You've been requesting that I talk about
how I store my files for quite some time now,
and I've mostly been avoiding that topic
because my previous file management strategy
was not something I'd recommend to others
as it was pretty careless and convoluted.
So, today I'm going to show you the new scheme
I came up with and provide mini-reviews for
some of the stuff I tried implementing along the way.
Let's get undone.
[offbeat music]
♪ Gerald Undone ♪
♪ He's crazy ♪
What's happening, everybody? I'm Gerald Undone
and I didn't choose the purple life, the purple life chose me.
So, I'm not going to be able to finish this video today
because I still have another NAS unit to try out,
but that won't matter too much to you
because by the time you're watching this,
I would have already tested that other NAS unit
and include it in this very video,
but that's Future Gerald's problem and he'll have
his time in the sun in a few minutes.
But, let me, Past Gerald, tell you what I've learned
so far. So, my old way of doing things was
to record my footage to SSDs and then connect them
to my editing rig via USB adapters
and edit right off the drives, but for multi-camera shoots,
this would require me to have several
dirty danglers hanging down every orifice
of my computer. In terms of performance,
it's actually worked fine. Although, there was
the odd time where I'd get USB conflicts
and I'd have to remove and replug in the drive,
but mostly no big deal. The real issue was
the lack of redundancy and the fact that these drives
were out of commission until the edit was done.
I couldn't transfer over all the footage
because my internal drive wasn't big enough
to contain the multiple terabytes of data
contained in all the USB drives, and it's certainly
not good practice to fill up all of your USB system
drive if you plan to use it for operations.
Actually, it's just not good practice in general
to completely fill an a SSD, but what's worse
is if one of these drives fail during the edit process,
that footage would be lost forever.
Now, I know that some people are already gasping
at this because they archive their footage. I do not.
I'm not a keeper of past, unprocessed footage
unless it's something really special,
but considering that I record a few terabytes of my silly face
yammering on every week, I'm not really interested
in storing all that nerd talk perpetually,
so I just keep the final exported videos.
I'm okay with that and that's not going to change,
but what is going to change is building in
some redundancy for the footage I'm using
before the video is finished so that my work
can't be lost mid-project. That's goal number one.
The other limitation to my current configuration
is that co-working on a project requires the passing
back and forth of those dangling drives,
which is just not efficient, so goal number two
is to make the project shareable over
my studio's network. Finally, for the stuff I do keep
like the finished videos, thumbnails, personal files,
et cetera, I want to revamp my persistent storage.
Right now, they're stored on a mechanical drive
on my computer, then backed up to this old
D-320 Share Center, which actually required
custom third party firmware just to keep using it
since it has serious security flaws in its original state
that the latest updates in Windows 10
rightfully prevent you from accessing, but after that,
I send those files off to OneDrive for cloud backup.
Now, I like OneDrive and I get the storage I have
for free as part of the Microsoft Suite, but I'm limited
to 1TB per user and you can only add
an additional 1TB maximum at $10 per month,
which isn't a great price. So, I've been using
Backblaze B2 for the last few weeks as a test
to replace my OneDrive. So far, I've been liking it.
You only get charged for what you store, which is
at a rate of half a cent per gigabyte, so $5 per terabyte,
plus some transaction fees if you download a lot,
but if all you do is store your files, you can bank on
pretty close to $5 per terabyte, calculated daily.
So, if your storage increases dramatically for
a few days, you only pay extra for those days.
This video isn't sponsored by Backblaze,
but I've been finding it pretty perfect for what I need,
and when I compare the similar services from
Amazon and Microsoft, Backblaze turned out
to be much cheaper. For example, to backup
and store my personal files and all my finished videos,
for the month of May only cost me $2.95.
And the per day calculations would be great
if I want to also backup my project files
mid-edit because then they'll have a third location
for redundancy and I'll only pay for the days I use
since as I already said, I don't keep my footage forever.
So, that brings me to the last thing I'll need from
the NAS that's gonna fit this job. I'll need it
to support backups to Backblaze B2 so that I can
just store everything on there in a redundant RAID array
and then have the NAS send it off to
Backblaze on a schedule automatically.
And, since this NAS is going to be used as a replacement
for my direct attached SSDs, I want it to be as fast
as my SSDs, which means a few more requirements.
I'm gonna be setting up 10GB Ethernet
and I'm going to be making a compact array
of only 2.5 inch SATA SSDs.
For the 10GB network cards for my computers,
I went with the Aquantia 107s.
I was able to get their AQtion 10G Gaming Cards
for $125 CAD, which is under $100 USD.
They installed fine and Windows 10 recognized them
and installed the latest drivers automatically.
I calculated my total storage needs
to be about 4 to 5 TB. The most I ever need
for my video editing projects is about 3TB,
and I need about 1TB for personal files
and finished videos. So, I decided to go with
six 2TB drives in a RAID 10 array.
I chose RAID 10 over RAID 5 or 6
so that I could better saturate the read and write speeds
of two computers simultaneously accessing 10GB connections
and RAID 10 is also simpler and generally
more successful and easier rebuilding if I lost a drive.
And RAID 10 would still leave me with 6TB,
which should be plenty for my needs.
I ended up getting Crucial MX500 drives
because there was a good deal on them at the time,
and the 2TB version provides a decent life span
of about 700TB written.
Now, typically speaking for this purpose,
you'd want to go with Enterprise drives or SSDs
specifically designed for NAS,
but they're priced much, much higher,
and I was getting such a good deal on the MX500s
where even the Samsung EVOs,
which do offer a better TBW are almost double the price.
So, I was in a position where economically
it was better to buy more spare drives
than it was to buy longer lasting ones.
But, if you plan on doing this yourself,
look for the most TBW you can get for the money
and buy quality drives.
I figure 700TB written should be fine
with my usage, since I'll probably only cycle
10, 15TB per month, so I should be able
to get at least four years of constant use out of these.
Now, I just needed somewhere to stick them,
so I reached out to the players I knew in this space,
Synology and QNAP, to send me a NAS fitting the bill,
and here's what they sent.
Synology sent their DS1618+
and QNAP sent their TVS-672XT.
These are both six bay boxes that accept
3.5 inch or 2.5 inch drives,
but the QNAP also has slots for 2 NVME drives,
so eight drives total,
but the Synology can be expanded in that way
with PCI Express. However, I needed to use
the PCI Express slot in the Synology to install
their dual port 10GB network card so that
I could connect the two computers that I needed
to have co-operative video editing capabilities.
Now, this QNAP already has one 10GB port
built in and then two Thunderbolt ports.
Now, for me, this wasn't ideal which is why
Future Gerald will have to come in and take over
when I get the replacement unit for this device
because I'm going to be swapping this box out
for their TVS-882ST3, which not only has
two 10GB ports built in, but it's also smaller
because it's 2.5 inch form factor only,
meaning it can take eight SSDs in an overall
smaller package. But, in the meantime,
I had the chance to compare these two units for my needs
and here are my findings. Overall, the QNAP
is the better unit, but it's also quite a bit more expensive.
The Synology offers a pretty compelling value though,
at less than half the price, but there's
a couple things to consider. As I mentioned earlier,
if you need two 10GB ports, then you'll have
to get Synology's expansion card, which at $269,
will take this $750 NAS and make it $1,019,
only $580 less than the QNAP. But, if you're on
a computer that can't use Thunderbolt like me,
then you'll also need to get a Thunderbolt 10GB
adapter for the QNAP if you need two 10GB ports,
which will cost you $184, bringing the more
comparable prices to $1,783 for the QNAP
and $1,019 for the Synology, without drives of course.
The QNAP has more RAM, 8GB versus
the 4GB in the Synology, but I didn't find
this had a major impact on my use case.
Perhaps if you need to run more complex operations
on the device, this might be more important,
but from my simple storage, video editing
and a cloud backup, I never even used the 4GB
on the Synology. I even tried upgrading the RAM
to a dual channel 16GB kit from Crucial,
and I saw absolutely no performance in the UI
or in transfer speeds, so I wouldn't recommend
upgrading the RAM if you're using the Synology
in the way that I am, but I can recommend that
particular RAM kit if you need to upgrade it
as the kit worked perfectly fine for me
and the install was a breeze. But, jumping back
to those transfer speeds, the QNAP did outperform
the Synology in my disk speed tests, but that must
be dependent on the CPU and not the RAM.
The QNAP is using a 3.1GHz quad-core
Intel i3-8100T, where the Synology has
a 2.1GHz quad-core Intel Atom C3538.
The large sequential reads were similar,
which is all that some people might care about, but I figure
since I had a bunch of SSDs to test, I might
as well RAID 0 them and see which device is faster
when everything else is the same. I also found
the QNAP to be more stable and more consistent
with the tests. Each time I tested the Synology,
I got different sequential writes and drastically
different random reads and writes, but the QNAP
was steady and consistently three to four times
faster in the randoms, as well as 10% better
in the sequential writes most of the time.
The same was true for RAID 5 and RAID 10
configurations, and I tested the Synology using
the EXT4 file system to match the QNAP
and use very similar settings. Now, speaking of
RAIDing SSDs, I also found that Synology
was much more picky about which drives
and which configurations would allow for TRIM
to be activated. I could only activate TRIM
on the Synology in RAID 10, where I could do it in
pretty much every combination I try on the QNAP.
Since I wanted RAID 10 anyway,
this isn't that big of a problem,
but it's something you should consider
if you're a RAID 5 or 6 user
and you plan to use SSDs
and you want to use TRIM commands.
I do prefer the Synology's UI though.
I find it cleaner and more modern-looking
and a bit more intuitive to use,
and the Synology also boots up, shuts down
and restarts much faster than the QNAP.
We're talking 20 seconds vs. 2-3 minutes.
This isn't a big deal once you get it up and running,
but those minutes did add up during initial setup.
The QNAP's UI is quite similar in many ways,
but I found I was constantly being bombarded
by notifications and pop-ups,
and it was just generally a little more difficult
to navigate during my first use.
The QNAP is also noticeably bigger
and heavier than the Synology, but it is a bit quieter.
That's something I forgot to mention that I wanted
to fix about my previous setup. The noise.
This little D-Link box creates way too much noise,
even when idle. I often have to unplug it
to shoot my videos, which is something I'd like
to avoid in the future. I tested the idle volume
of all three of these boxes in their permanent home
and here's what I got. With everything turned off
in the studio, the room measures 33.2 dBA.
Then, I turned on the D-Link 320 and it jumped
to 42.7 dBA, measured from about three feet or
one meter away. And it's also a higher pitched noise,
so it's easier to hear over the noise floor of the room
and my mics pick it up really well.
The Synology was a lot quieter at 39.2 dBA
and the pitch was lower as well, which helped.
And I'd say you could safely record in a room
with this running, as long you're not right beside it.
Give yourself about six feet or two meters
and you should be fine. The QNAP, though,
was the quietest at 37.6 dBA and it had the lowest
frequency which is the easiest to clean up
and the hardest to hear amongst the room tone.
That test, by the way, was done with all the devices
set to their respective quiet modes.
Now, with that said, I'll be updating you in
a moment when I get the new QNAP to test,
but to summarize what I've learned so far,
both of these devices were able to do exactly
what I needed them to do once I installed
the required 10GB cards and adapters.
I could transfer my footage onto them,
have two computers editing off of them
and have them backed up to Backblaze B2 on a schedule,
and with a six drive RAID 10 array of SSDs,
I was able to easily saturate two 10GB connections.
I tested simultaneous file transfers on both
computers and both of these NASs could handle
the throughput. Time performance was about
the same on both, which is very snappy
and indistinguishable from editing off of
my internal SSD and they both exported my videos
at exactly the same amount of time. And, they both
allow for a drive to fail and prompt for it
to be replaced. I have a couple of cold spares here
of the SSDs and I tested a drive swap to rebuild
the RAID and both succeeded. So again, they both
accomplished my goal, but the QNAP was faster.
It rebuilt faster, it has faster random reads and writes
and it more stable during the file transfers.
The Synology would hit the same max speed
and would hover around the same extended transfer rate,
but would fluctuate a lot more than the QNAP.
And, although I like the UI better on the Synology,
the QNAP appears to receive updates
more frequently during the short time I've had them
and it gave me fewer issues that required a system reboot,
where I had a couple disconnects
and hangs on the Synology.
I also like that the QNAP has an easy access port on the front
to allow me to quickly offload my footage
and this device also includes 10GB USB ports including Type-C,
where the Synology only has USB Type-A
and only 5GB. The QNAP is slightly quieter,
which is important to me. The QNAP also provides
a little bit more in the box, including Cat 6a cables
for the 10GB connections
alongside the Cat 5e cables for the 1GB,
where the Synology only comes with the 1GB Ethernet cables,
so QNAP does save you a little bit of money there.
Now, none of these difference are huge,
but the experience is overall smoother on the QNAP,
but at several hundred dollars more,
it might be hard to convince you that those
somewhat nuanced improvements are worth it.
I'd say both are good choices if you're planning
to do something similar to me, and if you're looking
for the best value, the Synology is probably
your pick, but if you'd rather get the most
you can get for your money, regardless of the price,
I think the QNAP is the winner.
Now, if you've got even more money to spend,
let's take a look at the TVS-882ST3
and see how it stacks up,
because on paper, that unit seems like
the ultimate version of what I'm looking for.
But QNAP won't let me borrow that unit
until I give them this one back.
So, I'm gonna go do that now.
Gimme about 15 minutes.
[dramatic music]
♪
Okay, so it's about six weeks later,
and I've had an opportunity to use each unit
for a while and edit a couple of videos with each of them
and I'd like to update you on my thoughts.
But first, I'd like to thank Storyblocks for hooking
me up with that hang glider. Luckily for me,
this isn't Far Cry and I don't have to take
a hang glider places to pick up packages.
They just come in the mail, but that's not as exciting
or as entertaining as stock footage, and when
I need stock footage, Storyblocks is my go to
solution with their impressive selection of clips
covering a wide range of subjects with unlimited
downloads and 4K video. They're also amply
supplied with backgrounds, overlays and
After Effects templates, and the interface is easy
to use and navigate and the clips are royalty-free
for both commercial and personal use,
so you can use them as much as you want,
wherever you want. So, if you think you can
take advantage of a fantastic library of quality
stock footage and effects, check out Storyblocks
using the link in the description below.
Alright, so the workflow's been great and everything
worked out as planned. The cloud backup to
Backblaze worked extremely well with each unit,
and I'm really happy with Backblaze B2.
My last two monthly bills have only been
around $5 each. The Aquantia network cards
haven't given me any problems and everything's
been really stable. And six weeks later,
I'd say my previous conclusions still hold up.
Now, comparing this new unit from QNAP,
the TVS-882ST3, this is the upgraded version
with the i7-6700HQ and 16GB of RAM
and it costs around $2,800,
which is quite expensive for a box of its size
and as good as it is for what I'm doing,
that price definitely gives me some mixed feelings.
First of all, to the positive, it does have
two 10GB RJ45 ports, which solves
the problem I had with the other QNAP,
and it still keeps the two Thunderbolt 3 ports as well.
Now, I assumed this level of connectivity
and using the Intel X550-T2 definitely contributed
to the cost increase, but for what I'm doing,
I'd be happy if there was a cheaper version
of this without the Thunderbolt card.
It also has two 1GB RJ45s,
two USB 5GB Type-A ports,
and two more USB 10GB ports,
one Type-A on the back
and one Type-C quick copy on the front.
So, connectivity is great,
but a quick note about the dual 10GB NIC.
The one that they installed on here has a very noisy fan.
I was disappointed when I first started using this NAS
because it was supposed to be the smallest
and quietest of the bunch,
but it was actually louder than the other two,
but all that noise was being generated from
the tiny fan on the network card,
'cause the rest of the box was very quiet.
So, I unplugged that fan and the sound level dropped
to the same level as my room,
so that is exactly what I was looking for, a silent NAS.
I did some stress testing to see
if unplugging that fan would cause instability
or network throttling and it doesn't seem to.
The hottest it got was around the 50s
to low 60s Celsius, which I think should probably
be fine for that component and the speeds never dipped.
Just keep in mind that I'm not officially
endorsing this action and it probably violates
your warranty with QNAP. Now, the build quality
of the 882 is fantastic. Solid metal construction.
I especially like the SSD trays. They're obviously
a lot smaller because they're only for 2.5 inch drives,
but they're very rigid, made of metal
and have very strong, satisfying locks and releases.
Lastly, this unit is loaded with media features as well,
including an HDMI port and a remote control,
so you could use it as your media PC
at the same time to make your money go further.
I have no intention on doing this, so for me,
those are wasted features which probably could have
been removed to save some money, but they're there
if you can leverage them. Now, as far as actual
performance goes, it's not as simple as
the more expensive unit is the best.
First of all, real world performance felt pretty much
identical to the 672 from QNAP
with the same reliability I complimented in
the first part of this video. But, the benchmarks
showed mixed results comparatively.
Against the Synology, the QNAP 882 shows
nothing but improvement, with noticeable gains
in the random reads and writes, but against
the cheaper QNAP 672, the multi-threaded
random performance was nearly cut in half.
Now, I'm not really sure what to attribute this to
other than the CPU. It would appear that
the i3-8100T that's in the 672
is better suited for those types of tasks.
The sequential reads are best on the 882,
but they're close enough that you can't really
tell the difference in the real world,
and that's fair to say about the Synology as well
when it comes to video editing.
The biggest disappointment though
is that I still wasn't able to fully saturate
the 10GB connection with sequential writes
while using RAID 10. I can only achieve it
with RAID 0, and adding more drives
from 6 to 8 seems to only incur more of a penalty,
dropping the write speed from 1,000MB/s
on six drives to 980MB/s with eight drives.
It's possible the controller or the way the RAID 10
is handled in the software is just incapable
of hitting that 1,200MB/s
that my connection can handle for the write speed,
but this is a limitation that you can't solve by just
throwing more money at the problem because each
of the three devices I tested at very different
price points have this issue. So, if fully saturating
10GB reads and writes on two computers
is your goal, you might have to look at a custom solution
because I don't think boxes like these will do it.
Let me know if you'd be interested
in a follow-up video down the road
building out a custom solution and comparing
price to performance against these types of boxes.
But all that being said, based on my purpose,
the write speeds I'm getting are perfectly fine
for any of these and are generally faster
than the media I'm dumping onto the NAS anyway,
so the bottleneck is usually USB or my reader
or my card, and they're all plenty fast for video editing
read speeds, but then that brings us
back to the pricing. Synology is still the best value
of the lot, and if we don't count media features
and Thunderbolt ports because I'm not using
them anyway, all that I'm getting by throwing
more money at the problem is quieter operation,
more reliability, steadier transfers and TRIM support.
And, in the case of the TVS-882,
higher capacity since it's an eight bay option instead of six.
I really do love the silent operation and more
efficient size of the 882, but I can't help but think
the 672 is probably a better use of money
considering it even benchmarked better
and it's quiet enough. And, after using
the Synology for nearly a month, I can also say
that I don't really have any big problems
with either other than the fact that it is a bit noisier
and a few more limitations and quirks regarding
loading SSDs in there.
So overall, I'm pleasantly surprised.
Normally when I compare products,
I expect to find one of them severely lacking,
especially when there's a $2,000 price disparity
between the cheapest and most expensive unit,
but I'd be okay with recommending any of
these units for my use case and it really just
comes down to your budget and the amount
of refinement you want to pay for in your hardware.
But that's gonna be it for me. I hope you found this video
entertaining, or at least helpful,
and if you did, make sure to leave it the ol' thumbs up
and consider subscribing if you haven't already,
but if you did not find this video helpful
or entertaining, try setting the playback speed to 75%.
Alright...I'm done.