Looking at getting my first TVS-1272XU-RP, but need help.

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everytuesday
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Looking at getting my first TVS-1272XU-RP, but need help.

Post by everytuesday »

Hello!

I'm looking at getting TVS-1272XU-RP over the synology RS3618xs. Qnap seems to offer way more bang for your buck. However I'm not sure what size of drive or type of drives to get? In my old 5 bay synology I just used 6tb WD red nas drives running in sha-2 (which is basically raid-6). I will plan on using this new server as a primary backup of all my data I use for my youtube/graphic design business. I do not plan on using it as a production server, but rather archiving pretty much. After all the editing of a video or large photoshop file is done, I put it on the server and sometimes need to reference it later down the road. Doesn't always happen but there are regular occasions I need to go back in and look at a file or update it. Based on that process I was looking at 8TB or 6TB HD's because I've read if I have larger drives, and one or two fail, the rebuild time can be days?!? Is there a way to mitigate that downtime? Although some people I've talked to suggest raid 10, so I'm not 100% yet on which direction to go. Are those ok sizes to get? Can I go larger? What would ensure maximum space with least amount of downtime if 1 or 2 drive fails?

I was also planning on adding an M2. adapter pci card to add a cache layer of 2x512gb m2 ssd's that I've read will help with transfer speeds. Sometimes my files are 28-50gb in size. Other times its just a ton of small files that add up to 28-50gb

Another reason I like this server is the read/write speed. I plan on taking advantage of the 10GBE network speed to hook up the 2 iMac Pro's my wife and I use for the business.

Any other general tips or best practices would be great in getting my first server up and running!
Thanks,
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Re: Looking at getting my first TVS-1272XU-RP, but need help.

Post by Bob Zelin »

the rebuild time for the QNAP is not days. A 10 TB drive takes about 10 hours to rebuild. QNAP uses EXT4 format. Synology defaults to BTRFS format - BTRFS takes DAYS to do a rebuild. When you setup a Synology, you have a choice to select BTRFS or EXT4. You chose the default and now it takes you days to do a rebuild. You can keep editing and working on the QNAP while the rebuild is happening. With RAID 6, you can have TWO drives fail, and you will not lose your data. You can use up to 16TB drives. They are perfectly fine, and stable. I install these all the time (Seagate Ironwolf). With a TVS-1282XU-RP, if you put 16 TB drives in there, you will have 160 TB of usable storage after RAID 6 (slightly less since a 16TB drive is really 14.55 TB). Put 10TB drives with RAID 6 in a 12 bay, and you get 100 TB of usable storage ( a 10TB drive is actually 9.1 TB). If you have a ton of tiny files, the M2 will help you. M2 will not help you (neither will SSD's) with writing large video files.

If you have two iMac Pro's, get a 10G switch like a Netgear XS708T or QNAP QSW-1208-8C. Plug in your QNAP, your Synology and both your iMac Pro's into the 10G switch, and eveyrone will have access to everything. Make sure to get a 10G card for your RS3618xs.

I setup video edit systems with QNAP all day long. You can use rsync to go from your QNAP to Synology or Synology to QNAP.

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Re: Looking at getting my first TVS-1272XU-RP, but need help.

Post by P3R »

everytuesday wrote: Mon Dec 02, 2019 12:45 am Based on that process I was looking at 8TB or 6TB HD's because I've read if I have larger drives, and one or two fail, the rebuild time can be days?!? Is there a way to mitigate that downtime?
A RAID rebuild doesn't mean downtime. The storage is still fully accessible, though with a performance degradation. The rebuild priority is configurable, also during a rebuild, so you could lower the rebuild priority in case you need concurrent access to your data with better response. Based on how you describe your usage, I wouldn't expect a slightly lower performance during a rebuild to be a showstopper.
Although some people I've talked to suggest raid 10, so I'm not 100% yet on which direction to go.
Your usage is backup/archiving, which is typically sequential file access, and for that RAID 6 have better performance than RAID 10 from 6 disks and up (with 4 disks they'll be very close). RAID 6 will also have better reliability and it offer more usable storage in all configurations above 4 disks. A RAID 6 can be expanded by adding disks to the RAID in case you need to in the future and have free disk bays. That's not possible with RAID 10 so you're stuck with whatever number of disks you configure it with initially.

I can't see any reason at all for using RAID 10 with the usage you describe.
Are those ok sizes to get? Can I go larger?
Yes and yes. Think about what your expected future maximum storage capacity could be and make sure that you settle on a disk size that at least is large enough to not become a future limitation.
What would ensure maximum space with least amount of downtime if 1 or 2 drive fails?
RAID 6, there will be no downtime.

I also agree with what Bob said.
RAID have never ever been a replacement for backups. Without backups on a different system (preferably placed at another site), you will eventually lose data!

A non-RAID configuration (including RAID 0, which isn't really RAID) with a backup on a separate media protects your data far better than any RAID-volume without backup.

All data storage consists of both the primary storage and the backups. It's your money and your data, spend the storage budget wisely or pay with your data!
everytuesday
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Re: Looking at getting my first TVS-1272XU-RP, but need help.

Post by everytuesday »

Thank you so much @Bob Zelin and @P3R. I was hoping that was the direction I could go but I needed to confirm it - kind of a lot of money ;) This is great news, I'm excited to get setup with Qnap and see how it compares to Synology. The tip about what format to use is huge! Why isn't ext4 the default?! Super looking forward to getting setup. Thank you for all the help. I guess the only question I have left is what size of SSD do you recommend for this type of setup? Is a 1TB SSD enough or should I get 2 512gb ssd's ( do they chain their speed together in like a raid 0 config like setup?)

Cheers,
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Re: Looking at getting my first TVS-1272XU-RP, but need help.

Post by P3R »

everytuesday wrote: Mon Dec 02, 2019 7:39 am I was hoping that was the direction I could go but I needed to confirm it - kind of a lot of money :wink:
One way to possibly save money is to hold off on the SSDs for now and only buy them if you later think that you would really benefit from SSD caching. Cache SSDs can be added later at any time.
Why isn't ext4 the default?!
It's Synology that have a choice of file systems. In a Qnap Ext4 is currently the only choice.

One more thing, when you create the storage volume make sure that you select an inode setting that allow the maximum storage capacity you expect for the future. The default is 16 KB which allow a max volume size of 63.99 TB. With 8 TB disks the default inode size will become a problem above 10 disks and with larger disks you will hit that volume size brick wall with even fewer disks.
RAID have never ever been a replacement for backups. Without backups on a different system (preferably placed at another site), you will eventually lose data!

A non-RAID configuration (including RAID 0, which isn't really RAID) with a backup on a separate media protects your data far better than any RAID-volume without backup.

All data storage consists of both the primary storage and the backups. It's your money and your data, spend the storage budget wisely or pay with your data!
everytuesday
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Re: Looking at getting my first TVS-1272XU-RP, but need help.

Post by everytuesday »

Ok thanks @P3R! Yea Ill be using 12 TB HD's so that is def good to know when setting up. Is there a walkthrough or tutorial that QNAP has in getting large servers like these up and running since I'm new to this environment?

Cheers,
Spencer
everytuesday
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Re: Looking at getting my first TVS-1272XU-RP, but need help.

Post by everytuesday »

I also am trying to figure out what m2 ssds are compatible but only see large SSD's on the list....
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Re: Looking at getting my first TVS-1272XU-RP, but need help.

Post by P3R »

everytuesday wrote: Mon Dec 02, 2019 11:48 pm Is there a walkthrough or tutorial that QNAP has in getting large servers like these up and running since I'm new to this environment?
I don't know as I haven't looked for it. Check out the hardware documentation, the software documentation and the tutorials and see if you find anything.

Other than that I can only recommend that you dive in and return to this forum with your questions. Probably nobody is willing to write a complete tutorial but there are a bunch of us that try our best to answer specific questions when we know the answer and have time.

Don't be in a hurry and rush things when you do the installation!
I also am trying to figure out what m2 ssds are compatible but only see large SSD's on the list....
I would imagine that when the model don't have any internal M.2 slots, it's not tested for compatibility.

You need to do it another way and look what M.2 SSDs are supported on any Qnap and then try to select something based on that.
RAID have never ever been a replacement for backups. Without backups on a different system (preferably placed at another site), you will eventually lose data!

A non-RAID configuration (including RAID 0, which isn't really RAID) with a backup on a separate media protects your data far better than any RAID-volume without backup.

All data storage consists of both the primary storage and the backups. It's your money and your data, spend the storage budget wisely or pay with your data!
everytuesday
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Joined: Mon Dec 02, 2019 12:26 am

Re: Looking at getting my first TVS-1272XU-RP, but need help.

Post by everytuesday »

Ok great thanks @P3R for all your help and time - I really appreciate it. I found at least a compatible SSD that will fit the expansion card so hopefully I'll be good. I found this on amazon Samsung 970 EVO Plus SSD 500GB - M.2 NVMe with the 2280 form factor interface. Then attach them to this card: QNAP QM2-2P-244A Dual M.2

Ok cool back to more youtube videos on setting this thing up!

Have a great night,
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Re: Looking at getting my first TVS-1272XU-RP, but need help.

Post by P3R »

everytuesday wrote: Tue Dec 03, 2019 8:08 am Ok cool back to more youtube videos on setting this thing up!
Okay but be careful with Youtube as not everyone that is keen to be on camera know what they talk about... :roll:
RAID have never ever been a replacement for backups. Without backups on a different system (preferably placed at another site), you will eventually lose data!

A non-RAID configuration (including RAID 0, which isn't really RAID) with a backup on a separate media protects your data far better than any RAID-volume without backup.

All data storage consists of both the primary storage and the backups. It's your money and your data, spend the storage budget wisely or pay with your data!
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Re: Looking at getting my first TVS-1272XU-RP, but need help.

Post by storageman »

everytuesday wrote: Tue Dec 03, 2019 5:06 am I also am trying to figure out what m2 ssds are compatible but only see large SSD's on the list....
In the compatibility list you need to select Expansion card (QM2) then m.2 SSDs.
QM2-2P-384 recommended as u have Slot 2: PCIe Gen 3 x8 (CPU)
Don't go smaller than 2 x 1TBs.
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Re: Looking at getting my first TVS-1272XU-RP, but need help.

Post by P3R »

storageman wrote: Tue Dec 03, 2019 5:44 pm In the compatibility list you need to select Expansion card (QM2) then m.2 SSDs.
How do you do that?
Compatibility.jpg
Don't go smaller than 2 x 1TBs.
Why?
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
RAID have never ever been a replacement for backups. Without backups on a different system (preferably placed at another site), you will eventually lose data!

A non-RAID configuration (including RAID 0, which isn't really RAID) with a backup on a separate media protects your data far better than any RAID-volume without backup.

All data storage consists of both the primary storage and the backups. It's your money and your data, spend the storage budget wisely or pay with your data!
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Re: Looking at getting my first TVS-1272XU-RP, but need help.

Post by storageman »

P3R wrote: Tue Dec 03, 2019 6:22 pm
storageman wrote: Tue Dec 03, 2019 5:44 pm In the compatibility list you need to select Expansion card (QM2) then m.2 SSDs.
How do you do that?
Compatibility.jpg
Don't go smaller than 2 x 1TBs.
Why?
Really? Pick the Qnap model and go from there.
If the cache is too small it will force data back out to disk.
On 20TB + arrays I would go with a decent sized cache.
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Re: Looking at getting my first TVS-1272XU-RP, but need help.

Post by P3R »

Great answers, thank you storageman!
RAID have never ever been a replacement for backups. Without backups on a different system (preferably placed at another site), you will eventually lose data!

A non-RAID configuration (including RAID 0, which isn't really RAID) with a backup on a separate media protects your data far better than any RAID-volume without backup.

All data storage consists of both the primary storage and the backups. It's your money and your data, spend the storage budget wisely or pay with your data!
everytuesday
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Re: Looking at getting my first TVS-1272XU-RP, but need help.

Post by everytuesday »

@Storageman - ahh totally missed that big button there lol. Thanks for the screen-shots, super helpful!
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