NAS or DAS solution

[cuestakid]

I am torn between two different options for upgrading my storage solution. It will simply just house my iTunes and other media content. It might do double duty for vmware if I go with a NAS solution, but that is more of a want than a need.

Any storage solution I get will be Thunderbolt 3 so I know I will need to get a thunderbolt 3 to thunderbolt 2 cable adapter (I originally thought about getting a new Mac Mini on top of this storage solution but that became way too expensive). My current vmware environment is performing fine-this would just be an expansion of it. I have roughly 700GB free for VMs so this extra storage is really for backups.

I have a 2011 Mac Mini 16GB RAM two internal drives (1 256 SSD and 1 1TB spinning)

1). A Thunderbolt 3 NAS from qnap or synology. Advantage of this would be the flexibility to using either TB3 or a regular NAS environment. I would also get vmware compatibility that I could use in parallel with my existing vsphere environment. Biggest drawback to this is once I get to the 12TB and up range, it can become very expensive

2. Forget a NAS and get a "traditional" DAS Thunderbolt 3 device like the OWC Thunderbay 6. This would be in the 12-24TB range. Get another SSD and add it to my vmware environment to expand its storage.

Based on what I have seen, option 2 is at least $500-1k less than option 1, but option 1 is future proof. However, option 1 could be seen as overkill as I don't really need the vmware capability that the qnap or synology would give me.


Any suggestions or feedback are welcome.

 

[Stephen.R]

I’m not really familiar with how a thunderbolt NAS would work, but why would you think a nas - which at best might have 10GbEth (but probably only has 1GbEth) is more “future proof” than a 40Gbit TB3 DAS?

 

[cuestakid]

I’m not really familiar with how a thunderbolt NAS would work, but why would you think a nas - which at best might have 10GbEth (but probably only has 1GbEth) is more “future proof” than a 40Gbit TB3 DAS?

Sorry I should have been more clear. A thunderbolt NAS has both USB C/thunderbolt 3 ports as well as 10GBe ports. It allows you to connect via either connection and some allow for add on cards if they don’t have 10GBe. That said your point is well taken. 40GBit TB3 is way more future proof. I just haven’t seen such devices.

 

[campyguy]

A couple of bits to chime in with. Synology still has never produced a TB NAS, opting to stick with Ethernet options - their talked-about DS1817t TB3 NAS is still vaporware with their new units announced last month are Ethernet only. Keep in mind that QNAP's TB2/3 connections are TB over IP. AFAIK, QNAP is the only NAS manufacturer to produce TB NAS devices - I've looked...

My advice if you're hot on buying a NAS with TB3, wait a bit. QNAP is releasing newer units that are expandable, with the TVS-x72XT (x=8/6/4) lineup that's extensible - I'm keen on the TVS-472XT and I've looked at the TS-453BT3 as well, with the former not as full-featured as the latter relative to encoding/multimedia.

OTOH I'm starting a new company next month and setting up a new home office to support it, and currently have a 2012 Mini Server supporting my iMP. I've already started a bit of investment of the new plans. I'm also considering selling my Mini and buying a new Mini, and attaching the already-purchased WD easystore 10TB DAS units that contain WD White drives (I've already opened them up to check) - those drives were on sale for US$190 and are the sealed White NAS drives with Helium with my plan being attaching the new Mini to my iMP via TB Bridge, the easystore drives attached to the Mini as DAS, Arq Backup installed on the Mini backing up to the respective drives, and Arq also backing up to my SharePoint account ($10 per month for UL storage - one of the best deals for cloud storage AFAIK), plus using a portable SSD for critical files. Most of this is automated via Arq. At least two of the DAS drives go in a safe at the end of each day - I'm pretty regimented in my approach, using a NAS would put pretty much all of my storage in one place. My 2¢.

I really like what QNAP is doing, but I can get a decent i7 NUC or Mini and Arq Backup for the price of a diskless NAS, and use that NUC/Mini as a computer for encoding/rendering. Cheers, and Happy Holidays!

 

[cuestakid]

A couple of bits to chime in with. Synology still has never produced a TB NAS, opting to stick with Ethernet options - their talked-about DS1817t TB3 NAS is still vaporware with their new units announced last month are Ethernet only. Keep in mind that QNAP's TB2/3 connections are TB over IP. AFAIK, QNAP is the only NAS manufacturer to produce TB NAS devices - I've looked...

My advice if you're hot on buying a NAS with TB3, wait a bit. QNAP is releasing newer units that are expandable, with the TVS-x72XT (x=8/6/4) lineup that's extensible - I'm keen on the TVS-472XT and I've looked at the TS-453BT3 as well, with the former not as full-featured as the latter relative to encoding/multimedia.

OTOH I'm starting a new company next month and setting up a new home office to support it, and currently have a 2012 Mini Server supporting my iMP. I've already started a bit of investment of the new plans. I'm also considering selling my Mini and buying a new Mini, and attaching the already-purchased WD easystore 10TB DAS units that contain WD White drives (I've already opened them up to check) - those drives were on sale for US$190 and are the sealed White NAS drives with Helium with my plan being attaching the new Mini to my iMP via TB Bridge, the easystore drives attached to the Mini as DAS, Arq Backup installed on the Mini backing up to the respective drives, and Arq also backing up to my SharePoint account ($10 per month for UL storage - one of the best deals for cloud storage AFAIK), plus using a portable SSD for critical files. Most of this is automated via Arq. At least two of the DAS drives go in a safe at the end of each day - I'm pretty regimented in my approach, using a NAS would put pretty much all of my storage in one place. My 2¢.

I really like what QNAP is doing, but I can get a decent i7 NUC or Mini and Arq Backup for the price of a diskless NAS, and use that NUC/Mini as a computer for encoding/rendering. Cheers, and Happy Holidays!

What I have seen is both TB3 over IP as well as devices with actual TB3 ports. I am leaning towards storage solutions that have actual TB3 ports. I don’t quite get how TB over IP works so I would want to learn about it. That said I am leaning towards TB3 storage devices like the OWC Thunderbay 6

 

[Stephen.R]

That said I am leaning towards TB3 storage devices like the OWC Thunderbay 6

Seems like a good choice. When I'm in a country where the price on OWC isn't cuckoo bananas (as an example, a drive-less Mini stack is $79USD, but ฿12,900 which is about $390USD. The Thunderbay's aren't even listed for sale here) I think this is what I'll be getting too. Because of the availability/price difference, I'm currently using a Chinese 5-bay case, and it works OK, but obviously, is not daisy-chainable, and it's only USB 3.0 so it's not exactly a speed demon, particularly in a software RAID setup (The thing to keep in mind with cases like this that rely on software RAID, is that any kind of mirroring - i.e. if you have a RAID 1 or RAID10 - means you're sending twice as much data across the same cable when writing).

 

[campyguy]

What I have seen is both TB3 over IP as well as devices with actual TB3 ports. I am leaning towards storage solutions that have actual TB3 ports. I don’t quite get how TB over IP works so I would want to learn about it. That said I am leaning towards TB3 storage devices like the OWC Thunderbay 6

Pretty much agreed. I won't have time with my new venture to futz with NAS so much as I do with my engineering company. Right now I've networked my headless 2012 Mini Server with 4 easystore DAS (2x8TB, 2x10TB - all WD Helium White NAS drives) with Arq doing the distributions to the DAS and my SharePoint account along with a 1TB SanDisk portable SSD for the files I need with me at the time. A couple of hours invested is all it took to set it up, and I already owned the Mini - not pretty but I'm covered.

I'll likely be looking at something with dual drives early next year - I don't like all of my storage in one place as the OWC TB 6 offers, with one going in my safe each night like clockwork. I've bookmarked this customized Intel-backed portal for TB3 storage devices, and I am pretty sure it'll get much, much longer after CES 2019 - there's no way I'm buying before CES with a workable temporary solution at hand! At a minimum, last year's products will likely go on sale after CES...

Happy Holidays!