Hello fellow users,
I'm looking to set up a NAS system on my own, and would like to get a few recommendations for my usecase, maybe someone has some experience. I've read the community hardware guide and a few threads, but nothing that really answered my question.
Basically, I need the NAS to edit videos and images from it, while also having bulk storage for the footage all in one place. Projects are usually somewhere around 1-2TB for the footage, it can however be a LOT more. My last big project was over 8TB of footage. Right now I have everything that I edit on a 2TB 980 Pro, and once it's done I move it to long term storage (which is a Raid 1 with 2x18TB Seagate on a QNAP Expansion Unit that is connected via USB-C).
I would like to put everything back into a NAS, so I can access it from multiple PCs, so I can edit on my PC or my Laptop.
Usecase:
First: As described photo editing, which should be doable on whatever I need for video editing, so I'm just going to skip this.
Second: Video Editing. I only need it to be powerful enough to be available for one PC at the time. However, It needs to be fast enough for the files. The biggest I reguarly work with are ProResRAW files, which are at 500-ish MB/s (4Gb/s).
Third: I need long term storage for the files, around 90TB should be enough for the next year or so. Ideally I just load the footage on the NAS, and don't need it to move it after editing is done.
Fourth: I also need to be able to set up remote access. Not for editing, but just in case I need to get a file from the storage when I'm away. So speed isn't important for that, it just should be possible.
Fifth: Ideally, the NAS can be in a sleep mode when it's not used, but automatically wake up when I access it from home or remotly (so basically waking up over LAN; I don't remember the name for that function).
Other things:
I'm quite happy with the Seagate Exos HDDs and would like to keep using them if possible. At least long term storage should be HDD for cost reasons, I'm not quite sure If I configure them fast enough for directly editing off them. As I said I would get like 5 or so 18TB HDDs for actual storage and one or two extra as parity drives - whatever is more recommended. Note regarding speeds of the HDD: The Exos drives are also available as SAS 12Gb/s, not just SATA 6Gb/s - they cost almost the same, so I don't care what I'd get.
Questions:
What hardware would I roughly need for this? Can I get away with just the HDDs for reaching the speed needed, or do I need to install some SSDs as cache or keep on editing on an SSD pool and move it to HDD storage when finished? What would be the ideal setup?
Also: I've noticed that some older server hardware is availabe very cheap, I just don't know if it's good enough. I probably wouldn't go for a rack mounted option (because I would think that they are quite a bit louder/too loud for being next to my desk). But something like a Fuji Primergy with 96GB DDR3 ECC RAM and a dual Xeon E5-2407 (yes, I know, dual CPU is probably completely overkill) is available for less than 150€. Throw in a HBA and a 10Gb/s network card and I can get the whole package for less than 200€. If that's a bad choice, what would I need to look out for when buying used server hardware?
Thanks for reading, looking forward for some answers and help :)
I'm looking to set up a NAS system on my own, and would like to get a few recommendations for my usecase, maybe someone has some experience. I've read the community hardware guide and a few threads, but nothing that really answered my question.
Basically, I need the NAS to edit videos and images from it, while also having bulk storage for the footage all in one place. Projects are usually somewhere around 1-2TB for the footage, it can however be a LOT more. My last big project was over 8TB of footage. Right now I have everything that I edit on a 2TB 980 Pro, and once it's done I move it to long term storage (which is a Raid 1 with 2x18TB Seagate on a QNAP Expansion Unit that is connected via USB-C).
I would like to put everything back into a NAS, so I can access it from multiple PCs, so I can edit on my PC or my Laptop.
Usecase:
First: As described photo editing, which should be doable on whatever I need for video editing, so I'm just going to skip this.
Second: Video Editing. I only need it to be powerful enough to be available for one PC at the time. However, It needs to be fast enough for the files. The biggest I reguarly work with are ProResRAW files, which are at 500-ish MB/s (4Gb/s).
Third: I need long term storage for the files, around 90TB should be enough for the next year or so. Ideally I just load the footage on the NAS, and don't need it to move it after editing is done.
Fourth: I also need to be able to set up remote access. Not for editing, but just in case I need to get a file from the storage when I'm away. So speed isn't important for that, it just should be possible.
Fifth: Ideally, the NAS can be in a sleep mode when it's not used, but automatically wake up when I access it from home or remotly (so basically waking up over LAN; I don't remember the name for that function).
Other things:
I'm quite happy with the Seagate Exos HDDs and would like to keep using them if possible. At least long term storage should be HDD for cost reasons, I'm not quite sure If I configure them fast enough for directly editing off them. As I said I would get like 5 or so 18TB HDDs for actual storage and one or two extra as parity drives - whatever is more recommended. Note regarding speeds of the HDD: The Exos drives are also available as SAS 12Gb/s, not just SATA 6Gb/s - they cost almost the same, so I don't care what I'd get.
Questions:
What hardware would I roughly need for this? Can I get away with just the HDDs for reaching the speed needed, or do I need to install some SSDs as cache or keep on editing on an SSD pool and move it to HDD storage when finished? What would be the ideal setup?
Also: I've noticed that some older server hardware is availabe very cheap, I just don't know if it's good enough. I probably wouldn't go for a rack mounted option (because I would think that they are quite a bit louder/too loud for being next to my desk). But something like a Fuji Primergy with 96GB DDR3 ECC RAM and a dual Xeon E5-2407 (yes, I know, dual CPU is probably completely overkill) is available for less than 150€. Throw in a HBA and a 10Gb/s network card and I can get the whole package for less than 200€. If that's a bad choice, what would I need to look out for when buying used server hardware?
Thanks for reading, looking forward for some answers and help :)
