TS-877 / First NAS

[flymeaway]

Somewhat of a long-time lurker; made a few posts.

I'm looking at buying a TS-877, comments on whether it suits my needs, and advice on how best to configure it once it arrives. I've attached a diagram that describes the setup I'm contemplating below as well as my general network setup. Note that not pictured in my diagram are a UPS I plan to buy for the NAS. Like I said, long-time lurker

I'm a longtime hobby photographer, now supplementing with a fair bit of 1080p and 4K drone footage. I shoot street photography, landscape photography, and time-lapse, new photos ~24MP RAW and a ~170gb photo archive that's a mix of everything from 4MP JPEG to 24MP RAW. I want to buy a NAS that's going to last for my 4-7 year needs; I figure I'll be shooting closer to 50MP by the time the NAS hits EOL -- so probably ~400-600GB photos, plus another 2-3TB of time lapse source files and drone footage. I also have a moderately sized media library and want to be able to do a local backup of devices.

But, I'd like to overbuild on the storage side. Part of the appeal of this setup to me is a bit of future-proofing. I can go a while before buying new hardware, so I tend to buy top-of-the-line when I do (or last year's top-of-the-line at a great discount). I plan to start with 4x4TB drives, expanding to 6 as I need more capacity.

I'm looking at buying a TS-877 for the following uses / use cases:

• Primary storage for photos. In keeping with 3-2-1, photos and finished footage are likely going to be synced continuously and in real time to the Cloud from the NAS, and then back down to a local PC that isn't the NAS.
• Primary workstation for photo and video editing, in a VM. I'd like to virtualize Windows 10 with Adobe CC and call it up when needed; this is the appeal of the x77 over the x53Be. It's easier (and not that much more $) to buy an x77 than buy an x53Be for storage and a workstation to go with it
• Light gaming. Not FPS, but like Civ VI which my 2009 iMac and 2015 MacBook Air currently can't handle
• General on-site backup from four PCs (two MacBooks, an iMac, a Windows PC). Archive storage for my music library
• Possibly as a media/video server, using Plex to stream to an AppleTV

Questions:

• How easy is hybrid sync across multiple volumes, and to multiple services / accounts? I have unlimited Google storage (thanks, college alumni account) and 4 TB of OneDrive split across O365 accounts (O365 HP)
• Is the general diagram I've shown for storage a way things are done? Separate volumes / iSCSI LUNs depending on usage? How does that work, if they're all on the same RAID array -- does the QNAP automatically stripe and parity everything across the drives, regardless of volume?
• I'm thinking about starting with RAID 6, which is a storage hit. But if the online migration is really great, I could start with RAID5 and only convert to RAID6 as I add volumes
• How fast is the "internal" NAS storage for VMs? E.g., if I'm accessing the RAID array from a VM that's on a lone SSD (per diagram). Is iSCSI the best option here, or something else?
• How feasible is my VM setup? I know there's a performance hit over bare metal, but I don't think that'll be a problem
• Am I wrong on my storage plan? (4x4TB). I could get 3x6TB for the same price, or 3x8TB for just a bit more

Yeah, lots of questions; I'll probably have more. I've read enough to know what to ask, but still trying to find my way. Thanks!

Untitled Diagram-2.png

[Moogle Stiltzkin]

some video intros for the x77 series

[youtube=]8EOBM9UtOsE[/youtube]

[youtube=]Zzfk25XLIkM[/youtube]

[youtube=]vTGtjF7Xe3A[/youtube]

[youtube=]ngEJOAGkc7A[/youtube]

Somewhat of a long-time lurker; made a few posts.

I'm looking at buying a TS-877, comments on whether it suits my needs, and advice on how best to configure it once it arrives. I've attached a diagram that describes the setup I'm contemplating below as well as my general network setup. Note that not pictured in my diagram are a UPS I plan to buy for the NAS. Like I said, long-time lurker

x77 series is probably the top model in terms of cpu power, in addition to other features. only thing it lacks is extras like....

-quickaccess
-thunderbolt 3
-oled capactive

I'm looking at buying a TS-877 for the following uses / use cases:

• Primary storage for photos. In keeping with 3-2-1, photos and finished footage are likely going to be synced continuously and in real time to the Cloud from the NAS, and then back down to a local PC that isn't the NAS.

there should be some photographers on the forum, maybe they can explain the process for this better.

[*] Primary workstation for photo and video editing, in a VM. I'd like to virtualize Windows 10 with Adobe CC and call it up when needed; this is the appeal of the x77 over the x53Be. It's easier (and not that much more $) to buy an x77 than buy an x53Be for storage and a workstation to go with it

yes the x77 series is perfect for virtualization. also if you install a nvidia graphics card, then plug a monitor to the graphics card HDMI, you can then use the graphics card for applications that require the use of the nvidia graphics card.

[*] Light gaming. Not FPS, but like Civ VI which my 2009 iMac and 2015 MacBook Air currently can't handle

should be doable.

[*] General on-site backup from four PCs (two MacBooks, an iMac, a Windows PC). Archive storage for my music library

well you could copy/paste from those client devices and backup to QNAP manually (i usually do this). Or you can opt for a more automated approached. QNAPs app is netbak replicator. I tested Aomei backupper Technician Edition, which is supported with NAS, so can use that software on client pc device to then backup to a location on NAS.

Or there is Acronis
[youtube=]bUdY2bcBTTA[/youtube]


there probably a couple of other app alternatives, you can pick from.

[*] Possibly as a media/video server, using Plex to stream to an AppleTV[/list]

yes the x77 series can run plex very well. to stream to appletv, seems there are a couple of options
https://fieldguide.gizmodo.com/5-apps-t ... 1792299884


If plex client can be installed on appletv, then during plex setup, you can point the media location to your NAS. If plex is running on qnap, then the appletv needs to somehow connect to it via Plex DLNA ?

Questions:

• How easy is hybrid sync across multiple volumes, and to multiple services / accounts? I have unlimited Google storage (thanks, college alumni account) and 4 TB of OneDrive split across O365 accounts (O365 HP)

[youtube=]KG4dIlTYNFQ[/youtube]

qnap's cloudbackup sync app (a hybrid backup sync component) is responsible for backing up to cloud services. onedrive and google seem to be supported
https://www.qnap.com/en/app_releasenote ... BackupSync

[*] I'm thinking about starting with RAID 6, which is a storage hit. But if the online migration is really great, I could start with RAID5 and only convert to RAID6 as I add volumes

just remember, once you move from raid5 to raid6, you cannot downgrade back to raid5 unless you do a factory reset (wipe all data).

[*] How fast is the "internal" NAS storage for VMs? E.g., if I'm accessing the RAID array from a VM that's on a lone SSD (per diagram). Is iSCSI the best option here, or something else?

[*] How feasible is my VM setup? I know there's a performance hit over bare metal, but I don't think that'll be a problem

in terms of VM performance, this video investigates improving performance on VM using VIRTIO. bottomline, performance is not the same as baremetal. However it may be sufficient enough, once you optimize performance by setting up VIRTIO. Thankfully this youtube guides you on how to do that.
[youtube=]UNvEaBGc73c[/youtube]

[Trexx]

Ok here are my thoughts in likely no particular order:

If you are doing to be doing 4k footage alot and want to support 10GbE throughput levels, then I would look at the TS-1277 model to get the 2 additional spinning drives. That adds another 25% to your throughput capability. That upgrades you to the 550w power supply which gives you more flexibility on the GPU front as some of the bigger model cards can get a little power hungry. This comes into play for your PhotoShop usage.

For HDD"s - fill them all up front, go Storage Pool, Thick Volume, Raid-6. Raid-5 to Raid-6 migration takes ALONG time especially as the # of drives and size of drive increases.

I would use your ssd's as follows:
- m.2 SSD's set aside for QTier which will help general operation.
- 2.5" SSD's create a separate volume and store your "PC VM" on it. You could also leverage that for some of your plex needs or as temp "workspace" area.

If you REALLY want super fast performance, look into the newly announced PCIe 3.x QM2 SSD cards that support PCIe SSD's which will be X factor faster than the SATA based m.2 & 2.5" SSD's.

As for Plex, you can either run that in a Win10 VM w/GPU to take advantage of HW transcoding (PlexPass) required, or leverage the native Plex Package for CPU transcoding.

How do you like your Ubiquiti gear? I just installed some UniFi equipment and am having fun so far.

[flymeaway]

If you are doing to be doing 4k footage alot and want to support 10GbE throughput levels, then I would look at the TS-1277 model to get the 2 additional spinning drives. That adds another 25% to your throughput capability. That upgrades you to the 550w power supply which gives you more flexibility on the GPU front as some of the bigger model cards can get a little power hungry. This comes into play for your PhotoShop usage.

My budget is high but not unlimited. I can't quite reach for the TS-1277, afford the drives to go with it, and not scrimp on things like a UPS which I think is just as important. I'm willing to live with a slightly lower-end GPU. The compatibility list suggests the 450W is sufficient, at least for "approved" GPUs.

For HDD"s - fill them all up front, go Storage Pool, Thick Volume, Raid-6. Raid-5 to Raid-6 migration takes ALONG time especially as the # of drives and size of drive increases.

Ugh. This is a bit what I was worried about. I could live with the system being offline for 4-5 days while the migration happens, but it still sounds like a PITA. "Thick volume" lets me mix thick and thin, right?

I would use your ssd's as follows:
- m.2 SSD's set aside for QTier which will help general operation.
- 2.5" SSD's create a separate volume and store your "PC VM" on it. You could also leverage that for some of your plex needs or as temp "workspace" area.

This is helpful, but might be beyond what I can do right now... I was thinking pure cache over QTier. If I'm reading/understanding QTier correctly, some of my data would be stored only on the SSDs and not redundantly across the Raid6 array? Getting the M.2 SSDs up front is outside my budget unless I scrimp elsewhere, and I understood that QTier had to be there from the get-go?

If you REALLY want super fast performance, look into the newly announced PCIe 3.x QM2 SSD cards that support PCIe SSD's which will be X factor faster than the SATA based m.2 & 2.5" SSD's.

A guy can dream...

As for Plex, you can either run that in a Win10 VM w/GPU to take advantage of HW transcoding (PlexPass) required, or leverage the native Plex Package for CPU transcoding.

Intersting. Hadn't thought about just running it in a VM with the GPU, and then taking that VM offline when I'm doing photo work (I'm the only one in the house who will use Plex at the client end).

How do you like your Ubiquiti gear? I just installed some UniFi equipment and am having fun so far.

The Edgerouter-X is an awesome little piece of equipment. I had been running the Orbi's system as a router, not just as an AP, but they couldn't keep up with my gigabit connection, which unfortunately uses PPPoE (a lot of CPU overhead; which the ER-X offloads to hardware). Eventually I'll probably upgrade to UniFi and the USG, but for now the ER-X is perfect for my needs.

[flymeaway]

some video intros for the x77 series

Thanks! Already watched most of these; asking what wasn't answered fully in the vids.

[*] General on-site backup from four PCs (two MacBooks, an iMac, a Windows PC). Archive storage for my music library

well you could copy/paste from those client devices and backup to QNAP manually (i usually do this). Or you can opt for a more automated approached. QNAPs app is netbak replicator. I tested Aomei backupper Technician Edition, which is supported with NAS, so can use that software on client pc device to then backup to a location on NAS.

Theoretically, QNAP supports Time Machine, which is the native Mac incremental backup client -- this is a major selling point.

[Trexx]

My budget is high but not unlimited. I can't quite reach for the TS-1277, afford the drives to go with it, and not scrimp on things like a UPS which I think is just as important. I'm willing to live with a slightly lower-end GPU. The compatibility list suggests the 450W is sufficient, at least for "approved" GPUs.

For HDD"s - fill them all up front, go Storage Pool, Thick Volume, Raid-6. Raid-5 to Raid-6 migration takes ALONG time especially as the # of drives and size of drive increases.

Ugh. This is a bit what I was worried about. I could live with the system being offline for 4-5 days while the migration happens, but it still sounds like a PITA. "Thick volume" lets me mix thick and thin, right?

Storage Pools lets you mix thick/thin. You aren't OFFLINE while the raid migration is happening, but your performance is degraded. There is also a certain amount of "stuff happens" risk during the RAID migration so make sure you have EXTERNAL backups of any critical data prior to starting.

I would use your ssd's as follows:
- m.2 SSD's set aside for QTier which will help general operation.
- 2.5" SSD's create a separate volume and store your "PC VM" on it. You could also leverage that for some of your plex needs or as temp "workspace" area.

This is helpful, but might be beyond what I can do right now... I was thinking pure cache over QTier. If I'm reading/understanding QTier correctly, some of my data would be stored only on the SSDs and not redundantly across the Raid6 array? Getting the M.2 SSDs up front is outside my budget unless I scrimp elsewhere, and I understood that QTier had to be there from the get-go?

With QTier 2.0 in QTS 4.3.4, you can implement it AFTER the storage pools has been created when your funding recovers after the initial purchase. Also for anything where you are using SSD's for WRITES, you want minimally RAID-1 to start with as SSD's do fail. So whether you go with QTier or SSD Caching, you still will want RAID-1. That being said, SSD Caching has limited benefit for large sequential access patterns, so writing/reading large 4k files it will have limited benefit.

See this presentation which covers quite a few good things about QTier, Snapshost, etc.
http://files.qnap.com/news/pressresourc ... 171122.pdf

As for Plex, you can either run that in a Win10 VM w/GPU to take advantage of HW transcoding (PlexPass) required, or leverage the native Plex Package for CPU transcoding.

Intersting. Hadn't thought about just running it in a VM with the GPU, and then taking that VM offline when I'm doing photo work (I'm the only one in the house who will use Plex at the client end).

Only thing to keep in mind is that GPU can only be mapped to a single VM at any given point in time.

Easier option might be to just have Plex installed on same WIn10 VM as Photoshop/etc and then start stop server if needed, but doens't have too much overhead while it is idle.

How do you like your Ubiquiti gear? I just installed some UniFi equipment and am having fun so far.

The Edgerouter-X is an awesome little piece of equipment. I had been running the Orbi's as routers not just APs, but they couldn't keep up with my new gigabit connection, which sadly uses PPPoE (a lot of CPU overhead; the ER-X offloads that to hardware). Eventually I'll probably upgrade to UniFi and the USG, but for now the ER-X is perfect for my needs.

I picked up the USG-Pro, POE Switch, and UniFi AC AP and running UniFi controller on my QNAP The unified gui is VERY nice compared to different consoles for Router/Switches/etc.

[flymeaway]

With QTier 2.0 in QTS 4.3.4, you can implement it AFTER the storage pools has been created when your funding recovers after the initial purchase. Also for anything where you are using SSD's for WRITES, you want minimally RAID-1 to start with as SSD's do fail. So whether you go with QTier or SSD Caching, you still will want RAID-1. That being said, SSD Caching has limited benefit for large sequential access patterns, so writing/reading large 4k files it will have limited benefit.

See this presentation which covers quite a few good things about QTier, Snapshost, etc.
http://files.qnap.com/news/pressresourc ... 171122.pdf

Thanks. I'm thinking the benefit of the cache is largely going to be for *photo* editing not 4K edits. RAW photos are 25-30mb each, and in photo editing there's a lot of jumping between images -- SSD read cache is ideal for that sort of thing, isn't it? 90% of my edits are non-destructive (think Lightroom not Photoshop), so there isn't a lot of writing large files until I decide to export. That said, the write cache could likely speed up the import process quite a bit. I was thinking of starting with 240 or 480 in read cache, and adding write cache later on...

Re: 4K, I'm actually thinking that if I seriously get into 4K I'll do most of my editing on a yet-to-be-purchased Macbook Pro, and the NAS for archiving source footage and storing final videos.

[Trexx]

Thanks. I'm thinking the benefit of the cache is largely going to be for *photo* editing not 4K edits. RAW photos are 25-30mb each, and in photo editing there's a lot of jumping between images -- SSD read cache is ideal for that sort of thing, isn't it? 90% of my edits are non-destructive (think Lightroom not Photoshop), so there isn't a lot of writing large files until I decide to export. That said, the write cache could likely speed up the import process quite a bit. I was thinking of starting with 240 or 480 in read cache, and adding write cache later on...

Re: 4K, I'm actually thinking that if I seriously get into 4K I'll do most of my editing on a yet-to-be-purchased Macbook Pro, and the NAS for archiving source footage and storing final videos.

It might be, although I think you could potentially see a similar benefit from QTier. You can always start with SSD Cache and switch to QTier later if you decide to change. In terms of m.2 SSD's, I would go 480-525GB range. They aren't TOO expensive and give you a decent size boost. If you start with a single m.2, then yes use for read caching only but you will have to delete/recreate the cache when you add the 2nd m.2 to enable read/write caching. Not a big deal, but a couple extra steps.

As for 4k, Bob Zelin is our resident guru with that but he supports many a user who does 4k editing over 10GbE right on the NAS itself. You really are better off with 8 HDD's (TS-1277) for that to get the extra throughput/iops. You might not hit full 10Gb throughput with only 8 drives though.

[flymeaway]

As for 4k, Bob Zelin is our resident guru with that but he supports many a user who does 4k editing over 10GbE right on the NAS itself. You really are better off with 8 HDD's (TS-1277) for that to get the extra throughput/iops. You might not hit full 10Gb throughput with only 8 drives though.

Am I right in thinking that if I ever get really into this, I can RAID0 stripe two 2.5" SSDs (or two NVMe SSDs on a QM2) as working disks for actual editing over 10GbE, with originals / archival footage stored on the NAS? I figure that's a kind of manual tiering / cache? Seems like an upgrade for down the line.

I'm guessing Bob serves professional clients who need to have hundreds of gigs (or terabytes) / hours of raw footage for online editing, and multiple projects at once. I'm rarely working with more than 30 minutes / 10 gigs of footage at a time (the drone has a battery life of 27 minutes!) and I might splice 6-10 flights / 60-100 gigs together. My archival needs are greater, because over time I'll want to store hundreds of flights. I figure I can copy what I need to to SSDs, on a project-by-project basis.

[Moogle Stiltzkin]

i saw there were some case studies where people combined drone use with qnap
https://www.qnap.com/en/case-studies/th ... _nas_682T/

[yttrium6]

I have a very outside opinion, and have been flamed for it. But I don't care.

My view: Great box, UPS/surge can buy later unless in a high surge state/area. I'm in Florida and I'm still safe without one--but I do have a whole house surge protector. We rarely have issues in my area even with lightning constantly striking everywhere.
RAID: Don't bother (this is why I get flamed). You mentioned general backup. Your NAS will be a general server, not a "backup." The backup should be offline and not connected by any physical wires to the NAS.
-I'm not bothered by down time. I can put in a new JBOD drive and copy contents in 1/10 the time it takes to rebuild a raid array. I know the diehards here can tell me I'm wrong, but I'm not, and it's all good. This only works if you update backups often. RAID will save your behind in most cases because people do not backup often enough. In this use RAID will save you from losing the portion you failed to back up but you have to rebuild the entire array just for that portion. But the rebuild times which are long (per google)....JBOD means there is no saving anything at all ever, didn't backup? too bad. Simply buy a new HDD, reload entire thing minus what you failed to back up. I've also read about other RAID nightmares here. I think guru= best for raid. Simply dumb like me--> JBOD more efficient, less headache, but bit of a chore to bring backup drives online to update.
-QNAP products have superior reliability to windows box and their crappy RDP--I tried that once. One user asked why bother with QNAP if I hate raid: I have many reasons-- quality, portability (my qnap is with my via android app, and it's saved me a few times), speed, and its easy to set up without "being a guru."
-VM install on an SSD for speed if you can. I'd ensure you can use the SSD's this way but there may be instances where it is only for Qtier; I'd stay away from that for your usage in particular. I've not setup a VN because my nas is extremely old and no longer supported. My QNAP has outlasted 7-8 Win machines. I'm waiting for the money to buy Ryzen NAS too.....
-I would look at pricing for HDD's for the number vs capacity (because I don't care about RAID). Others here may view it differently based on RAID level.
-As for HDD compatibility; I don't have that issue either. I think these are serious issues that relate to dropping out of a RAID array. None of my HDD's are "compatible", and only 2 failures. JBOD does not seem to be effected by these issues. I don't demand much of my NAS (unlike my PC) so my PC HDD's failed far more often--> now I use SSDs. My box is a TS-419P, still running all the 1 TB drives which were cool back then.

There is a lot of good help here for RAID so you can't go wrong either way (in my view at least), but think about which set of issues you want to deal with. RAID still requires a backup. If you are prepared to go JBOD, you better be familiar with iscsi, FTP, and the win program enabling read/write to extended partitions (Never use that program with RAID drives).

Cheers!
-JP

[Moogle Stiltzkin]

JBODs have downsides.
The read/write operations of RAID can be much faster than those of JBODs. With RAID, the data stream can be divided and stored on multiple disks concurrently, whereas JBODs store the data stream on one disk at a time. RAID 0, for example, stripes data across two more or more disks to accelerate read/write operations. Note, however, that it provides no redundancy.

More importantly, JBOD does not offer the redundancy of RAID. If a disk is corrupted in a JBOD array, all your data is at risk, including what’s on the other drives. With RAID, you can lose one or more disks and still preserve your data, depending on the configuration.

When are JBODs useful?
If you have a lot of data to store, particularly if just temporarily, JBODs are an economical solution. Make sure, however, that the data is not critical or you have an effective backup scheme in place.

[P3R]

I can put in a new JBOD drive and copy contents in 1/10 the time it takes to rebuild a raid array.

With RAID, all data would be available all the time during your disk replacement and backup restore.

The fear for rebuild times is for some reason huge among those not so familiar with RAID. Yes a rebuild will take several hours but the thing is the NAS is still available for use so an ongoing rebuild isn't the big deal you think it is.

I don't demand much of my NAS (unlike my PC) so my PC HDD's failed far more often--> now I use SSDs. My box is a TS-419P, still running all the 1 TB drives which were cool back then.

So an extremely different use case than a TS-X77 model. An old cat 1 model like TS-419P often have a very uncomplicated configuration and it have many other performance bottlenecks than the disks so often there's not that much to lose by not using RAID.

With a TS-X77 and similar modern and performant NASes it's a whole different world:

• In a very fast NAS like the TS-X77 the disk subsystem will become a huge bottleneck unless using some kind of RAID.
• A NAS running Virtualization often replaces several other systems in the network and if it's down you're missing all those features at the same time. As an example some may run their firewall in a VM so when the NAS is down, so is the internet connection.
• Many people outgrow their storage and with RAID they can easily expand that storage while retaining the data on the system and being accessible during the process.
• Many home users have serious data volumes and it becomes very complicated to administer that spread out over several volumes. Also the restore times from backup media of large data volumes can become an issue as well.
• A modern NAS support many more apps and the configurations of media servers, Virtualization and several other apps can take people weeks on setting up to their liking. That isn't fun to have to redo because of a disk failure.

These are some of the reasons why RAID makes much sense, especially on a modern and fast NAS like in the topic of this thread.

[yttrium6]

You obviously know far more than me and everything you say makes perfect sense. Yes I am way behind in these things. At least nothing I have is "critical." I'm a home user, and not a particularly important one. Pro users/businesses will have far more to lose than I. Everything I have fits on a 6tb disk But anyway, I can see given the above why RAID would be better for most.

[flymeaway]

Thanks everybody for the help! I ordered the system today; went a little further overboard than I thought I would but... Oh well.

• TS-877-1600-8G
• 6x4TB HGST Enterprise HUS726040ALE610 (officially compatible). I got what I thought was a great deal on these Enterprise-grade HDDs, at $150 each. 5 year warranty; 128mb cache; 7200rpm. Comparable to WD or Seagate drives priced $40-80 more
• EVGA 1050 SC Gaming video card
• 16gb RAM upgrade (went with Ballistix DDR4 2400mhz; I'll report on whether they work but they were the best deal)
• Single Sandisk X400 SSD. I know these aren't on the compatibility list but I don't intend to use it in RAID, only to store VMs. I plan to back the virtual machine up to the RAID array, a week or two of VM downtime is fine if the drive failed, and no actual data will be stored in the VMs (just OS and apps).

UPS is TBD... I'm going to order from Amazon so shipping will be faster. How important is it for the UPS to be on the QNAP list?

Thanks again all. I'm sure I'll be back with questions.