SMB vs NFS: what's the best setup for TS-453BT3 on Mac OS?

[faxao]

I am looking for some advice to set up my brand new TS-453 BT3 (upgrading from TS-439 Pro II).
I am an (hobbyist) photographer, using Lightroom as main PP software on my 27" iMac (retina 5k, late 2015, Thunderbolt2) and I would like to use the QNAP NAS as main redepository for all the raw files and photo archive. I am planning to connect the Mac to the NAS via the T3 port (via T3-to-T2 Apple adaptor since, unfortunately I do not have any 10Gbe network capability, just 1Gbe ).

I understand there are differences in the base setup for videomakers that are better off with NFS, but it is not completely clear to me what are the pros and cons for a photographer use (not video) between SMB and NFS (or AFP). How can I get the best read/write speed?

Thanks in advance for your precious help on this.

[P3R]

I understand there are differences in the base setup for videomakers that are better off with NFS...

I think that's another myth that will be hard to kill, just as when many claim that RAID 10 is superior to RAID 6...

Bob Zelin that does work for many video studios doesn't speak good of NFS and recommend SMB also for video editing. Here's one example:
"NFS is a mess on the Mac's and causes many issues. For FCP X 10.3 and later, you should only be using SMB. AFP works fine, but Apple is phasing it out."

Even if NFS should be marginally faster on some platforms, it come at the price of being more complicated to understand and manage for non-geek users. I recommend SMB.

[Mousetick]

If you choose to go with SMB, you'll want to turn OFF SMB packet signing on the Mac(s) for a significant performance increase - relative to the default, which is ON, not in absolute terms.

More info and how-to here: https://support.apple.com/en-bh/HT205926

[Bob Zelin]

the TS-453BT3 is not a super speedy NAS unit. Even with packet signing off, you are probably not going to get more than 450 MB/sec between the Mac and the QNAP. You can choose between SMB and AFP, but Apple is aggressively trying to phase out AFP (not my decision or opionion - they just always say they are proceeding with this). New Macs running High Sierra and use the AFPS file system (which is default for all SSD's in an Apple product) will not communicate with each other using AFP anymore. So with SMB, you turn off packet signing (you can do a search in Google for "how to disable SMB Signing on a Mac"), reboot and you will be fine.
I am curious - because I see this so much, and it's so wrong - where did you read that videomakers are better off with NFS ? The only time that applied was before FCP X 10.3 - because earlier versions of
FCP X simply could not save a library to a network volume (not even with macOS Server) over AFP or SMB - you either had to create a sparse disk image or use NFS. That all changed with FCP 10.3, when they allowed SMB only (no AFP) for FCP X. This never applied to other edit programs from AVID, Adobe, and Blackmagic. You could always use (and can still always use) either AFP or SMB.

Bob Zelin

[faxao]

Thanks very much All for your prompt and very detailed responses.
I know the TS-453BT3 is not a super speedy NAS but I hope that for a hobbyist use (pictures only, no 4k video whatsoever) it is nevertheless a big improvement over my old TS-439 Pro II.
Re: NFS being better for videomakers I have tried to document myself reading some web reviews before buying the new NAS and I often came across this kind of statement. Again, I am not a FCP user and I cannot judge myself so it might very well be that those reviews were not up to date with the more recent releases of this software.

So in the end, SMB it is for me (and packet signing off). Will come back here after the setup to report my read and write speeds....cheers

[faxao]

Well....less than impressive speeds: 180 Mb/s write, 560 Mb/s read over Thunderbolt and OFF SMB packet signing. There must be something wrong in my configuration.

[filippoguerra]

Hi,

I’ve got the same nas but using it with a MacBook Pro via thunderbolt 3.
I’ve changed the internal 10gbe with the card the card to install 2 NVME SSD Drive and use them in raid as main working volume then use the 4 bay drives with raid 5 as archive .

The strange thung is that i get the same speed (300 read/500write) on both volumes (ssd and hdd).
Tested the speed of the single drives via nas preferences panel and getting 140Mb/s on each hdd and 800Mb/a in ssd.

Why top write speed is only 300Mb?? Both SMB (with signing off) and AFP?
Should I try iSCSI config?