Looking to pick up a QNAP NAS - Lots o' questions

[gregorystults]

First off I have a 12 bay rack mounted Synology NAS currently that holds most of my stuff. I'm very familiar with their products and interfaces. I've also have heard good things about QNAP so that's why I'm here. I have my eyes on either a 4 or 8 bay unit, rack mounted that has 10gbe and nvme support. I have a few models in mind but that doesn't matter right now.

My wife and I do a lot of photo and video work on the side and need something speedy to edit off of. I was thinking of going two routes, a 4 bay with two 2TB NVME's as cache (already have these on hand) with four 4TB SATA SSD's (will need to buy these) -or- a 8 bay with the same 2TB cache NVMEs but with eight 2TB 7200 HHDs (already have these on hand)

I like the 8 bay idea since it's easier and cheaper to upgrade and I would gain a little bit of speed, but not much off of the additional drives, but still limited to the 10gbe link, not a big deal since most of our work is 1080 anyway.

So my questions are, what would be the better option? Are QNAP RAIDs expandable without creating a new RAID array? Could I stick a single or multiple 4TB or 8TB drives in there in the future and have it add to the array? Whatever unit I choose will be directly connected to the computer via a 10gbe network, any positives or negatives on choosing a NAS that has a USB 3.2 port and using that and not the SFP+?

[dolbyman]

Get a NAS with more/plentyHDD bays and forget about cache (will not speedup non reoccuring sequential tasks)

USB ports are for connecting devices to the NAS not the other way around

[Aqualung]

For true 10GbE NVMe NAS at this point in time, you're much better off building your own. There's the TBS-h574TX, but it's horribly overpriced, nor am I sure how true that 10GbE is. And then there's ASUS' somewhat more accessible FS6712X, though it looks to be extremely underpowered.

[dolbyman]

I installed the TBS at a client...VERY much straight 10GbE performance ... 5xNVMe and fast intel core processor, so 10GbE speeds are no problem with that unit

[Aqualung]

I installed the TBS at a client...VERY much straight 10GbE performance ... 5xNVMe and fast intel core processor, so 10GbE speeds are no problem with that unit

Good to know; still horribly overpriced though: With half of that money you could build your own screaming all-NVMe 10GbE NAS. (Possibly not that attractive, but screaming nonetheless.)

[dolbyman]

Yes you very much pay for the form factor..it's a pretty fast TB connectable unit aimed at video/audio professionals.

My customer wanted it for fast and compact/portable storage for ESXi snapshots (he didn't care about the TB)

[Bob Zelin]

Hi -
I have to comment on Mr. Aqualung's comments. Overpriced ? QNAP, Synology and Asustor (how I make my living) are the cheapest things on the market. Same with networking - I do networking with Ubiquiti, and Netgear, etc. When you talk to ANY "professionals" - and mention any of these brands - they just say "that is a cheap piece of #$%^" - and the "pro gear" - you know, servers from Isilon, Netapp, Dell, HP, switches from Cisco, Juniper, Arista Networks - are all TEN TIMES the price of any of the brands that I work with.

A TBS-h574TX is $1200 -
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/ ... _12gb.html

and ASUSTOR Flashstor 12 is $800
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/ ... 2_bay.html

Professional PC's from HP, Dell, and Puget Systems cost THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS. No one is "building their own" except a hobbiest sitting at home, having some fun. The low end brands (QNAP, Synology, Asustor, Netgear, Ubiquiti, etc.) are CHEAP and excellent. No one is building their own NAS system.

OH - you want a GREAT TrueNAS system -
you buy from ixSystems, and you get one of these products -
https://www.ixsystems.com/
here are TrueNAS all Flash drive systems -
https://www.truenas.com/f-series/

want to see another professionally built TrueNAS system -
https://www.owc.com/solutions/jupiter

No one wants your home built crap. There is a wonderful line from the movie "Ghostbusters" when they all get fired from the University, and are about to start their Ghostbusting business.
"You don't know what it's like out there in the real world - people expect results".

Bob Zelin