldn’t mind testing one if I get the chance. I agree that so far Thecus is the best overall.

Eric-ADK
Tech Manager

[Alex Gerulaitis]

Thanks Eric,

[EricBowen] “I have tested Qnap but not Synology. I was not impressed with Qnap considering the cost.”

When I was researching this, Synology seemed to have very limited 10GbE options, while with QNAP it was, like, just put a 10GbE card, and you’re all set, and indeed I was. QNAP was also less expensive than Synology for an 8-bay 2U 10GbE-ready unit. That said, I’d have likely chosen Thecus over QNAP if I had a chance to research it more or heard your comments sooner.

[Bob Zelin]

when you say that you were not impressed with the QNAP – did you have the dual port 10gig card in your QNAP ?

bob zelin

Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
maxavid@cfl.rr.com

[Ericbowen]

No I did not. I was not real impressed with the management utility and build Quality when compared to Thecus however the Qnap was still more expensive. Thecus has added most of Intel’s 10GBE cards to their supported list ie firmware which was what I was waiting for.

Eric-ADK
Tech Manager

[Bob Zelin]

then no offense Eric, but how on earth can you evaluate ANY of these products in a professional video environment for speed and performance without the 10gig card ? The QNAP, and Synology (and I assume the Thecus) is just a generic office NAS without that 10gig card (same goes for the Netgear ReadyNAS). This is why I always bitch about the useless Drobo, when people try to use it for shared storage enviornments – there is no 10gig option, and so, crappy performance.

QNAP offers both SFP+ 10 gig cards (from Emulex) and their own 10GbaseT card for their boxes. I am not here to promote QNAP – I know that all of these boxes are generic Linux chassis, with a standard 1GbE interface. Without a fast interface (bonded Ethernet, 10g Ethernet, fibre), you really can’t test any of these systems for performance in a video environment. 2 Mac clients pulling 90MB/sec each from a single 1GbE port on the NAS will crash the NAS.

Bob Zelin

Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
maxavid@cfl.rr.com

[Ericbowen]

Simply because performance is not the only reason clients get the Network based units. I can go to Intel and get the performance specs of their 10GBE Ethernet products and what they have tested with. I can use the Network engineers who focus on this as reference for performance. I can also take the total bandwidth available per 10GBE channel which is 1.2GB/s and state that is the deciding factor on performance available. What I cannot do though is use their reference for ease of setup, management, and maintenance. I also cannot use their reference for build features such as quality, reliability, or noise level. Those I must look at myself. When I state Thecus management utility is extremely easy to use then I have tested it and had clients report back their feedback. I have clients IT staff configuring and maintaining the units with ease. I have end user clients who are able to setup, configure, and maintain these network units on their own without any assistance which btw is very important to them. This gives a strong impression of the product to the client who spent the money to purchase it. BTW I did Gbit testing here with both units and they were nearly identical in performance via Gbit with load balancing. Drobo is a completely separate product because they run the virtual raid which significantly reduces performance and raises latency. That is why I would not recommend that unit for any purpose beyond archive. If performance was the only factor any client cared for then none of these units would be built without 10GBE built in. Considering this support has only been added recently outside of Fiber, I would not consider that the only deciding factor. Clients want reliability of data integrity and hardware as much as they want performance if not more so. They also want to be able to configure the add on hardware without having a permanent IT staff on hand.

1 last note. 10GBE performance affinity and latency is decided by the network controllers and switches. It is not decided by the firmware or hardware used in the storage unit.

Eric-ADK
Tech Manager

[Andrew Ryann]

A real world example: We have a Thecus N16000 with 16x3TB Hitachi Ultrastars link aggregated (dual) to an EdgeCore ES4528V switch. We have a MacPro, iMac and depending on our workload, 1-2 MacBook Pros all editing the same footage with no issues at all. We are using mostly CS6 and CC apps working with ProRes, AVCHD, DVCPROHD and even H264 from the 5D all natively. I just ran the BlackMagic Disk Speed Test on the iMac and was pulling 115mbps read and write to the Thecus. Then started opening successive video streams on the MacPro and the speed to the iMac never changed. Pretty impressive for a 1gig net! I think at some point will get the 10g SFPs for both the switch and the Thecus, but for now, it’s all dandy!

[Cassia Lozinski]

Just curious if Morten ever decided on a new setup?? I’d love to hear what you settled on.

-Cassia

[Morten]

Here is the solution we chose:

-MacMini top model, Mavericks Server
-Thunderbolt attached ARECA Thunder8 Raid 38x4TB (Raid6 configuration)
-Thunderbolt attached Sonnet PCIe Expansion with SAS card, and Small-Tree 6 port Gigabit Ethernet Server card
– SAS connected LTO5 drive

Server runs Farmers Wife planning and scheduling software, File sharing through AFP and SMB2
Clients (Mac & Wn) connect to server through direct ethernet connection (Jumbo Frames enabled on Mac) to Small-Tree card

….and the verdict: it works great… but… I believe there is an issue with the Mavericks clients connecting through SMB2, where server contact sometimes momentarily freezes. We work around this by force connecting through AFP.

– No Parking Production –

Adobe CC, 3 x MacPro, 3 x MbP, Ethernet File Server w. Areca ThunderRaid 8…. and FCPX on trial