QTS or QUTS Hero for Video editing

[kmaultsby18]

All,
I am setting up my QNAP TVS 872, I am starting out with six hard drives, two NVme 1gB each,32gB of memory, and connected to a 10gbe switch. It will be used for home use Plex, backup, etc, but also for Photo & Video editing. Which gives the best performance for 4K video editing.
If I use QTS what best drive setup options?
If I use QuTS Hero what are the best drive setup options?

[dolbyman]

As in all other threads with the same question, the answer is spinning disks in a RAID5 or RAID6 with thick or static volume

[kmaultsby18]

I know Raid 5 or 6 but what OS qts or hero?

[dolbyman]

Due to rebuild speed of partially filled array's (on disk failure) I would say QuTS with ZFS. Make sure your system goes on NVMe drives RAID1 (ZIL log)

[kmaultsby18]

Thanks for the reply

[Bob Zelin]

IF you are setting up a TVS-872XT
1) the TVS-872XT will develop a power issue and not turn on. They all do, within 2 years
2) if you setup a QuTS operating system, you CANNOT ADD DRIVES LATER. So if you are "starting with 6 disks" - you will not be adding 2 more disks to the storage pool later, if you are running QuTS.

Here is my advice -
1) if that TVS-872XT is new, return it now, and purchase a TVS-h1288X
2) put in all eight drives, and two SSD's for the QuTS operating system.

bob Zelin

[kofskym]

Hi Bob!

I follow many of your posts, but haven't asked a question in a long time. Indeed after 2.5 years my 872xt eventually developed that power issue you've long warned of and QNAP offered a warranty repair. Luckily, 99% of all our data is backed up on a few DAS devices so we can limp by for now, swapping drives around between machines like basic YT creators.

MIGRATION. If I don't want to wait 2 weeks to access my data, I will need a migration compatible NAS to recover the 1% of data still only on my old 872xt volume, not backed up. According to QNAP, the 1288x will do this, so long as the OS on both machines match. I've already ordered a 1288x from B&H. What's confusing is: do I have to first install QTS before inserting my 8 drives? Isn't the OS stored on my old drives already? Any experience with this process/potential pitfalls to look out for? Really don't want to accidentally format my volume when there's data I need on there.

Once I recover my 100GB of data, I'll back that up and probably reset the 1288 to QuTS mode, since it seems easier to deal with. I see you always recommend 2x 480GB drives in RAID 1 for the OS. Is there an SSD brand/model you trust?

And finally...When I get the 872xt back...in your experience, is QNAP's fix a permanent one? Or is it only a matter of time before another failure? I could technically return the 1288x if you think the fixed 872xt is reliable...or maybe there's a benefit to having two. Snapshot/Backup machine? What would you do with the second NAS? WWBZD?

[Bob Zelin]

Your TVS-872XT dies. You mail it back to QNAP. You buy a TVS-h1288X. (I hope you know the approximate firmware version of your TVS-872XT) -
you install the 8 drives into the TVS-h1288X (same order) and boot up. It should just work. If it does not "just work" - you change the firmware version of your TVS-h1288X
(with QTS) to the version of your TVS-872XT. After it reboots, your media will just show up. That's it.

When you get your repaired TVS-872XT back, you move the drives from the TVS-h1288X into the TVS-872XT. It will just work instantly. (once again - same firmware version - if they gave you a new box - change the firmware to the version you had - you use QFinder Pro to do this manually if necessary).

So now you have your TVS-872XT working with your old drives. You buy eight 7200 RPM SATA drives for your TVS-h1288X and two SSD drives (I use 500 Gig Seagate Ironwolf 125 series SSD's - but Samsungs work great too) - and you now build a QuTS system - not QTS with your new drives. Now, using a 10G switch, with everything on 10G, you use Hybrid Backup Sync to transfer the data from the TVS-872XT to the new QuTS TVS-h1288X, and now you have your backup system.

I have no idea if the "repair" will work long term on the TVS-872XT. To date - the most popular QNAP I ever installed was the TVS-872XT, and it worked great for 2 years solid. I have no idea (and neither did QNAP) that these problems would arise. I have no idea if all the TVS-h1288X systems I installed will fail in 2023. What the heck do I know ?

As everyone says - RAID is not a backup. If this is critical data - you need a BACKUP ! - that means a second system. I don't care if it's a QNAP, or Synology, or Asustor, or isolated drives. If you don't have your data backed up - and then you have a catostrophic failure - you risk getting screwed. I am a good driver, but I pay a lot of money for car insurance - because I have no idea if some big truck will hit my car this evening. If you say "I can't afford car insurance" - then you can't drive. If you say "I can't afford a backup solution" - then you risk all your data. That is life.

Bob Zelin

[Kunzite]

What's confusing is: do I have to first install QTS before inserting my 8 drives? Isn't the OS stored on my old drives already?

The OS is stored in an internal flash module (DOM). Without any drives installed, you can start the NAS, enter the initialization console, check (and update) the OS version - even switch from QTS to QuTS Hero (or the other way) for the NAS units supporting both.

[ver2ual]

As in all other threads with the same question, the answer is spinning disks in a RAID5 or RAID6 with thick or static volume

I read a post (Bob Zelin) recommending QuTS with OS on SSDs and HDDs setup with RAID6 and THIN provisioning set to max capacity- static not being an option with QuTS. Since everything else I have read from Bob has been super helpful, I followed this advice. Curious why thin would be recommended for QuTS. (I realize static is preferred in QTS.)

[Kunzite]

Curious why thin would be recommended for QuTS. (I realize in static is preferred in QTS.)

Hmm... good question, is there any ZFS expert around?

Until we find one, I've temporarily enabled SSH, created a thick shared folder (already had thin ones) and played around with command line.
It appears the difference is that, with a thick shared folder, some parameters are set - to reserve the space for data and snapshots. But otherwise they're identical, your average ZFS datasets, so I'd expect the same performance.

Next, we get to the reason why one might want to avoid thick shared folders in QuTS Hero: the very fact that you set their size.
Indeed, with QTS shared folders are just that, folders which reside and consume space on a certain volume. So you only have to think how much space you need for the entire volume, not how much you'd write in the individual shared folders.

With QuTS Hero it's different. There are no volumes, of course. But you do set the maximum size and the reserved size (0 for thin, maximum size for thick) when creating a shared folder. Now, if you create thick shared folders, you'd have to split the pool space between these - can't reserve more than that, right? - and think in advance how much data you'd store in each shared folder... and you can easily get to the point where you'd have to resize them because your actual Documents needs 2TB instead of 1.
With thin shared folders, you can simply set each of them to the maximum pool size (or a value you deem large enough); and you only have to watch out so you won't run out of pool space.

And I'm pretty sure that's precisely the reason why Bob prefers thin shared folders with QuTS Hero.

[ver2ual]

Okay, this makes sense.

On my h1288x HDDs I get 1150mb/s write and 1550mb/s read over (very stable) TB3 and no cache... so I'm content with the "performance cost" of thin provisioning. Come to think of it, my old Drobo has a bunch of volumes with TB's of wasted unused space on the tail-end of each one. Then you end up having to split data and projects across volumes and it gets weird- especially for backups.

Then again, I think I could have created a single thick shared folder at max capacity... ?