Is this system overkill?

[afcurry]

Hi all, first time poster here.

Been down the NAS rabbit hole for a month now and still struggling to make the right decision, here's where I'm at:

Currently taking a workstation build to turn into a NAS server...

1. I'm realizing that I can no longer use the computer as a workstation if I go the TrueNAS route - correct me if I'm wrong here.
2. Main purpose of this build is to amalgamate all my data into one centralized storage center where I can have multiple editors working from at once.

Specs:
Processors: (2) Intel® Xeon®E5-2670 2.60 GHz
Cooling: (2) Gamerstorm Captain 120ex Liquid CPU Cooler
Motherboard: ASRock EP2C602-4L/D16
Graphics Card: Nvidia GTX 980ti Hybrid
Memory: Hynix 8x8GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM ECC Registered DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Server Memory Model HMT31GR7BFR4A-H9 (128gb)
SSD: Samsung 850 Evo 250gb
HDD: (5) Ironwolf Pro 16TB
HBA: Testing multiple cards including LSI 9211-8i
Power Supply: Cooler Master Silent Pro M1000 (1000w)
Case: Phanteks Enthoo Pro Series
ETH: MikroTik 5-Port Desktop Switch, 1 Gigabit Ethernet Port, 4 SFP+ 10Gbps Ports
NIC: 10Gb SFP+ PCI-E Network Card

So, 3 questions
1.) How are these specs for a NAS build? Intended for speed, redundancy, editing, rendering - is it overkill and better suited to keep as a workstation?

2.) Am I limited to windows server if I want the system to double as a workstation? Obviously a ZFS system is preferred to protect my data

3.) Can I achieve similar NAS goals using an older pc I have laying around that is not built with server components?

Specs:
Processor: Intel i7-930 Costa Rica 2.80 GHz
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R
Memory: GSkill DDR3-1600 4Gx6 PC3-12800 (24gb)

Thanks in advance for your help, it's very much appreciated.

 

[Davvo]

1) redundancy depends on pool layout, ecc RAM is a must if you want to do real time editing. You should go for ssds (maybe L2ARC too) if you aim to do real time work on the system though. Also, talk numbers: how many people should work with this and to do what?
2) you can use a VM to do your workstation things inside the system.
3) you want real time editing for a group of people? Hell no. You just want centralized storage? Maybe.

 

[Samuel Tai]

I don't think you'll be happy with either system as the storage base of a render farm. Depending on how many simultaneous edit streams are in flight, you'll be OK with 1, struggling with 2, and totally bogged down with anything higher.

Your main constraint is insufficient parallelism in IO. For your use case, you need to run massively parallel (something like 24x disks configured as 12-way stripes of 2-way mirrors) mirror pools with at least 2x 10Gb NICs to take advantage of multipath.

 

[afcurry]

Thank you for the replies. Sounds like I'm better off building a DAS with my workstation, is that correct?

To give a little more perspective. I am spinning a video production company up, building a small team and looking to organize and protect footage that's spanned across 10 ext drives. For the scale of the business currently, we can get by with editing locally. I am most concerned with creating a centralized storage server for all of my media stacked in the last 20 years. We can continue to edit off of separate SSD's, transferring footage and projects on/off as needed, no problem.

Let's forget about the NAS for now. I'm open to recommendations on where to go from here. Hardware or software RAID? Windows Server? Something else? Feel like a RAID 6 array may be best for my needs and is what I am most familiar with. For context, I have 80TB of new drive space, 15-20TB to be transferred on, which would about cap me out if I did a simple mirror. Hmmm, maybe I need to buy another drive so I have 3 pairs...

 

[Samuel Tai]

You should look into OWC's turnkey ZFS servers, which are optimized for video editing workflows.

OWC Jellyfish Rack

The OWC Jellyfish Rack is made in a traditional server form but has an optional redundant power supply built in. Get your shared storage solution today!

www.lumaforge.com

These were originally based on the FreeNAS 9 UI, but have since spun off on their own UI. TrueNAS may not be the best fit for you, as you probably have better uses for your time than futzing with storage.

 

[Davvo]

Also, ZFS and hardware RAID are not compatible.