For Bob Zelin - raid storage + nas 886

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storageraider2021
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For Bob Zelin - raid storage + nas 886

Post by storageraider2021 »

Hi Bob,

Appreciate your input and read a bunch of your old posts.

I'm looking at the 872 vs. 886. I'm trying to buy the enclosure and then load up with smaller drives. I also read you saying that for thunderbolt use raid. Here is what i've come up with and wanted your opinion on raid storage + nas

storage: OWC 4m2 loaded with samsung 970 evo plus in raid 0 to get maximum throughput for editing video and photo files. Files backed up to NAS or separate backup drive.

Nas: 886 with 10gbe card (i read your posts that thunderbolt is not stable). Use WD Red Pro 2 or 4 TB drives (6) and then 2 SSDs (which ones?) and then use the NVMe.

Would it be worthwhile dropping in a sonnet PCI card for the nvme's into the 886?

What do you think of this setup? Also, is there an equivalent of the nas for the synology setup? I never see you mentioning that.

Also, what should the 886 config cost? And is the warranty from adorama/B&H worth it? I believe it's allstate at the latter.

Thanks!
Jay
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Re: For Bob Zelin - raid storage + nas 886

Post by Bob Zelin »

Hello Jay -
no offense, but everything that you are stating, is completely incorrect. You are making a lot of assumptions. You are also not stating accurate model numbers. Everything is in the details.
1) You are looking at the TVS-872XT vs. the TS-h886. Is that correct ? One is an 8 bay QTS QNAP, and one is a 6 bay QNAP.
2) The TVS-872XT is an end of life QTS product, that is notorious for developing power supply problems.
3) the TS-h886 is a wonderful new product from QNAP. This product requires ALL SIX 7200 RPM SATA DRIVES, and TWO 500 Gig SSD drives to run the QuTS operating system.
Can you install just a few drives - NO. Can you install the SSD's for whatever ? NO. If your application is AVID Media Composer, FCP X, Davinci Resolve, or Adobe Premiere, you follow my
instructions, or nothing will work.
4) I dont' care about your OWC. I know exactly what this product is, and it's great for direct attached storage for Thunderbolt 3 - but you can also edit directly from the QNAP using a 10G port.
5) the TS-h886 requires a QNAP QXG-10G1T 10G card, and your Mac computer requires a 10G adapter for the thunderbolt bus, like a QNAP QNA-T310G1T or a Sonnet Solo 10G. NO, you will not
be connecting with a thunderbolt cable to the QNAP from your Mac computer. I don't care what QNAP says.
6) the Sonnet card will not work in the QNAP. If you want to use four NVMe drives in the QNAP, you get a QNAP QM2-4P-384 card. And the smallest QNAP I installed this in, is the TVS-h1288X - and this made the fans run at full speed - so from a "silent" QNAP - it became a noisy QNAP.

Synology makes wonderful products - but you have to buy the right Synology - So you get a Synology DS1621xs+ or a DS1821+ with eight matching 7200 RPM drives, and the Synology 10G card, and
an additional 16 Gig ram chip from Synology, as the DS1821+ only comes with 4 Gig of RAM.

You do not make decisions on your career based on "how much does it cost". If you are a professional - you purchase the right equipment. Of course, the B&H / Adorama warranty is all bull crap
What do they know about these products ? Nothing. They are selling you a box.

You can find the price of the TS-h886, and the TS-h1288X (and Synology DS1821+ with the parts I mentioned) on any site from B&H, Adorama, or Amazon.
Are you going to be one of these people that I see on Reddit that says "I bought the QNAP" (or I bought the synology) - and it's a piece of junk ! - Because if you don't know how to set up these
systems, then nothing will work, and you will be angry. Either you study the YouTube videos and documents on the proper configuration, or you hire someone to do this for you, so that it is done
correctly. You do not base your decisions on how much money you have. You are a professional - you make an investment. If you are an Uber driver, you don't say "I need a Prius, but I can't afford $50,000 for a car" - you GET A LOAN, and you make payments. You buy the right equipment, you have it set up correctly, and it will work perfectly fine. You don't do this, and you will fail, and you will wind up on one of these forums saying how horrible QNAP is.

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Re: For Bob Zelin - raid storage + nas 886

Post by Bob Zelin »

you have also not stated what computer you are using. Win 10 ? Mac ? Thunderbolt 2? Thunderbolt 3?
You can't find a thunderbolt 2 adapter today that works with modern Mac OS operating systems. You need a Thunderbolt 3 computer (use a QNA-T310G1T or Sonnet Solo 10G) or a modern Win 10 computer with a x4 lane slot for a 10G card, like the QNAP QXG-10G1T.

If you have a 2013 Mac Pro, and are running Big Sur or Monterey, you will be very unhappy.
Bob
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Re: For Bob Zelin - raid storage + nas 886

Post by storageraider2021 »

I’m using a 2021 MacBook Pro and a 2020 Mac Mini.

Ideally I can work on my Mac mini as well with the nas setup.

Thanks for cleaning up my model numbers, etc and you are correct those are the systems that I was looking at. I was drawn to the 872xt but I didn’t realize that was the only 8 drive out of the two. I thought the h886 was also 8 bay but I guess only 6 are usuable for raid.

Which leads me to it seems the 872xt will get better speeds than the h886. So then I’m debating doing that or spending for the h1288x.

Ideally what I could do is skip the nvme/owc setup which is giving up to 2800 transfer speeds, but costing me $1200. But if I’m spending $2/3/4k I also don’t want to be getting 700-800 read/write speeds. I want my cake and eat it to and clear to almost 1000 read/write. The 872xt seems to get there and beyond (if I ever want to treat it more like a das with thunderbolt)

Which also leads me to synology to see if I can find anything. But again, the DS1621xs+ seems nice but it’s 6 drive so I presume 700-800 speeds. The DS1821+ seems nice but it doesn’t seem like it’s an 872xt equivalent (and the price is lower so not expected). I wish there was an equivalent for the 872xt at synology.

Part of the attraction of the 872xt is that it seems I can just connect it to the the thunderbolt port and treat it like das if I need faster speeds (assuming it it reliable sometimes). Also the i5 vs Xeon processor seems better for graphical things, unless I put in a gpu to the h886

So my questions are:
A) Can I replace the 872x power supply so it’s more reliable. I don’t want to be buying a soon to be dead product

B) can the h886 os be installed to nvme so all 8 drives can be used.

C) would the h886 benefit from all ssd drives instead of hdd. I think you said no already, but confirming. And cost lift seems stupid for using ssd

D) how can I make synology closer to an 872xt? It also seems like I have to use specific synology accepted drives for them or they’ll not work.

E) on the h886 what can I install card wise to make it faster, if anything? I’ll drop in the 10G network card. I’m looking at photo editing, 4k editing, creating content for web distribution, VMware instances with large financial data sets

F) would and eGPU help on the h886 given the Xeon processor vs the i5

G) if I get a 12 bay can I get closer to 1500 read/write speeds if I had a better network card? Which model is the least expensive I can get away with?

H) do western digital or HP make an equivalent (or anyone else)?

I) do smaller drives give better performance than larger drives? Looking at the trade off of buy a 8 bay with larger drives vs a 12 bay with smaller drives.

J) what is the bottleneck for higher speeds on a 12 drive system? What do I need to upgrade to feel the full glory of speed :)

Thank you for your patience.
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Re: For Bob Zelin - raid storage + nas 886

Post by Bob Zelin »

So my questions are:
A) Can I replace the 872x power supply so it’s more reliable. I don’t want to be buying a soon to be dead product

REPLY -simple answer. No. The unit has to be returned to QNAP. It takes about 2 weeks for the warranty repair.

B) can the h886 os be installed to nvme so all 8 drives can be used.

REPLY - the TS-h886 is a six drive system, not an 8 drive system. If you want an 8 drive system, this is the TVS-h1288X. This is a great product, that comes with 16 Gig of RAM and the 10G card.

C) would the h886 benefit from all ssd drives instead of hdd. I think you said no already, but confirming. And cost lift seems stupid for using ssd

REPLY - no.


D) how can I make synology closer to an 872xt? It also seems like I have to use specific synology accepted drives for them or they’ll not work.

REPLY - you can't. You can compare a TVS-872XT to a DS1821+ with the additional 10G card and 16 gig of RAM that is required. But the TVS-h1288X blows them all away.
QuTS is amazing.


E) on the h886 what can I install card wise to make it faster, if anything? I’ll drop in the 10G network card. I’m looking at photo editing, 4k editing, creating content for web distribution, VMware instances with large financial data sets

REPLY - nothing.


F) would and eGPU help on the h886 given the Xeon processor vs the i5

REPLY - to use a eGPU, you have to setup a VM, and run your application on it, that relies on the GPU. I don't know anyone that does this.
And you have new Mac computers. If they are M1, then you cant put an eGPU on them like with a Sonnet box. Apple will only support eGPU with the "older" Intel based Macs.
Then you add the Sonnet eGPU for $400 and an AMD GPU card.


G) if I get a 12 bay can I get closer to 1500 read/write speeds if I had a better network card? Which model is the least expensive I can get away with?

REPLY - no. 10G is 10G. RED 8K is 164 MB/sec. Why do you need 1500 MB/sec ?
Stuttering is due to certain compression codecs, not the QNAP. Like uncompressed 16 bit image sequences, and bad codecs like Go Pro or DJI drone h.264.
No one can edit with that type of footage - you must transcode, and for uncompressed 16 bit image sequences, you add in a QNAP QM2-4P-384, with four 2 TB NMVe in RAID 0 to
get the IOPS you need to play that back. With normal ProRes, DNx, XAVC, etc, you don't need this.


H) do western digital or HP make an equivalent (or anyone else)?

REPLY - I don't know what you are talking about HP does not make drives.
SATA drives come from Seagate, WD, and Toshiba. There are lots of companies that make SSD's and NVMe's.


I) do smaller drives give better performance than larger drives? Looking at the trade off of buy a 8 bay with larger drives vs a 12 bay with smaller drives.

REPLY - no. 18 TB Seagate EXOS drives are great and fast.


J) what is the bottleneck for higher speeds on a 12 drive system? What do I need to upgrade to feel the full glory of speed :)

REPLY - I don't know what you are talking about. You are not going to get 1500 MB/sec from 6 drives or 8 drives.
And the theoretical bandwidth of 10G is 1250 MB/sec. With an HP Z workstation, you may see 1100 MB/sec, but on a Mac, you won't see more than 1000 MB/sec no matter what you do.
And that is with an 8 drive system. A 6 drive system won't do this.
Isn't your job to edit, and be successful with your editing ? Why are you going so crazy over the speeds here ?
Do you understand that every major TV show and movie is cut on an AVID Nexis, and a large QNAP is faster than an AVID Nexis. An AVID Nexis can't do 1500 MB/sec.

Bob Zelin


Thank you for your patience.
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Re: For Bob Zelin - raid storage + nas 886

Post by a13antichrist »

Bob Zelin wrote: Sun Dec 05, 2021 3:03 am Do you understand that every major TV show and movie is cut on an AVID Nexis, and a large QNAP is faster than an AVID Nexis.
Small tangent, and sorry for my noobness; if someone is cutting/prepping on their QNAP, what does it matter what the eventual production team will use for their final cut? Or are you just saying that the AVID is enough for them so there's no need for anyone to feel like there's a need for anything faster?
TVS-871 @ 58tb formatted R6, Mellanox MCX312b 10Gbe,
R9 5950x || RTX3090 || 64Gb 3600Mhz || Intel X520 10Gbe
MbP M1 Max || 32C GPU || 64Gb || QNAP T310G1S SFP+ 10Gbe
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Re: For Bob Zelin - raid storage + nas 886

Post by a13antichrist »

Bob Zelin wrote: Sun Dec 05, 2021 3:03 am Stuttering is due to certain compression codecs, not the QNAP. Like uncompressed 16 bit image sequences, and bad codecs like Go Pro or DJI drone h.264.
No one can edit with that type of footage - you must transcode, and for uncompressed 16 bit image sequences, you add in a QNAP QM2-4P-384, with four 2 TB NMVe in RAID 0 to
get the IOPS you need to play that back.
Sorry, another question. :)
What would be the point of a 4-port NVMe in the QNAP which at max would be limited by the TB3 or 40 Gbps NIC? If you needed the raw speed of 4x NVMe in RAID-0 surely you would be using that card inside the workstation itself in a PCIe x16?
TVS-871 @ 58tb formatted R6, Mellanox MCX312b 10Gbe,
R9 5950x || RTX3090 || 64Gb 3600Mhz || Intel X520 10Gbe
MbP M1 Max || 32C GPU || 64Gb || QNAP T310G1S SFP+ 10Gbe
R3 2200G mini HTPC
Mikrotik switches & routers
OpenWRT & DD-WRT wifi
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Re: For Bob Zelin - raid storage + nas 886

Post by Bob Zelin »

Hello Mr. a13antichrist -
sorry for the delay. I have been very busy installing new QNAP systems. Your only "noobness" is that you are not giving me the details of what you are trying to accomplish. If you want to use multiple AVID Media Composer systems with a QNAP (or Synology, or Lumaforge, or others) - you MUST have Indiestor Mimiq licenses for each Media Composer workstation. This is $180 per computer per year. Or nothing will work. DNxHD 145 is 20 MB/sec. DNxHD 220 is 30 MB/sec. How many users, what compression codecs. And is it AVID or FCP ? You are not getting tons of editors to work off of a 6 bay QNAP. Maybe 2 users. You should get a larger QNAP (TVS-h1288X or TVS-h1688X). Without all the details, I can't answer your questions accurately.

The point of a QNAP QM2-4P-384 card with four M.2 NVMes on it is for IOPS. If you have uncompressed image sequences, you will get stuttering playback - that you won't see for example with codecs like ProRes4444, or any of the DNx codecs. Different codecs have different requirements for playback. The old AVID ISIS had only 300 MB/sec total bandwidth, and you could have multiple people cutting in DNxHD 145 over 1G ethernet. Once again - without details, I can't answer you accurately. But if you think that you are going to get this "killer" system that can do anything, with a limitless amount of users, with crazy uncompressed codecs on a little TS-h886 - well, it's not going to happen. This is a bare bones box for proxy editing or a single editor (maybe 2).

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Re: For Bob Zelin - raid storage + nas 886

Post by a13antichrist »

Hi Bob,
Thanks - I'm not doing anything with AVID, was just asking a question in that scope out of interest (I'm not the OP..) :) My question was more whether anyone should feel like they ever need more than 1250Mb/s.. since that appeared to be the implication in suggesting that the QNAPs are faster than AVID.

Yes for DB tasks IOPS would be essential. I'm just a single video editor with Da Vinci Resolve Studio.. I can see how running the project postgre could be handy. But you mentioned uncompressed 16bit so I figured we were talking about throughput rather than IOPS. I do see now you said 'edit', rather than 'playback', but I guess in my mind I merged the two, i.e. scrubbing through the tracks. :)
I think for me simple internal M.2 is going to be enough. I have 8K 10bit so nothing overwhelming. Do you think SATA M.2 is going to handle that or do I need to be looking at NVMe?
TVS-871 @ 58tb formatted R6, Mellanox MCX312b 10Gbe,
R9 5950x || RTX3090 || 64Gb 3600Mhz || Intel X520 10Gbe
MbP M1 Max || 32C GPU || 64Gb || QNAP T310G1S SFP+ 10Gbe
R3 2200G mini HTPC
Mikrotik switches & routers
OpenWRT & DD-WRT wifi
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Re: For Bob Zelin - raid storage + nas 886

Post by Bob Zelin »

Hi -
once again, you are not giving me any details about your system. I can only see what you have listed in your description under your name. You can't use a TS-470 Pro for doing Davinci Resolve editing. I have seen that a lot of people buy a small QNAP, and then try to "throw money" at it to try to achieve had they purchased the correct system.

If you are using Davinci Resolve 17, and want to do 4K - 8K stuff, you need at the MINIMUM a QNAP TS-h886 with all 6 drives, or the TVS-h1288X with all eight drives. Both systems will require two 500 Gig SSD drives to run the operating system. You work over 10G, and your computer needs a 10G card in a x4 lane slot (I see you have an Intel X520). You will have no problems loading the PostgreSQL database in Container Station with PostgreSQL 9.5.4, which is what Resolve wants, and now have multiple users being able to do collaboration.

But if you say "well - how do I get my TS-470 to work properly "? You don't. Just like you need the right computer to edit with, you need the right storage to be able to work with 8K media. I don't care if you have only direct attached storage - you need the right RAID array.

Just because QNAP (or Synology ) makes some cheap models, does not mean that all of them work.

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Re: For Bob Zelin - raid storage + nas 886

Post by a13antichrist »

Well, I know I stole this topic from someone else, so you probably didn't see that I had a different topic where I started by saying, 'looking to replace my till-now-quite-sufficient 470 Pro with something capable of effectively supporting my 8K editing in DR". :) Or I think I said I needed something that can do around 900Mb/s over the 10Gb card. Not quite the same thing, I know..
Yes I was eyeing up the h1288x and am keeping an eye out for good deals. My uses are in no way professional though so I'm contemplating whether an 873A might suffice. I mainly edit on the PCIe 4.0 2Tb SSD inside the system; the QNAP is just to store that data before and after I get around to using it. Or as overflow if the raw data passes 2Tb.

I have a more practical question: When I pick up my current set of four drives and throw them into a new QNAP with a different version of WTS than the current OS is used to (either 4.5 or 5.0; 470 Pro is of course stuck on 4.3.6), am I going to struggle to get everything booted up or will it work a peach? And will it be able to migrate the OS onto the M.2s after this or am I stuck building a new OS first and manually moving the data?
Cheers
TVS-871 @ 58tb formatted R6, Mellanox MCX312b 10Gbe,
R9 5950x || RTX3090 || 64Gb 3600Mhz || Intel X520 10Gbe
MbP M1 Max || 32C GPU || 64Gb || QNAP T310G1S SFP+ 10Gbe
R3 2200G mini HTPC
Mikrotik switches & routers
OpenWRT & DD-WRT wifi
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Re: For Bob Zelin - raid storage + nas 886

Post by onesmallstep1966 »

If it helps the OP to have real-life performance figures for a 6-bay QNAP, I recently upgraded my TVS-672XT to QUTS Hero, fully populated all six bays with Seagate IronWolf 10TB’s and installed two 1TB SSD’s in the internal NVME for the primary storage pool.
Using the 10GbE LAN in my Akitio (now OWC) Thunder 3 Dock Pro, my 2018 MacBook Pro will sit happily all day returning Black Magic speed test results of 850-920MB/s Write, 940-1020MB/sec Read to the HDD storage pool.

If I were buying today, the TS-h886 would do me nicely.

P.S, I gave up on the direct Thunderbolt connection. I found it finicky whereas 10GbE is rock solid and FCP zips along nicely.
QNAP TVS-672XT Upgraded to 16GB RAM connected via Thunderbolt 3 to Late 2018 MacBook Pro
M.2 Bays = 2 x Samsung 1TB EVO 970 NVMe (RAID 0 for Super-Fast TB3 FCPX editing volume)
Bays 1-6 = 3 x Samsung 1TB EVO 960 SATA and 3 x Seagate 10TB IronWolf (RAID 5 + Qtier)

QNAP TR-004 - Backup device including RTRR for RAID 0 volume
JBOD = 1 x Seagate 10TB IronWolf 1 x Seagate 6TB IronWolf
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Re: For Bob Zelin - raid storage + nas 886

Post by Bob Zelin »

onesmallstep1966 gives excellent advice.
1) the TS-h886 is excellent. Load your OS on 2 SSD drives, and install six matching 7200 RPM SATA drives in a single RAID group
2) forget Thunderbolt connection. Use 10G only. For the TS-h886, you must purchase a QNAP QXG-10G1T ($109) and install it in the TS-h886.
You will get great speeds.

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Re: For Bob Zelin - raid storage + nas 886

Post by a13antichrist »

Bob Zelin wrote: Sat Dec 25, 2021 1:26 am onesmallstep1966 gives excellent advice.
1) the TS-h886 is excellent. Load your OS on 2 SSD drives, and install six matching 7200 RPM SATA drives in a single RAID group
2) forget Thunderbolt connection. Use 10G only. For the TS-h886, you must purchase a QNAP QXG-10G1T ($109) and install it in the TS-h886.
You will get great speeds.

Bob Zelin
Mellanox and Intel 10Gbe NICs won't be suitable?
TVS-871 @ 58tb formatted R6, Mellanox MCX312b 10Gbe,
R9 5950x || RTX3090 || 64Gb 3600Mhz || Intel X520 10Gbe
MbP M1 Max || 32C GPU || 64Gb || QNAP T310G1S SFP+ 10Gbe
R3 2200G mini HTPC
Mikrotik switches & routers
OpenWRT & DD-WRT wifi
Bob Zelin
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Posts: 1374
Joined: Mon Nov 21, 2016 12:55 am
Location: Orlando, FL.
Contact:

Re: For Bob Zelin - raid storage + nas 886

Post by Bob Zelin »

this is the detailed answer to your question -
https://www.qnap.com/en-us/compatibilit ... ategory=11

on this list, you will see countless cards that are compatible with this model, from QNAP, Intel, ATTO, Marvell and Mellanox.
Now if you ask "well - what about this card I found on eBay for $15 dollars - do you think that one will work ? "
Then I fly to your location and hit you with a baseball bat. Because I AM the Antichrist, not you.
Bob
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http://www.bobzelin.com
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