[Bob Zelin]

ooh – are we going to turn a forum on Creative Cow into a political forum ?

Well I certainly have my opinion on this subject. This is typical liberal “holier than thou” nonsense.

Tim Cook, who is gay, and is a staunch promoter of people’s privacy, (so think very liberal) does everything he can to be just like Dick Cheney. He is worth 625 Million dollars
https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&source=hp&ei=z74bXfXVK42UsgWJ04LYDA&q=tim+cook+net+worth&oq=tim+cook+net+worth&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0l5j0i22i30l5.718.8651..9126…0.0..0.132.1803.8j10……0….1..gws-wiz…..0..0i131j0i3.1GIB9KfaHSg

and sets up illegal offices in Ireland to avoid US taxes, that could help the homeless, and veterans –
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU_illegal_State_aid_case_against_Apple_in_Ireland

and now of course, has decided that rather than keep people employed in the state of Texas to manufacture the
new Mac Pro, he decided that to keep profits up, to make it in China (by Quanta computer)
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/28/technology/apple-mac-pro-china.html

and of course, the new Mac Pro is so outrageously priced (while the slave labor in China will live in substandard conditions) – but hey – he is one of the wonderful shiny faces of liberal America. So while people starve in the streets of California, he will get richer and richer from the massive markups to him, while avoiding taxes in Ireland, and manufacturing with slave labor in China.

Sounds just great to me ! Screw those people in Texas. He needs a new jet (and a new Mac Pro !).

Bob Zelin

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

[Bob Zelin]

Hi Erik –
are you telling me that your Corning Thunderbolt 2 fiber extensions have been flacky –
or is it another extender ?

Bob Zelin

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

[Bob Zelin]

Andrew writes –
I personally never had one because I didn’t want to lug something around that big.

I never understood this mindset. When you are in the video business, and you do a shoot, you have a TON of gear that has to be moved around – your camera, lenses, tripod, batteries, chargers, cables, outboard recorder, outboard monitor, etc, etc.

If you are in post production, you have your computer, but you also have your monitors, speakers, dock, AJA or Blackmagic or AVID IO boxes, scopes, drives, etc, etc.

If you are a DIT on set, you have your cart with all your crap on it, your card readers, dock, drives, etc. etc. plus outboard gear for the client to see the shots on a monitor.

And if you are an editor – you not only bring your laptop, but ALL THE OTHER STUFF – which certainly means at least lugging your drives around, headphones (if you are not using real speakers), and other stuff, like monitors, I/O boxes, etc that is necessary to do your job.

So please explain the mindset of “I just want my 15″ laptop in a light case, and that’s it”. Exactly where do you edit with this equipment ? At Starbucks ?

The definition of all these trade shows, and being a pro is OUR GEAR – all the hardware, all the software, knowing all the tricks, and owning all the toys, that a “YouTuber” with their iPhone and Mac Book (and a free WiFi connection). cannot compete against. So adding the extra “inch” – exactly how does that make your life more miserable.

Bob Zelin

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

[Bob Zelin]

Hello Tem –
I am assuming you are a video user, with Terabytes of data, and not using the Synology for accounting data.
Even on a 10G network, it takes between 60 – 90 minutes to backup 1TB of data. On a 1G network, it would be 10 times slower. So over the internet to a cloud site, it’s painfully slow (and almost impossible). I don’t care if Synology’s active backup is free with unlimited space. You are at the mercy of your internet connection.
And even if you purchase a second Synology, you are at the mercy of duplicating the amount of drive space that you have now. So if you have 80 TB of drive space, you need 80 TB of drive space to back this up. The drives will cost more than the Synology (or the QNAP).
There is no free lunch.

Bob Zelin

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

[Bob Zelin]

Hi Will –
you purchase the right product and there is no problem. If we are talking about Synology, you purchase a
Synology RS18017xs+ for $5999, and there will never be a problem and no one will complain. You buy the
DS1618+ for $719 with the horrible Intel ATOM 3538 CPU processor, and you will get what you have right now.
Garbage.

Same applies to QNAP (and every other brand). If you buy the correct model, it will work great. If you buy the cheapest thing you can possibly get – well, then you will get garbage.

This is why you STILL see people who cut on AVID say “we must have an AVID Nexis, because nothing else works”.
Because when many production companies try to avoid the right hardware, and buy the cheapest thing they can possibly get – well, nothing works, and that original person comes back and says “see – I told you – we should have bought the AVID Nexis”.

Bob Zelin

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

[Bob Zelin]

I would like to address Will’s comment on the Synology painful rebuild time.
“But under an intensive load (4k+, multicam or too many users) or during any type of maintenance/drive rebuilds they’ve been a pain.”

It is my opinion that the painfully slow rebuild time of a Synology is simply due to the fact that the default format of the Synology (when you first put in the drives and create the RAID group) is BTRFS. When you configure the Synology, and select EXT4 (which is a standard linux forum, that is used by QNAP and many others) – instead of the default BTRFS, your rebuild times will be in hours, not days – for a failed drive.

I just did a google search on this, and was shocked to find this Synology white paper on this very subject –
https://www.synology.com/en-us/knowledgebase/DSM/tutorial/Storage/What_was_the_RAID_implementation_for_Btrfs_File_System_on_SynologyNAS
“However, it is known that Btrfs RAID is unstable and not suitable for production environments. For this reason, Synology chose Linux RAID over Btrfs RAID. ”

Bob Zelin

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

[Bob Zelin]

so you mean that my investment in my 2013 6,1 Mac Pro with D700 cards is now going to be useless –

reply – YES

reply – BOO HOO HOO !

welcome to the video business Andre.

Bob Zelin

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

[Bob Zelin]

all these companies ! Man oh man oh man !

I not only saw Corning Thunderbolt 3 optical cables, but a 10 meter Thunderbolt 3 optical cable was tested at the QNAP booth at NAB 2019, and it worked perfectly.

With that said – I just did a google search on this – and NOTHING –

this is the current Corning site on the optical cables –
https://www.corning.com/optical-cables-by-corning/worldwide/en/products/thunderbolt-optical-cables.html

and not one mention of the T3 optical cable – nor a “coming soon” –

what gives ?

Bob Zelin

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

[Bob Zelin]

Hello Alex –
I am going to answer your question in detail, but before I do – I know for a fact that other dealers and manufacturers look at this forum. I would like all of them to make an observation from your post (and all of them already know this) –

Do you see how Alex has chosen the Synology 1819+. And he is suffering why he needs to purchase this model, instead of the cheaper DS 1817. Do you see how Alex has researched switches, and is asking about Buffalo and not Netgear, Dell, or more expensive Arista, Cisco, Extreme Networks, etc. Alex has done excellent research, and his research has led him to one common denominator. The same common denominator that EVERYONE is asking today – the same common demoninator everyone on Reddit asks about – WHAT IS THE CHEAPEST THING I CAN GET (down to the penny) that will still work for me. Even though Alex is in France, and has easy tech access to GB Labs, and DDP, he is asking about Synology, because of it’s price (and it’s probably still too expensive). I want to shove this fact down your throats (not you Alex !) – so that you understand where the market is right now. This is why I do what I do, not because of a particular brand that I have loyalty to. I want to stay in business.

Hello Alex – I apologize for the nonsense above, but I fully understand what you are looking for.
It will be difficult for me to answer all of your questions in a single post response, but I will do my best.
The DS1817 appears that it is no longer manufactured. I believe the DS1817 was using the horrible Amazon Annapurna CPU processor which was slow. I understand that this model probably came with a free dual port 10G card, but this is the wrong box for you. Should you decide to choose a Synology product, in my opinion the Synology DS1819+ is the least expensive model that you should choose. You MUST purchase an optional dual port 10G NIC card from Synology for this system. Without 10G ethernet, this system is useless, and YES, you must have eight matching 7200 RPM drives in this system. The 10G port will connect to a 10G ethernet switch.

You have selected the Buffalo BS-MP2012. This is a 12 port 10G switch. I have never installed one of these.
You have 9 client computers that need to access the data from this NAS box. I would suggest from my experience that you choose a Netgear XS712Tv2 12 port switch, or a Netgear XS716T 16 port 10G switch. This does not mean that the Buffalo BS-MP2012 will not do the same job. I have just never installed one personally, and I do not know how it will perform. It is not popular in the United States.

As for the NAS box itself, I have installed the DS1819+, and I have installed the equivalent QNAP TVS-873e (also with optional 10G NIC card). I can assure you that the slightly more expensive QNAP TVS-872XT-16G for $1899 US is a dramatically better, faster product. This model has a built in 10G port, and eight SATA drive slots, and is expandable with 6 expansion chassis.

With that said – you have NINE (9) clients that will connect to this. If all of them want to do 4K editing, this will be pushing the limits of what any of these boxes can do. At that point, I would suggest a more expensive box – the QNAP TS-1685, which is a 12 bay model, with built in dual 10G NIC ports. This would connect to your 12 or 16 port 10G switch, and all 9 of your client computers would connect to this switch. The price of the TS-1685 without drives is $2899 US.

The Seagate Ironwolf 7200 RPM drives are an excellent choice. With an 8 bay chassis after RAID 6 (where you can have 2 drives fail) – you will have 60 TB of usable storage. With a 12 bay chassis, like the TS-1685, after RAID 6, you will have 120 TB raw, and 100 TB of usable storage after RAID 6.

If you want wired internet, I would insist on TWO CAT 6 wires per computer workstation. One for your house wired internet, and one dedicated for the 10G NIC port on the computer, that would connect to the 10G switch (either Netgear or Buffalo).

I am fully available to answer any further questions that you may have. I am sorry if I missed any of the critical points that you may have been asking –

oh –
for remote access to the editor that is 500 km away from you –
you create Proxy files for him. He would then remote into your QNAP over the internet, download those proxy files, edit the show in proxy, and put the project data file back onto the QNAP over the internet. It would then be your responsibility to conform the show from his project file, back to the original full res media. The internet is simply not fast enough to transmit full res 4K ProRes files for someone to do remote editing.

Bob Zelin

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

[Bob Zelin]

Hi –
I am writing to you on Saturday June 15th. I just finished doing a new QNAP TVS-872XT – 16G with
Seagate 7200 RPM 6TB SATA drives. I logged into my client in London. The host computer that I used to do the
setup was a 6,1 Mac Pro running macOS 10.14.x. The Thunderbolt 2 10G adaptor was a Promise SanLink2.

After the build I ran AJA System Test – 800 MB/sec READ, 475 MB/sec WRITE. So yes, these speeds are consistant with what you are getting. The QNAP was setup as a single static RAID volume (RAID 6). With a 12 bay TS-1685, I will typically see 800 – 900 MB/sec read and write.

Bob Zelin

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