How to equip and setup an 872XT...

[bokr71]

Hi Bob,

I know that the HP2915 is GigaBit switch which is why, if I were to go to 10GbE, I'd need to buy a 10GbE switch. This 10GbE switch would connect my QNAP and my Mac Pro, and I'd connect it the HP2915 as well, for the rest of my network.

If I understand you correct; as I am running macOS 10.14.2, I should be fine with putting the Sonnet Solo10G PCIe in my Sonnet Echo Express box, and that way have 10GbE Ethernet in my Mac Pro - even without upgrading my Echo Express box to TB3. TB2 is fast enough to handle the 10GbE speeds...

[CiASpook]

To bad they didn't make a TVS-1272XT that would have been something that could have replaced my TVS-1282T3...

[QNAPDanielFL]

I think the TVS-872XT can replace your TVS-1282T3 since they have the same amount of 3.5" drive bays, and now that we have M.2 NVMe in the 872, there is no need for the 4 2.5" bays since NVMe is faster. And if you want more NVMe there is an open PCIe slot on the 872 so you could have up to 6 NVMe SSDs if you wanted.

[bokr71]

The TVS-872XT will certainly be faster than the TVS-1282T3, because of the upgraded CPU, RAM, and the native NVMe SSDs.

[HiTach]

To Bokr71 the OP:

Did you find the SSD cache on the 872XT makes a big or even a noticeable difference for you in photography applications or elsewhere?

You wrote "- 2 x Samsung 970 Pro M.2 NVMe, 512GB - for caching, Raid1 for read/write cache"
As I understand RAID1 to be mirroring primarily for redundancy, wouldn't RAID 0 maximize R/W cache performance (2x) and cache size (2x) with no redundancy required (the RAID6 HDD data is already well protected with 2 spare drives.)

I saw Trexx also has RAID1 on his SSDs, but he uses Qtier which as I understand moves (not caches) the most frequently used data which is no longer present on the HDD portion.

Happy to be corrected, I'm still understanding and planning my 872XT configuration.

[bokr71]

I do not think you have control over the Raid setup on the drives used for caching (but I could be wrong). I know the support docs on caching say that if you only have one SSD for caching it'll only be possible to have read caching. If you have two SSDs, they'll be in Raid1, and you will have read and write caching. That's OK, as the SSDs in the 872XT are NVMe SSDs, and even in Raid1, they're much faster than the interface.

And yes, I did see a marked improvement when I added the NVMe caching. My photography workflow is to put all RAW files on my NAS, in folders named for the job (for paid photoshoots), or the location/month (for private photos). Then I scan the folders using LightRoom Classic, and the library references the files on the NAS, though the libraries are stored on the Master drive on my Mac Pro. I then edit in LR, or in PhotoShop if needed. The same goes for videos, and all my add-in tools are for Adobe CS. Without the caching, LR or PS could sometimes feel sluggish, especially when adding several layers, photo stitching, or working with multiple photo stacking or HDR. With caching that is not so. It is as fast as if the RAW files were on the Master drive. Also, when dumping a photoshoot from my TB Lexar XQD card reader, it is much much faster, especially when downloading 100GB of files:) I want to try and setup an iSCSI target drive, and store my LR libraries on the NAS. That way I can access the same libraries from my Mac Pro and my MacBook Pro. I just haven't gotten around to trying that out yet.

As for seeing the effect in other applications, you bet I see it when moving media files to the NAS, and when accessing files in general. Most, if not all, my big files usage is for photography though...

[bokr71]

I tried creating an iSCSI target on the NAS, and connecting to it from my Macs. It works fine, but it is much too slow to use for LR libraries...

[HiTach]

Hi Bokr, thanks for your input above.

I have so far equipped my 872XT with 4xWD Gold 10TB drives (waiting on orders for 2 more to arrive and testing to be done before increasing to 6 and then 8 and migrating data) and 2x Samsung 970EVOPlus 1TB NVMe ssds.

When I do the QTS Storage/Disks Performance Test I get ~235MB/sec sequential read speed on single WD 10TB HDDs.
Across Thunderbolt 3 (TB3) to my Windows PC I get 225/220MB/sec W/R speed for single drives.
If I do RAID0 with 2 drives it scales well to 450/445MB/sec, I shall do further bandwidth scaling tests with RAID0 for 4, 6 and 8 drives, then compare to RAID6 which I expect to use with real data as recommended by Bob Zellin.

My issue is with the Samsung 970EVOPlus 1TB SSDs.
Both are installed in the 872XT without heat sinks - just the Samsung sticker.
The QTS Performance test gives each drive 1.66GB/sec read speed, and 340,000 IOPS - pretty good.
The same SSD with no heatsink in my desktop gives 3.4GB/sec read speed and 3.0GB/sec writes speed using Atto, and without the thermal thermal throttling I got on my 950 Pro 521GB - pretty amazing.
I understand the 872XT has only 2 PCIe lanes per M.2 drive, so that could explain the 50% drop in throughput compared to my 4-lane desktop, i.e. going from 3.2GB/sec to the 1.6GB I see in the NAS.

The performance using AJA system test benchmark over TB3 to my Windows desktop gives me ~750MB/sec writes ~1.6GB/sec reads (I have seen 1.8GB/sec) for each single M.2 SSD.

My question is why the 872XT NAS provides much lower than expected SSD write speed compared to the read speed?
On my desktop they are more or less equal.

I plan to switch the SSDs to R/W (Raid1) caching to provide consistent responsiveness. I was expecting that would be due both from the increase in IOPS and R/W speeds over HDDs.
I would like to get the 1.6GB/sec write speed before I do that.

SSD temperature: I saw you posted re: heat sinks to keep load temperatures in the 50s instead of >70. I haven't tried this yet, but monitoring temps from QTS I don't see at or over 70.

Thanks for any further input.