Primary Storage NAS

BigLue

Hello all,

I see lots of posts on backup solutions, however, I need a NAS for primary storage for use with my new iMac. I plan to primarly edit pictures with lightroom 3 and PSE, so what FW800 connected NAS should I look into? I want to say Drobo because a secondary want is a backup solution, but i hear the speeds are slow for editing. I also here good things about synology.

Should I consider an alternative to FW800 connection and use Gigabit? I would love the Thunderbolt interface, but it is way to expense.

Thoughts on Drobo or other NAS would be appreciated!

DavidTO

I've not heard much good about Drobo. Your new iMac has Thunderbolt? I'm on the cusp of getting a new iMac with the Pegasus Thunderbolt RAID. I've not comparison shopped with the FW RAIDS, since I know that I want Thunderbolt, not some older tech that's on its way out. That'd be your best bet, IMO. But I would find a RAID solution that doesn't rely on some proprietary scheme. Drobo is not reliable enough, is what I've heard from sources I trust.

pathfinder

I had very bad luck with my Drobo, and finally pitched it into the trash, and bought one of these - http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/RAID/Desktop/ and connect it ,via eSata, to my Power Mac. 4 3Tb drives in Raid 5.

But you cannot get eSata from an iMac, darned if I know why not though.

The Mercury Elite Pro does come with FW 800 and 400, USB 2, and eSata connectors so you can use FW 800 with an iMac.

I suspect we will see this drive with Thunderbolt before the year is out - I have no insider knowledge, this is a WAG!

lifeinfocus

Lots of Thunderbolt Components out soon
Lots of Thunderbolt components in the works.

LaCie 2big Thunderbolt drive. This is a dual drive 3.5" enclosure that will be offered in capacities of up to 8TB.

OCZ Thunderbolt SSD

Elgato new Thunderbolt SSD available in February in 120GB and 240GB

Seagate is going to be delivering the first GoFlex docks with Thunderbolt support.

And more - all shown at 2012 CES (Consumer Electronics Show)

eoren1

I don't understand why no one has come out with a RAID array that utilizes a single SSD and multiple HDD to boost read/write performance. The SSD would be like a super fast cache. I'm waiting for that before getting a TB array myself.

cmason

Note there is a difference between NAS and external storage. A NAS is 'network attached storage' so it therefore works over your network. NAS will almost always perform poorly compared to just about any other connection, especially if you are connected over 100 mbps Ethernet (standard).

Lets compare speeds:

USB 2.0 = 480 mbps (megabits per second....8 bits per byte)
FW400 = 400 mbps
FW800 = 800 mbps
Ethernet = 10 mbps
FastEthernet = 100 mbps
GigaEthernet = 1000 mbps
SATA = 1200 mbps
Thunderbolt = 10,000 mbps (10 gbps)

So, assuming you connect over your Mac's built-in ethernet, you are actually SLOWER than over the built in Firewire, unless you have a router + NAS that supports Gigabit (which your iMac can support). If you do not specifically purchase Gigabit Ethernet devices, you probably do not have them.

Thunderbolt is essentially PCI-e (2 or 4 channels) and can support up to 10 gbps or 10x Gigabit ethernet, allowing 10 gbps in each direction (20 total) or 10 gbps symmetrical. Of course, that assumes you have another Thunderbolt device that fully supports Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt is NOT NAS, since there is no Thunderbolt compatible network available.

Obviously, Thunderbolt would be the fastest available, though they are rare and expensive at the moment. However, even with Gigabit Ethernet, the overhead and error checking inherent in network traffic would likely reduce the actual throughput somewhat, so that I suspect that Gigabit Ethernet would not quite provide the identical experience to internal storage on your iMac, but it would be better than FastEthernet or USB. I use Firewire 800 connected directly to a WD Studio drive, and it works fine with Lightroom.

eoren1

Good point Chip. I was referring to directly attached storage which the OP was not asking about in his post. Should have pointed that out.

lifeinfocus

Don't forget USB 3.0
A July 2010 NY Times article does a fairly good job describiing benefits with a few tests.

See http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/testing-real-world-speed-of-usb-3-0-hard-drives/

If you don't have a USB3.0 port on a desktop or laptop, there are devices you can buy to add one.

Phil

lifeinfocus

eoren1 wrote: »

I don't understand why no one has come out with a RAID array that utilizes a single SSD and multiple HDD to boost read/write performance. The SSD would be like a super fast cache. I'm waiting for that before getting a TB array myself.

Crucial announced at CES a small SSD for cache to speed up slower hard drives in a desktop. Not sure how that plays our for an external array.

cmason

lifeinfocus wrote: »

Crucial announced at CES a small SSD for cache to speed up slower hard drives in a desktop. Not sure how that plays our for an external array.

These 'hybrid' hard drives have around for some time, though without alot of OS support. I think Win7 supports them. So far, they don't have big 'SSD' components, something like 4-8GB. I think we are going to see more and more RAM added, though not sure the exact benefit, other than if you need really large storage in the terabyte range, where SSD alone would be impractical.

Frankly, terabyte drives sound more like archive than production drives. Even in big data environments there is lots of caching and RAID such that access times on individual drives doesn't really play that big a factor.

lifeinfocus

cmason wrote: »

These 'hybrid' hard drives have around for some time, though without alot of OS support. I think Win7 supports them. So far, they don't have big 'SSD' components, something like 4-8GB. I think we are going to see more and more RAM added, though not sure the exact benefit, other than if you need really large storage in the terabyte range, where SSD alone would be impractical.

Frankly, terabyte drives sound more like archive than production drives. Even in big data environments there is lots of caching and RAID such that access times on individual drives doesn't really play that big a factor.

The one from Crucial is 50GB.