Question NAS help & recommendations for a freelance artist/developer ?

[sHAYM4N]

Hi all

I work as a freelance game artist/developer and looking to add a NAS into my setup. Never owned one so I'm very new to what its best use would be.

I know its not strictly a backup - but at the moment my workflow consists of having an ageing couple of mechanical hard drives for production work & resources, a large 12TB external drive for video captures, then I backup offsite to Crashplan.

So as it stands its a pretty poor setup for 3-2-1 on production work, inhouse projects (such as my website) & design resources.

I've around £1100 saved currently for getting started (but could could add a bit more for the drives)

My idea is to still use the mechanical drives for current work for quick access but use a NAS for resources or archiving projects & resources (which would then be also backed up to crashplan), but then just copy over (or keep in sync) with my main drives anything I might need currently. Im not sure what other uses I would have for the NAS but down the line might look at Home Assistant as well.

Storage wise I'm actually not much of a hoarder - I have probably around 2-3tb of data across my archive and active work, so the NAS really doesn't need to be anything special to start with.

However - I do work in Blender a lot, video work also takes up a massive amount of space and can see this all starting to go north over the next year or two (also looking at setting up a studio with colleagues) so redundancy might become more important as well as future proofing.

All the advice I have seen so far says no matter how many bays you go for you will wish you will want more, so because my storage needs are modest right now thought I might be better putting the starting budget into the actual NAS?
So was thinking either 6-8 bays (Synology 1821+) but maybe only filling a couple of the drives to start with and setting to mirror - getting used to how it works then investing in drives maybe 6 months down the line?

When I do this, was thinking I could also then use the 2 drives in the NAS as my production drives in my main desktop (which I say are getting pretty old).

I don't really want to build my own secondary PC as a NAS for space or power, but as a newbie have no preference right now with Qnap or Synology either.

Is all this doable or is there a much better option that anyone can suggest?

Any help greatly appreciated!

 

[kanewolf]

Hi all

I work as a freelance game artist/developer and looking to add a NAS into my setup. Never owned one so I'm very new to what its best use would be.

I know its not strictly a backup - but at the moment my workflow consists of having an ageing couple of mechanical hard drives for production work & resources, a large 12TB external drive for video captures, then I backup offsite to Crashplan.

So as it stands its a pretty poor setup for 3-2-1 on production work, inhouse projects (such as my website) & design resources.

I've around £1100 saved currently for getting started (but could could add a bit more for the drives)

My idea is to still use the mechanical drives for current work for quick access but use a NAS for resources or archiving projects & resources (which would then be also backed up to crashplan), but then just copy over (or keep in sync) with my main drives anything I might need currently. Im not sure what other uses I would have for the NAS but down the line might look at Home Assistant as well.

Storage wise I'm actually not much of a hoarder - I have probably around 2-3tb of data across my archive and active work, so the NAS really doesn't need to be anything special to start with.

However - I do work in Blender a lot, video work also takes up a massive amount of space and can see this all starting to go north over the next year or two (also looking at setting up a studio with colleagues) so redundancy might become more important as well as future proofing.

All the advice I have seen so far says no matter how many bays you go for you will wish you will want more, so because my storage needs are modest right now thought I might be better putting the starting budget into the actual NAS?
So was thinking either 6-8 bays (Synology 1821+) but maybe only filling a couple of the drives to start with and setting to mirror - getting used to how it works then investing in drives maybe 6 months down the line?

When I do this, was thinking I could also then use the 2 drives in the NAS as my production drives in my main desktop (which I say are getting pretty old).

I don't really want to build my own secondary PC as a NAS for space or power, but as a newbie have no preference right now with Qnap or Synology either.

Is all this doable or is there a much better option that anyone can suggest?

Any help greatly appreciated!

QNAP and Synology are the two biggest suppliers for home/small business NAS. They both have virtual NAS units on their websites. That allows you to test driver the software. Generally they use the same software baseline on all their units. Two drive or 12 drive units use the same UI and software functions. Go see if there is anything you like better about one or the other UI.
What is your computer? PC or MAC ? What network do you have? If you are using WIFI you will be disappointed in NAS performance.
I have Synology NAS at home. @USAFRet has QNAP. One of us can probably answer brand specific questions.

 

[USAFRet]

For this use, a commercial NAS is the way to go.
I have a QNAP, another moderator here is in the Synology camp.

We can go into details about various configs if you want.

 

[sHAYM4N]

Brilliant many thanks!

What is your computer? PC or MAC ? What network do you have? If you are using WIFI you will be disappointed in NAS performance.

I work on my desktop PC 99% of the time, occasionally on my Windows laptop for admin work, iPad Pro (for bits of ProCreate but not as often as I would like).

Network is something I can actually work on at the moment as I am going through some house renovations. I currently just use a tplink powerline adaptor (AV1300) to my PC upstairs which provides a secondary 5ghz wifi network upstairs (with the router being in the living room) I'm currently renovating the hallway, stairs and landing (& living room next) so am thinking of cabling in direct ethernet access upstairs.

 

[kanewolf]

Brilliant many thanks!


I work on my desktop PC 99% of the time, occasionally on my Windows laptop for admin work, iPad Pro (for bits of ProCreate but not as often as I would like).

Network is something I can actually work on at the moment as I am going through some house renovations. I currently just use a tplink powerline adaptor (AV1300) to my PC upstairs which provides a secondary 5ghz wifi network upstairs (with the router being in the living room) I'm currently renovating the hallway, stairs and landing (& living room next) so am thinking of cabling in direct ethernet access upstairs.

NAS performance is all about network performance. Powerline and WIFI will severely limit NAS performance. You need to get ethernet cable (cat6a 100% copprer) to ALL areas of the house you want NAS access. Bring that cable to a central location. You then have a switch. Gigabit is the minimum. 2.5Gig and 10Gig are more expensive, but for an artist, worthwhile. Also, consult your tax professional. These upgrades may be business expenses.

 

[sHAYM4N]

NAS performance is all about network performance. Powerline and WIFI will severely limit NAS performance. You need to get ethernet cable (cat6a 100% copprer) to ALL areas of the house you want NAS access. Bring that cable to a central location. You then have a switch. Gigabit is the minimum. 2.5Gig and 10Gig are more expensive, but for an artist, worthwhile. Also, consult your tax professional. These upgrades may be business expenses.

brilliant many thanks, will put a hold on the NAS and concentrate on working the network out. Many thanks.

In general if the cat6 was installed what would you recommend for bays and disks. Would I be better going with something like an 8 bay and starting with just a couple of larger disks with one mirrored to start with, or smaller and filling it out a bit more with raid?