10GBE – 4 bay – ssd cache – HDMI – front copy

MUST haves:
budget consc., 10GBE direct to PC (10 meters), + 1GBit., 1-2 SSD cache (2.5 or m2 sata/nvme) , min 4 bays 3.5′ , HDMI. generally also 8GB desirable i guess.

current setup: i7 PC, OS nmve, 500 GB nvme current work files, 8 TB internal HDD
for data. currently +1 TB pa, perhaps +2 TB pa soon, 80% photos and videos .

USAGE (foreseen):
move HDDs to NAS, install 2 256GB sata / nmve cache drives to NAS

1) 70% work on photo / video editing projects (each usually 20-200GB) – files on nvme in PC or on NAS.
2) transfer files from finished projects PC-> NAS
3) potentially in future: file server to access remotely, mainly myself, occasional other users, (also to mostly replace onedrive/dropbox), a couple of surveillance cams, CRM, perhaps IFTTT automation, perhaps a VM (?)
4) rarely: watch movies, listen to music.

Front Copy / SD card slot / remote included is NTH i would think -but not mandatory.

OPTIONS:
i identified 6 QNAP options – some with UG of RAM, video card, 10GBE card, 10GBE+2ssd card. all are around 900 EUR price point, the last one ard 800 EUR

910EUR: TS 473 (EDU)+RAM+GT1030+10GBE card
880EUR: 951X-2G+RAM
830EUR: 963X-2G+RAM
890EUR: 453b+RAM+10GBE-2SSD card
910EUR: 653b+RAM+10GBE card
790EUR: 653be+RAM+10GBE-2SSD card

Questions:
* besides differences in nr of bays: anything you would think to be relevant to know between ie the J3865 / J3455 / GX-420 and RX-421 CPUs in my usage case?
* i would expect to achieve some 500-700 MB/sec over 10GBE between PC nmve and NAS ssd cache (in raid 0 ?) (majority of daily work traffic i guess). is that realistic? any of the setups above potentially far better/worse? any noticeable differences expected between sata and nmve ssd cache in that respect?
* was thinking to start out with 2x10TB in raid1 (dont care about 50% space lost instead of ie a third), or 4×4 or 6 in raid6 HDD – anything i might need to consider in my case?

To achieve 500-700MB/s with a 4 bay unit- you need to look at TVS-473e and fill it with SSD drives. Two drives will only provide speed around 200-300(max). More drive will usually give you better speed because it is much faster to read from 6 drives then 2 or 4. AMD R-Series perform around 5000 score on cpu benchmark. This is how you can compare NAS performance. The x73 series will let you install 10G card and has M.2 cache slots built in already. NVME will not increase the speed unless you have 50+ users, virtualization or database/ web server running from the NAS. It has front copy button and direct connectivity. And it will do all tasks with no problems.

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What can I connect to a NAS?

Wireless Speaker Sonos

The great thing about Sonos is that you don't need to pay for music subscription service. With the cheapest NAS at home like DS115j or any other, you can have your backups done for all of your devices and still use your network drive as a Sonos music library. Sonos will connect to your NAS via your network and let access your provided music library. If you have little more of IT knowledge, you can even set up your Alexa or Sonos with Alexa built in to play music on your voice commands ("Alexa! Ask DS Audio to Play Music!").

Casting devices

Nowadays it is so cheap to upgrade your old TV and make it smart. All you need is Google Chrome or EZcast alternative plugged into your HDMI port at the back of your TV. Now you have great functionality added to your TV to send a video file directly from your NAS to a TV. No need for wires and chargers and other mess. You can use your phone as a remote to go to your movies or family videos and cast that content on your TV during family or friend gatherings.

 

Apple TV

Amazon Fire TV

You may not have a smartphone, or you just simply prefer to control your content with a remote in that case Amazon Fire TV will be a great addon to get to your TV. It also plugs into your HDMI port and will play content from your NAS to a TV. No wires no mess.

nVidia Shield TV

It gets even better! If you want some more entertainment and all previously mentioned functions - nVidia TV is a great thing to get. You can use it for playing games and watching movies from your NAS. The greatest thing is - shield TV does video transcoding. So even if you have a cheap NAS with a weak CPU, in a combination of shield TV you can now automatically on the fly change video file size and format for a destination device. It is a great way to reduce network load and let older devices to play video content which normally was not supported on the device.