First time buyer: TS-463U ?

[rollandburn]

Hi! Non-network engineer here looking for some guidance on the correct nas for my smb. The following are a few details that'll hopefully describe the situation.

- We are a small admin office with 8 users on a fiber connection.
- Have a small Ubiquiti network in a full size 19" rack running cat6 to each workstation (i think!)
- Currently using Dropbox for Business with 3TB of data (expecting more data to come)
- We had a Windows Server 2012r2 but the hardware is from 2010, not being network engineer I'm hesitant to get back into the 'server' game, plus i can't think of what would make a full blown server a requiremnt for us
- Happily use Office 365 for email
- Required roles: file server, local backups (hopefully with a connection to some off-site backup service), print server(?) ... no need for video streaming... although I will probably be storing raw video footage and wanting to work with it. (actually that's a question, If the cabling in the walls of my office turn out to be cat5e does that make the prospect of editing video directly off the NAS a no-go? What are the minimum requirements to edit h.264 footage sitting on a nas? 10Gbe? I usually copy to my local machine and work from there but if there's an alternative that'll free up my hd space I'll take it)

After reading around, looking at the qnap site, trying to figure out what Raid is, this is my best guess and reasoning...

- Get a 4 bay rack mount nas ie. TS-463U
- Configure as RAID 5 with four x 4tb drives (12TB usable + 4TB parity)
- Set up users/groups to restrict file access, set up as mapped drives that autoconnect on each workstation
- Set up a partition for local backups, find some utility to perform nightly off-site backups

Again, I'm no IT guy... any advice is appreciated, or if there are considerations it seems I'm not taking into account please lemme know!

Thanks!

[Trexx]

Hi Rolland,

In terms of your use cases, most of them fit well for what you have mapped out. The one issue will probably be doing video editing on the model you listed (especially if you are thinking 4k). Now if you would just copying the file locally, doing the editing, then copying back to the NAS, then it probably wont' be an issue. If you are thinking of editing footage directly on the NAS, then you need a higher end model with more drive bays, etc.

In terms of your users, are you pushing 1GbE to each desktop and then going from your Ubiquiti switch into the QNAP w/10GbE?

As for setting up a separate partition for backups, you don't need to. You create 1 volume, create needed shared folders for various functions (accounting, groups drive, etc.) and then restrict access to the folders. Folders get mapped to drives on the workstations. Local Backups are just another shared folder in this case.

If you are looking for a step-up model, maybe look into the x73u family. Faster CPU, more memory expansion, plus ability for SSD caching/QTier, 2x10GbE connections, etc.

[rollandburn]

I've typed an answer here twice and watched it disappear with a stray finger on the macbook pro touchbar... hate this bloody thing. =]

Anyway, thanks for the speedy feedback.

"In terms of your users, are you pushing 1GbE to each desktop and then going from your Ubiquiti switch into the QNAP w/10GbE?"

Yes that sounds about right, except I'm not currently, and don't think I can do 10Gbe. The Ubiquiti switch (US-24-250w) only has 2 SPF ports... not SPF+ (which is required for 10Gbe speeds as far as I know). Ethernet runs to workstations are less than 50 meters and cabling is all cat6/cat6a, sounds like I could have had 10Gbe if the switch was capable. =[ .

An extra $900 for the TS-873U-8G @ $2400 (over the TS-863U for example) sounds like a drop in the bucket compared to the jump in specs. I'll just have to come up with a reasonable justification (i'm the only person in the office who'd need 10Gbe), and also get the Ubiquiti switch with SFP+ too.

Thanks for setting me straight re: local backups, that sounds much easier. I'll search around for qnap's recommended off-site backup solution.

[Trexx]

No problem re: feedback.

Depending on your port count needs, there are some 10GbE Netgear switches that are going for <$1000 now.

As for offsite backups, take a look here at Hybrid Backup Sync. https://www.qnap.com/solution/hybrid-backup-sync/en-us/

Another option some use is having a 2nd QNAP (say a TS-831x) and if local you could do a 10GbE backup, and then do either RTRR or Snapshot based replication. Snapshot is new for the ARM units with QTS 4.3.4 which is currently in beta.

[Bob Zelin]

Hi Roland -
I have the new MacBook Pro with the new trackpad. Ugh.
As for your questions. If you even remotely are thinking about doing video editing, I urge you to purchase an 8 bay QNAP like you have been advised above. Be pre warned. Not all QNAP's are alike. They vary
dramatically in speed. The TS-831X is a wonderful backup system, but as far as performance, it crawls compared to the QNAP models that you have been advised about here in this forum.
If you wind up buying a QNAP with a 10GbE port (which is many many models of QNAP), you can swap out your switch from the Ubiquiti to a Netgear S3300-28X. This switch is around $600 and has the 10G uplink ports
for hi speed connection. The user ports are all 1G, so your normal office network can continue to work, but for video editing, you will get about 100 MB/sec bandwidth per client (if you use the 10G port on the switch back
to the QNAP. Netgear also makes the small 8 port 10G switch the XS708T, street price about $800. If you are only dealing with HD editing, and not 4k, regular boring old Cat5e will work perfectly fine for up to 100 MB/sec.

For offsite backup, the purchase of a TS-831X and using QNAP Backup Station or Hybrid Backup station will work perfectly for you (if you can figure out how to open ports on your router at the receiving end).

Bob Zelin

[rollandburn]

Thanks for the reply Bob.

After much consideration I think I'm going to go for the TS-873U-8G... only grab 4 x 4TB drives for now, and upgrade the switch maybe next summer to a Ubiquiti 48 port with the two SFP+ ports (the Unifi stuff is almost plug and play which for this non-IT guy is important). Might as well plan for the future and get speedy NAS but spread the cost out a bit. =]

Even though I think I've settled, I do have a few other questions... mostly thinking aloud except for the last one.

- are there features in the non-rack mount NAS's not present in the rack-mount versions (other than a cool display)? I have been only focusing on the rack-mount models because I have a rack and figured it was just a form factor difference... but now I wonder if my assumption is accurate.

- can any Qnap NAS be upgraded to the latest QTS OS? While looking for prices I noticed some vendors saying the NAS had QTS 4.2 installed and I wasn't sure if there are certain models that aren't capable of handling the latest OS.

- am i correct one could divide Qnap NASes into two processor groups: ARM-based and non-arm-based?... with ARM being the more capable / preferred processor?

- just to confirm, I can Raid 5 four 4tb drives in an 8 bay NAS and later on add one or more ≥ 4TB drives correct?

- Within the NAS-ready hard drive segment, are there further groupings of drives that depend on how the NAS is to be used? Example, would a different NAS-specific hard drive be recommended if one is just doing backups as opposed to video editing? Or is a NAS hard drive a NAS harddrive? I would assume if performing heavy file actions (video) you'd want a drive with 7200rpm and a big cache whereas a backup only NAS could be okay with 5400 or variable drives with less cache etc. This is me just guessing though... any insight on this one appreciated.

Thanks !

[dolbyman]

rackmount models have the exact same interface and features as their tower counterparts (most current models have exactly the same features accross the board)

most vendors do not update their product listings..so whatever was current when the product was current, will be the discription forever...so check the online manual or eol listings for current firmware across models (yes the 463 can be upgraded to 4.3.x)

not sure what you mean by devided processor groups...the arm (e.g. cellphone processors) models are the low power low end device group

you can expand raid5 by adding drives ...yes..check the manual

no .. nas drives are nas drives ...there is versions with different speed/warranty/maximum disk count (e.g. red vs red pro)

[rollandburn]

Great, rack and standalone are the same, all models can take latest OS, raid5 drive additions good!, nas drive is a nas drive regardless of usage...

Thanks everyone!

[storageman]

Feature for feature you pay more for racks because the rack buyer market is usually businesses that have more money.
Just use the nice Qnap website compare feature to check differences.

[Qrunapper]

Dear rollandburn,

I was provided with this link to show which QTS versions can be used on the range of QNAP units. I found it real useful, and thought it worth a share:

https://www.qnap.com/en/support/con_sho ... one&cid=11