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2TB + NAS or 4TB SSD for MBP 16" 2019

H

hajime

macrumors 604
Original poster
Jul 23, 2007
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Hi, currently I need 1TB for Mac OS and 1TB for Windows. I plan to run Linux as a VM under Mac OS until some smart people figure out how to deal with the T2 chip to allow installing of Linux to the MBP as a triple boot system. I am considering to either get 2TB SSD + NAS or 4TB. Any suggestion?

For NAS, which one do you recommend for the MBP 16" 2019? I will store files from Mac OS, Windows and Linux.
 
hajime said:
Hi, currently I need 1TB for Mac OS and 1TB for Windows. I plan to run Linux as a VM under Mac OS until some smart people figure out how to deal with the T2 chip to allow installing of Linux to the MBP as a triple boot system. I am considering to either get 2TB SSD + NAS or 4TB. Any suggestion?

For NAS, which one do you recommend for the MBP 16" 2019? I will store files from Mac OS, Windows and Linux.
Click to expand...
Synology NAS’s work pretty well with Mac (support Time Machine, etc.)
 
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You can’t compare 4TB SSD to having an NAS. If your gorgeous beautiful MacBook gets stolen or broken, you’ll be glad that every time you were home, it backed up to that NAS.

I’m a photographer and I have terabytes of photos. If you’re storing terabytes on your MacBook, it must be media, and I separate my media (my photos, that is) from my regular backup, because my digital photos will exceed the storage of any laptop drive. One photo is about 28MB and I have 10,000’s.

Problem is, when it comes to editing, that local storage is many times faster than the best NAS. True, NAS can be fast — about 100 MB per second. But that’s actually terrible compared to the 3GB/s (capital B!!!) which your SSD can hit. That’s a 30X speed difference.

Personally, I’d rather have the 1TB or 2TB internal and the external Synology. You might also need to upgrade your WiFi router to support all that speed.

If you’re curious — two weeks ago, I popped into a restaurant with my son, came out, two windows were smashed and the laptop was gone. Luckily, I had a backup, which would have been the worst of it by far.

Use a good password, an incremental backup system, and use Apple’s disk encryption.
 
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Do external thunderbolt based SSD read/write faster than a NAS? How do they perform compared with internal SSD on the MBP 16"?
 
hajime said:
Do external thunderbolt based SSD read/write faster than a NAS? How do they perform compared with internal SSD on the MBP 16"?
Click to expand...

Yes, a thunderbolt based ssd would be much faster than a NAS. Speeds vary, but you can get very close to internal SSD speed. Around 2000-3000 MB/s.
 
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cmaier said:
Yes, a thunderbolt based ssd would be much faster than a NAS. Speeds vary, but you can get very close to internal SSD speed. Around 2000-3000 MB/s.
Click to expand...

Which thunderbolt based ssd is good?
 
cmaier said:
I hear the samsung x5 is pretty good. Probably others are good too - the differences are probably pretty trivial compared to the speed boost you get by going from Ethernet to thunderbolt.
Click to expand...

Thanks. Just checked the price. Samsung x5 2TB costs about 1K so it is cheaper to get a 4TB SSD from Apple than 2TB SSD internal + 2TB Samsung x5?
 
hajime said:
Do external thunderbolt based SSD read/write faster than a NAS? How do they perform compared with internal SSD on the MBP 16"?
Click to expand...
Yes, but remember that your NAS can do a lot of things which direct-attached storage can’t do:
- Automatic backups when you’re on your home network
- Auto backups of every computer in the home or office.
- Remote file access.
- Media streaming
- Share content among computers and people
- Vastly higher storage capacity
- Expandable capacity
- RAID striping to protect data even if there’s a hardware failure
 
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hajime said:
Which model(s) do you recommend for use with Mac OS, Windows 10, Linux and perhaps also iOS?
Click to expand...
They all work the same way (more or less), running a full gui operating system you can control from a web browser or via app.

You should decide based on what capacity you are interested in, and how much redundancy you want.

I’ve been running two DS3612xs’s (these are 12-disk boxes, no longer made) since 2013 without any problem. I have them set up with 2-disk redundancy and a hot spare. (So I’d have to have several disks fail in a short time period before I’d lose any data). Those are probably overkill for most people.

They have many 4 and 6 disk boxes which are probably sufficiently future-proof for most people. I suggest always running with at least 1 disk redundancy.
 
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There are a lot of things to consider with a NAS, many mentioned above. If you are connecting via gigabit ethernet then getting a 98MBs transfer rate is very good. A 10 Gb connection, thunderbolt, or USB-3 (fastest version) can get you up to the 150 MB/s range or higher. You are never going to get the ~2700 MB/s rates of SSDs.

I use a QNAP TS-453bt3 with thunderbolt and 10Gb ethernet which handles my 100 GB transfers reasonable quickly. If I'm lucky I can get ~250 MBs, but it is variable.
 
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When I was considering NAS about 2 years ago, Synology was recommended. They seem to come with an enclosure only. Is it better to put hard drives or ssd in it? HD could have mechanical issues. Lots some data due to failure of HD but SSD also have failure after a certain number of read/write.
 
hajime said:
When I was considering NAS about 2 years ago, Synology was recommended. They seem to come with an enclosure only. Is it better to put hard drives or ssd in it? HD could have mechanical issues. Lots some data due to failure of HD but SSD also have failure after a certain number of read/write.
Click to expand...
They make one box specifically for ssd, but I recommend hard drives. You won’t get the benefit of ssd speed given you will likely be connecting over a normal Ethernet or wireless connection.

the whole point of the enclosure is you set it up with redundancy. So, for example, in my case, even if two hard drives fail simultaneously, I lose no data.

that said, I have had single drives fail over the years. Probably 3 or 4 times. The box usually can tell they are failing and gives you a little warning. But I also have not had any failures in the last 5 years. I have two boxes, each with 12 drives in them. I have found that hitachi and, recently, sea gate drives seem to last a long time. Western digital gave me some problems. Of course quality ebbs and flows over the years, and may vary by model. At the moment I am mostly using seagate barracuda 8tb drives without any problem.
 
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hajime said:
Is it better to put hard drives or ssd in it?
Click to expand...

A SSD is not worth it. Speed is wasted due to the NAS speed limitations referenced above. GB/$ cost is very high. As for reliability you could chose a RAID configuration that could handle single or multiple hard disk failures.

I just watched a YouTube video about a Synology failure. The author indicated that was a common problem. Can't evaluate.

 
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HDFan said:
A SSD is not worth it. Speed is wasted due to the NAS speed limitations referenced above. GB/$ cost is very high. As for reliability you could chose a RAID configuration that could handle single or multiple hard disk failures.

I just watched a YouTube video about a Synology failure. The author indicated that was a common problem. Can't evaluate.

Click to expand...

im not aware of any systemic failures other than one model year which used some bad intel parts. Like I’ve said, I’ve been running 2 boxes each bought in 2012 or 13.

But, if the box itself were to catastrophically die, and parts were not available, one solution is to buy any other synology box with equal or more drive slots, and put your disks from the old box into the new one. The new one will recover the volumes from the old one and you are good to go.
 
cmaier said:
But, if the box itself were to catastrophically die, and parts were not available, one solution is to buy any other synology box with equal or more drive slots, and put your disks from the old box into the new one. The new one will recover the volumes from the old one and you are good to go.
Click to expand...

I vaguely remember in the video him saying that he considered replacing the failing NAS with the same model, implying it might not work with a different model (assuming correct number of drive bays)?
 
HDFan said:
I vaguely remember in the video him saying that he considered replacing the failing NAS with the same model, implying it might not work with a different model (assuming correct number of drive bays)?
Click to expand...
It definitely works with other models assuming the new one has at least as many drive bays.
 
hajime said:
For NAS, which one do you recommend for the MBP 16" 2019? I will store files from Mac OS, Windows and Linux.
Click to expand...

What do you want to store? How much storage do you need? How quickly do you need to access the data (i.e., quickly scrolling through thousands of pictures)? Are you going to run a media server on the device? If so, do you want to stream 4K movies and you need hardware transcoding? Do you need Time Machine, iTunes media support?
 
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