NAS as working drive

[yoann]

Hi All,

We are small audio postproduction facility with 4 Pro Tools 12 HD stations.

We often work on a same project in these different stations, and copying sessions whenever we need to move in another studio is a pain, as managing the different versions in all these studios.

So i think about setting up a centralized storage. Dedicated solutions to ProTools (such as SNS…) are too much expensive for us, even more if we want to "duplicate" the hardware to have a spare solution in case of hardware issue.


So I am looking at NAS solutions, as Synology, but I have not find many user experience feedback that would confirm that this solution is reliable.
My idea is to have a big NAS (Synology high-end) dedicated to Protools, a NAS dedicated to video, and others NAS dedicated to backup and archiving.

If someone is already using this type of installation successfully, I would be pleased to know !

Best,

Yoann

[Norad155]

I have dipped my toe in enough to know that it's not a great idea... I haven't seen it work reliably on Synology or Terrablock...

[diamondschwin]

SNS works well for me, smaller Avid Nexis now thats its qualified would probably be great. Not seen anyone using Synology etc. so cant endorse.

[antonis]

Are you on Mac or PC? If on Mac, which type of computers are you using?

I have been working in a two-Mac Pro setup in my studio (three, when the
laptop gets connected, four, when a client plugins as well) and I can share this regarding cheap shared storage:

• If possible all the computers to log in with the same login. Saves a lot of potential issues with permissions.
• I am on the Cheesegrater Mac Pros and I'm using external eSATA RAID. This seems to give the faster throughput.
• Set the drive to ignore user permissions.
• Share this drive through the Sharing-> File Sharing in System Preferernces

This has worked perfectly for me since PT8HD days.

It goes without saying that it pays off been on a separate gigabit network, than the rest of the kit (Eucon/ ICON surfaces, internet connectivity), to the point that I am considering a 3rd Ethernet port via a PCIe card.

As I cannot afford a newer Thunderbolt equipped Mac Pro, I am thinking of putting in use an older 2.1 Mac, with a RAID card and 4 x 4Tb drives to act as a storage server.

I hope this helps at all.

[29CountsNY]

Synology was a no go here.
Tired it and the session kept locking up so now just use it for archiving.

[yoann]

Originally Posted by antonis

Are you on Mac or PC? If on Mac, which type of computers are you using?

As I cannot afford a newer Thunderbolt equipped Mac Pro, I am thinking of putting in use an older 2.1 Mac, with a RAID card and 4 x 4Tb drives to act as a storage server.

We are on mac, too.
In fact, we often share sessions from one mac to another, when we don't have time make a copy.
It works fine, but if a computer have to reboot or crash, it will crash the other station too. And it would better to centralize the sessions.

You suggest to dedicate a mac to act as storage server, so like a NAS. I don't get why it would be more reliable than a Linux NAS like synology (file system ?).
But other advices suggest I should avoid this kind of solutions, thanks for feedbacks !

Yoann

[antonis]

Originally Posted by yoann

We are on mac, too.
You suggest to dedicate a mac to act as storage server, so like a NAS. I don't get why it would be more reliable than a Linux NAS like synology (file system ?).

Exactly that, make a Mac Pro act like a NAS. Actually, at the workplace, the engineers have an old Mac Pro as the SFX server, RAIDed up using the soft RAID option from Disk Utility. Works a treat and caters for 8 Dub suits and all the Soundminer administration.

In fact, here at work all the audio Macs connect to the shared storage(s) via Ethernet.

In my smaller setup, the second mac can access all SFX, sessions from the main Mac, run Vienna Ensemble Pro, flip the D-Command to control it or run for Satellite video. Guest computers can drop and copy from designated folders.

Originally Posted by yoann

I don't get why it would be more reliable than a Linux NAS like synology (file system ?).

I would only assume that because a Mac would be using the apple-native protocols for all comms where I am not aware sure what is the case with NAS units. But the sharing functionality within System Prefs is quite powerful and fairly straightforward to set up, even without running a OS X server.

That's my 2cs.

[Vedat]

We have a NAS for backups and FTP and it works great.
We can play client supplied videos directly off the NAS too.
But haven't tested opening a session directly off it yet.

[s.d. finley]

Hey all!! Doing a thread revive here. I am also interested in a NAS type storage solution but also would like to be able to write on to the NAS Has with PT real time as work drives. We have 4, maybe 5 rooms we want networked. Has anyone used 10MG ethernet networks? We have 3 mac cheese graters and a trash can to network. I have seen PCIe 10MG adapter cards for the MP5.1s and a thunderbolt to 10MG adapter for the MP6.1. We already have CAT5 cables through our facility.
Thanks for the advice!!

[Darryl Ramm]

sdf: You mean 10Gbit? Be careful with exactly what you have--Cat 5 may not get you that far with 10Gbit, and it depends on how well any wiring is installed/run. Ideally you may have higher-spec twisted pair wiring or a chance to pull that or optical. Get a good network consultant involved if necessary.

Really well set up NAS works. Avid sells it. And disk cache hides lot of sins. For low-end applications it scares the hell out of me lots of the low-end NAS boxes don't have great software stacks. And again in a commercial studio I'd be paying a lot of attention to a high-end dedicated storage LAN with enterprise class switches and instrumentation.

NAS is just frigging fantastic for session backup/archiving/centralized distribution.

Advanced SSD based distributed storage fabrics are just amazing in what they can do. NVMe over Ethernet, etc. Not sure anybody is using them in pro media uses yetBut that is what the distributed storage future looks like. And it’s all Ethernet.