December 27, 2024
Getting a NAS is the best decision for your professional workflow. Here's a simple, easy-to-follow guide to help you get started
As a creative professional, investing in a NAS will likely be one of the best decisions you'll ever make. You’ll have a relatively big upfront cost but once you’re all set up you’ll be good for years. Let’s talk about it!
Getting a NAS comes with many benefits, but here are some of the most important ones:
The first and most important benefit that comes to mind is the fact that we have a centralised location for all data. Our files are no longer scattered around several external hard drives. There’s one place where everything lives. Project files, photos, documents it’s all there.
And because it’s a network drive it’s available on all of our devices. Desktop, laptop, phone and tablet. Let’s say for example that I’m tired of sitting on my desk all day and I want to continue my work on the ipad, while relaxing on the couch. I don’t have to use weird solutions like emailing files to myself. The files I worked on the computer are saved on the NAS so I can just access them from my iPad without much hassle.
If you’re working with a team the benefits of centralised storage, increase exponentially. If a teammate is looking for a specific file you don’t have to use USB sticks or sending them files through the network. You just point them to the correct folder on the NAS and you’re good to go. This makes project collaboration much easier overall. But just because multiple people are accessing the same drive, it doesn't mean that security goes out the window. Users can be assigned different levels of access, so only the people you want will be able to access certain files. Setting up permissions is a simple process, and it can be done easily through the NAS’s web interface.
A NAS can also be accessed outside the office, which is perfect if we have team members that work remotely or if we just want to share files with a client. Let’s take as an example the client scenario. Instead of creating dropbox folders and wetransfer links we can create distributable links right from our NAS. And we can also set an expiration date just like Dropbox. But without the extra costs.
Remote access is also useful for you as an individual. Let’s say you’re on a trip and you just realised that you’re missing a couple of important documents. You can login to your NAS and grab whatever you need, in a matter of seconds. Of course before exposing your data to the internet you need to take some safety precautions, but once everything’s setup, you don’t have to worry about anything.
Another thing worth noting is that a NAS is basically a computer with a lot of hard drive bays. It might be a slow computer compared to your workstation but it’s still a computer. So we can do a whole lot more than just storing files. For example a Network drive can be an amazing entertainment hub. You can create your own personal Netflix just by installing Plex.
You can browse your movie and TV show collection with ease AND with a beautiful interface that displays all necessary information. Cover artwork, plot description, ratings, it’s all there. And most importantly all that is done automatically by the application. We don’t have to do anything ourselves. We just have to make sure that our video files are in a specific folder. The system will take care of the rest. It will go on the internet and find all the correct info for our movies and TV shows. And as we’ve discussed before since it’s a network drive it’s available everywhere. So we can stream content to the living room TV, we can watch it on the iPad, all scenarios are possible.
This is something I do quite often. I will start watching a show on the Apple TV but then I’ll switch to the iPad. The application is smart enough to ask me if I want to resume from from that point. It’s an amazing seamless experience!
But that’s not all. We can run a ton of other applications. Like a photo app to store and share photos with family and friends. We can also run more complex things like virtual machines (VMs), allowing us to use multiple operating systems and applications. If you want to you can basically run a whole suite of programs that replace commonly used applications like Microsoft office etc. It’s a computer that runs 24/7. So you can even host your own website if you wanted to. I wouldn’t recommend that because you need to know what you’re doing but the ability is definitely there!!!
Currently there are so many choices to choose from, it can be overwhelming. Should we go with prebuilt expensive solutions or build our own cheap solution from spare PC parts?
As enticing as the latter part might sound, I would discourage you to do so. When you’re buying the prebuilt systems from Synology or QNAP you’re basically paying for convenience. Someone else has already built a working system that you can use right out of the box. They’ve spent the time to create workflows and software that work without you having to tinker for hours.
Building your own NAS will probably be cheaper than any prebuilt option but you have to maintain pretty much every aspect of it. Software and hardware. It’s doable but personally it’s not how I want to spend my time. The other side effect of building your own system is the fact that it’s easy to go overboard. Adding powerful processors, lots of memory and going nuts in general with all the specs. Which will show up later on in your electricity bill. The NAS I’m using runs 24/7, it’s great for my purposes and my electricity bill is not really affected by it.
So I would say just stick to Synology or QNAP. I personally use Synology and I would easily recommend them. But both companies have pros and cons. For me Synology just ticks a lot more boxes.
So…. let’s say that you’ve made your decision and you’re gonna go for either one of them. Synology or QNAP. How do you choose the best setup for your needs? Both companies have a ton of different products and if you visit their websites it’s easy to get lost. But in reality it’s super simple. It basically boils down to two things. You need a NAS that can support a) fast transfer speeds and b) an adequate number of drive bays.
Try to aim for 10Gbps connections. Anything lower than that and it’s going to be a chore to transfer huge files around. So avoid solutions with 2,5Gbps connections. These days, 2,5Gbps is too slow. For an individual or for a small creative team I would recommend Synology’s 1821+. It strikes a good balance between good performance, noise levels, and drive bays. Speaking of which!
I know you probably think that two drives is more than enough but think of NAS as a device that will grow with your needs. So even if you won’t be able to use all that space now, you probably will in the near future. The more you rely on the device, and the more use cases you discover, your data needs will grow too.
So at a minimum I would suggest 4 drive bays. And even better? An 8 bay NAS hence my 1821+ suggestion! I’m using its predecessor, the 1819+. And I know what you’re thinking! I won’t ever need 4 drives, let alone 8! But hear me out! First off you don’t have to populate all bays at once! I currently using 5 slots and I’m planning to add another drive in the next couple of weeks. With 8 bays you can easily add more space when it’s needed. The moment you’re running low on space, you just pop another drive in and you’re good to go!
And don’t forget. Having 4 or 8 drives doesn’t mean that you have 4 or 8 drives worth of usable space.
Part of that space is reserved for data parity. So if for some reason a drive fails no data will be lost. The system will be able to restore everything, from all the bits and pieces that are duplicated on the other drives.
Depending on the parity, (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5 etc) one or more drives worth of space will be reserved to duplicate data. So even if two drives crash at the same time we’ll still be fine. Without feature parity if any drive would go out all of our data will be lost.
So knowing all that let’s examine the viability of the most popular buying option. The 2 bay NAS. In my opinion a NAS with 2 bays is a complete waste of money.
For starters the hardware is usually extremely underpowered. So forget about extra functionalities like running an OS, or video decoding, expansion ports of fast ethernet ports.
But even if those things wouldn’t be an issue for you, there’s still the issue of drive space. If we use data parity which I highly recommend it means that we just have one drive’s worth of space. Which is as good as just buying a single drive and calling it done. That’s why I recommend going for 4 drive bays or more.
Every company has helpful calculators on their website that will let you know how much usable space is left depending on your RAID setup of choice. Definitely experiment with them and find the solution that best fits your needs. What you need to know is that RAID 6 or SHR2 can handle 2 drives failing at the same time and RAID 1 or SHR is enough for a single disk failure. I’m using SHR2 which is Synology’s RAID 6 setup.
If you’re planning to get an 8 bay system and use only 4 drives I would still suggest going for 2 drive redundancy. Yes 2 drive redundancy for 4 drives is an overkill but in this case we’re not doing it for safety concerns. We just want to save time in the future. Once you start adding more drives in to the array you will want to switch to 2 drive redundancy. And doing that later on is going to take a really really long time. I’m talking multiple days to weeks, depending on the amount of data on the drives and how much resources you devote to the task. So better take the hit at the beginning, when there’s not any data on the drives, rather than having to deal with long conversion times in the future.
Warning!
There’s quite a few elements you will need in order to get things going so it’s going to be overwhelming at first. But keep in mind. You’ll only have to do this once!
That’s the actual device hardware. My suggestion is to go with the Synology 1821+. It’s an 8 bay unit so you’ll have plenty of room to grow. If you want to go for a smaller model you can go with the DS1621+.
Personally I wouldn’t go lower than 6 bays but if you absolutely want a lower unit you can for the DS923+
You need an interface between your router and your computer that can deliver data at fast speeds. So what you need here is a 10Gbps switch. I’m using a Mikrotik switch because it has no fan so it’s silent, but any other 10Gbps switch will do. I’m having trouble finding the exact model so here’s another alternative. Make sure though you do some research before you buy
Unfortunately most Synology systems don’t have 10Gbps connections by default so you need to get a card for it.
My system has 2 10Gbps connections but they also have a version with just one. You can either go for the official Synology product or go for a cheaper third party option. Up to you!
Yes the list is never ending! This transceiver will basically allow you to connect a regular ethernet cable to your switch’s SFP connection
These are the ones I’m using.
This cable will be go from the NAS to the switch. Yep, it’s also going to be expensive… and here’s the one I use
For fast 10Gbps speeds you’ll need the appropriate ethernet cables. I’m using Cat7 and this is probably the cheapest of all the accessories you’ll need! 😬
I can’t find the exact cable I got but here’s an alternative
Most NAS come with 4GB of RAM and even though this can be more than enough for 99% of the tasks, I would recommend upgrading to 8GB. Getting the right memory though can be tricky because most devices are picky. Before you buy, make sure to check the compatibility list from your NAS
A NAS is a device that should stay on 24/7 but there’s a lot of things that can happen during the day. Electricity surges, power failures and so and so forth. So we need to make sure that none of that will affect our Network storage. And for that we’ll need a UPS.
Since the NAS is relatively power efficient even a small UPS can work. I use a relatively basic model from APC. Built wise it’s quite cheap but it does the job.
I have the router, network switch, phone, a light and the NAS all hooked up to it. In case of a power failure, this tiny little UPS can power all these components for around 40 minutes straight.
And the best part is that the UPS can talk directly to the NAS. So once a power failure is detected the device can power down safely. We can also setup how long it will take before the NAS will shut down in the preferences.
That way the drives and the data on them will be protected. There are UPSs that don’t have this direct talk to the NAS, so make sure that the UPS you’re planning to buy has that included.
Backups should play an important part in your day to day workflow. Just having them on the NAS is not enough. You need to make sure that your data also lives somewhere else. So if something goes wrong nothing’s lost. I personally use two options.
Backups on external hard drives and maybe on the cloud. The good thing about it is that both are very easy to setup.
In Synology’s case both options are handled through an application called Hyper Backup. The app is very flexible and it even allows for fancier things, like backing up on another NAS
I have an external case permanently connected to the Synology which allows me to switch between different hard drives. Once I put the drive on the external case I can start the backup process. And when that’s done the drive will be ejected automatically. So I can switch to another one and continue with the rest of the files. I cannot fit everything in to one drive and that’s why I’m using multiple disks.
The process for backing up to the cloud is relatively similar. We create a task for it, choose the files we want backed up, and that’s about it. The NAS will initiate the process based on the schedule we’ve already defined. I would suggest being a little bit more selective with your data in this scenario. Uploading 40TB of data can be time consuming and expensive. So for cloud backups pick only the absolutely most essential data.
But cost is not as crazy as you might imagine. I’m using backblaze’s B2 storage and it’s very affordable. For example storing 3TB of data sets you back approximately 168 euros per year. Which is very competitive.
I know that all these things might be overwhelming but hopefully now that you have a better idea of where to look, and what to search for, the process is going to be a little bit less intimidating. Happy shopping!