we've watched a lot of videos trying to understand the best NAS setup for our needs. This one hit the spot and finally helped us make a decision! Thank you
I bought the Synology DS920+ in Nov 2020 and I have been happy ever since. I maxed out the 2 NVME ports to 1TB each, 8GB RAM, 40TB (29TB actual storage). It's about 45% full as of today. I do photoshop, lightroom, and video editing. I'm just now adding old home videos (Betamax, VHS, Hi8, & 8mm movies) for editing and digital storage. After watching your video, I'm glad to know I made the right choice. Will also be starting a video ancestry series with old B&W photos and 4K interviews with my parents to learn more about our family history and save it for my kids and future grandchildren to learn from. I LOVE my Synology NAS.
The first half of your comment (including the 920+) was pretty much exactly what I was about to comment 😆. Bought mine early before seeing this video. Wish I saw this earlier. But glad I went with what I got ☺️
This is the 3rd video on NAS I watched and the most detailed. I know exactly why I need it and what to get. Funny part is the other 2 are bigger creators. The way you explained everything was perfect!
Personally, if I was going to have multiple people editing from one NAS then I would have a dedicated NAS of strictly SSDs with m.2 caching. ... more than 2 simultaneous people I probably would be looking at teamed 25 GbE .. 10 user's wow then 40 GbE and I'd start looking at TrueNAS or similar and other m.2 / U.2 enterprise SSD solutions. I'd have separate NAS's for workflow and storage along with off-premises. Mirroring.
7:30 - exactly what I wanted to know. Other videos almost scared me off buying a NAS as they gave the impression I wouldn't be able to edit 4k footage from a NAS with 1GbE.
It depends on the type of 4K you shoot. 1GbE is about 125MB/s. Up to five 4K 10bit422 IPB compression clips stacked on a single timeline should be fine, but lower the compression (all-intra, compressed RAW), the less headroom you have.
I have the 1621+. 3x12TB drives. Waited a couple of months and then bought a 16Gb ram upgrade. Waited another 2 months and got the 10Gbe network card. Ease of upgrading is great and you don’t have to pay for everything at the start. Can upgrade in phases.
The RAM definitely helped. I haven’t been able to fully utilize the 10Gb yet. When I move in July, I will then be using 10Gb in my office for the iMac and Synology and believe it will be pretty fast.
Once you get on that 10GbE you’ll really notice the difference. Had a team of 10 editors set up recently on iMac Pro’s connected to a Synology rack station through 10G 👌
7:24 and if you do not have a great network. you can use your internal SSD and use the fast memory locally. connect to the nas using the synology drive client (google drive like) and it will stream sync all your edits to the drive.
3:00 Also what i do is look at the life of the drives and calculate 2 /3 rds and that is when i will need to replace them . but is i pass the 75% of use storage its time to upgrade and replace the system . this way the drives are less likly to fail in the first place. and will protect your data. proper external backup plans are also great.
Since you have editing experience, would you consider doing a video on best practices for content creators using a Syno NAS? From creating content to storage, editing, sharing, archiving, etc.? I am a newbie, btw. I will check to see if you already have a video on this .... Update: Okay, I just checked your video channel and it looks like you have videos that may answer my questions. I will check them out. Subscribed!
Thanks jfiosi, glad to hear you’ve got the IronWolf drives too! I don’t have a video specific to that (though that’s a good idea!) but as you’ve seen I have videos on various parts of it.
Also there is a way to setup 2 in separate locations and share a USB attached drive between them with hot sync(synology on demand). it will use a google stream style setup so you can set up clones with the team with two networks. Also with any Current synology you now have a FREE VPN yes its to your own network but you can have your connection setup with pie-hole all within the synology system.
i have x2 - 8 Bay 1819+ systems and one spare system for overload. NOTE if you upgrade old systems cant be used for recover but you can have them ready for over flow.
Such a great video, spot On Info...I just bought ..OWC Thunderbolt 3 10gig Ethernet Adapter...Synology DS1621XS +6 bay...Six of the Seagate iron wolf Nas drives....Mikro Tik 5 port 10 gig switch . I am hoping it is not too difficult to set up......I never had a NAS before...too many hard drives....Thanks so much!!!!!
Great purchases! The 10G is going to change your user’s editing experience so much! Synology’ a easy to get started with, you’ll be flying in no time. Glad I could help!
Totally agree Tobias. I’ve got a post all about QNAPs for video editing here: www.digiprotips.com/which-qnap-is-the-best-nas-for-video-editing/ This video was for Synology’s but you do get more hardware and tech specs for your money with QNAPs. Synology is just a bit easier for first time users to get onboard with in my opinion.
I'm currently using a DS920+ with 32TB of usable space. I'm running out of space though and want more space and the 10GBe connection. The DS1622+ is attractive to me because it can be upgraded to 32GB ram and accept 2 of the DX517 expansion units.
You're not the first person to suggest the 10Gb ethernet connection. #1 does every ISP provide that capability for that upgrade? #2 My current router does not seem to have any 10Gb ports, so I guess I'd need to replace that with one that does.(preferably a synology router so it's compatable with my NAS.
I'm a photographer when I'm not at my full-time day job. I have been using 5-bay Drobo for the past 15+ years and have slept well at night knowing that I can have up to 2 disk failures without data loss. Now that Drobo has filed for bankruptcy, their future is uncertain and I'm looking at another storage option. I edit only photos. I haven't gotten into video yet & most likely won't. I've looked at Synology but what completely shocked me is that with Raid 5, IF I were to have a simultaneous 2 drive failure, all my data is lost forever. Is that true? Does Raid 10 allow for 2 simultaneous drive failures? Another question about NAS. My home workstation is upstairs in my bedroom and have Google Nest WIFI router at my desktop (where my modem & computer are) AND have an extra Google "point" in my den and on my main floor. Can the NAS be placed in the den to avoid the noise of the unit and still be able to access it fast on my computer upstairs? Thank you.
RAID is not about protecting data. It is about data availability. Have access to your data all the time. If disk drops you still have access. Protecting your data is backup. So you still need to backup your RAID.
I suppose I still possess a knowledge gap as to how to connect the NAS to my existing home office. For example, do I connect the NAS directly to my cable modem and then connect to it via wifi, which is how my workstation is connected to the internet, or must I be hardwired via network card/cat45 cable from my workstation into my cable modem? If someone could chime in... Thanks!
Hi Declan, depending on the NAS you have you should connect it to either a Gigabit or 10Gigabit Desktop Network Switch. The network switch is the interface between your router and everything that is hard wired to the internet. So for example, you connect a 5 port switch to your router. You then connect your NAS and two PC’s to 3 of the 4 remaining ports on the switch. That means your NAS and PC’s are connected to the internet but that also your PC’s are connected to your NAS through the switch as well. This article may help you visualise it a bit better: www.digiprotips.com/two-storage-solutions-to-optimize-your-growing-post-production-team/
Hi, i have a question :) When i go for the ds720, i need to connect the nas to my router or imac/laptop? My router is in the garage, and my living room with the imac/laptop is in lvl1, so no cable connection (we use wifi). What is happening when iam traveling, with my laptop. I need to edit my footage on my laptop? ty!
Hey Daniel, I’m afraid the answer is yes, you need to connect via ethernet if you intend to edit from the NAS. Your Synology connects to the router or switch and then your computers are Ethernet connected to that same router/switch as well. When you travel, the easiest thing to do is use the personal cloud app from Synology to automatically sync OR you can remote access your server via a web browser using the ‘Quick Connect’ feature. But definitely need Ethernet to edit with, WiFi isn’t fast enough or stable enough I’m afraid.
Hi there sorry for the message, this is a great video and I'm happy to make the right choice for my workflow. I have just a question. What is the best sharing standard I can use? NFS, SMB, or what? I'm a Mac user and I need to work on Adobe Suite of Final Cut. Usually, I'm the only user. Thanks and I wish you all the best.
I have three big 14 TB external drives that are all mirrored, one I keep offsite and back up monthly, my two on site drives are synced daily. If I switched to a NAS I would need three of them for a true backup. If your house burns down, earthquake, hurricane, flood, theft... you will lose everything on your NAS. I saw one RUclipsr who would produce a video, upload it to RUclips and then delete all of his files. No massive storage needed! 🤣 I edit my videos on an internal SSD drive. I'm still not sold on getting a NAS..
wow bro this blowns my mind, let me know if i understood: u are telling me that i could edit 4k video in my two computers with the videos i have in the synology 720+? cuz i thought that u need the 1xxx versions for that but if i can save that money buying the 720+ it will be great! can u answer to my comment cuz im not sure if i understood correctly that point and this is the first nas i will buy and it will be principally to edit video from my two computers in the same network in my little office. thanks
Hey Rhaul2, if you’re editing from 2 PCs over a gigabit connection to the NAS then yeah, you should be able to do 4K in real-time. There’s a table on my article here: www.digiprotips.com/which-is-the-best-synology-nas-for-improving-your-video-editing-storage-workflow/ That shows 4K footage needs between 230-300Mb/s for bandwidth, so two computers over 1000Mb/s is still sufficient. You’ll want some fast disks in there and/or an SSD cache to ensure good speeds in the NAS too.
Great video... I am new to NAS but next year looking to get the new Imac 27 which will have a 10gb ethernet port... Could I plug the NAS straight into it or would I still need to go over the network? Cheers
Hey Clive, thank you! If you are looking to connect to your NAS directly you might actually be better off looking at QNAP NASs which have Thunderbolt connectivity: www.digiprotips.com/which-qnap-is-the-best-nas-for-video-editing/ otherwise you would still need a network switch to connect via 10G Ethernet
I've got the 1618+ and always thought it was too slow to edit with via the gigabit connection... but just tried it again with 4k, via gigabit and it might just work! Right now it's a raid 5 with some Western Digital NAS drives, getting just over 100 MB/second. Can I add SSD cache to this one? Can I do the dual gig thing? No clue how! At the moment it's in a close with 2 cat 5e connections available, but one is for the interent. Since I don't have Cat6 running there I'm guessing the 10gig card wouldn' t help? What the most efficent way to get it faster? Thanks for a great video!
Great Video, thinking about getting the DS920 I do video production and want to start making documentaries. my goal is to hire an editor and personally being able to edit from it when I travel, I am still trying to wrap my head around if that's possible, with the DS920
Hey Noah, it depends how much gear you take with you travelling and how you packed it. You wouldn’t really want one of these rattling around in the cargo hold and they’re not the lightest of weights either. For editing from at home/office/studio it’s perfect but for travelling I’d say you are probably better off using an external and maybe using the Synology Drive cloud sync to keep all your media on the NAS back at home/studio as well as on the external drive so that you can link everything back up really quickly to edit.
Great video and I used one of your affiliate links. Question: two ethernet ports but you said four people can edit at one time, I'm assuming use an ethernet splitter?
Awesome! Thanks for the link use too! So you’ll connect to the NAS through a desktop network switch (multiple Ethernet ports). Both your computers and the NAS connect to the switch and then you connect the switch to your router so that everything has internet access. The two Ethernet ports on the NAS allow you to ‘bond’ the ports and connect both to the switch which will share the bandwidth of both ports as if it were one IP address. Essentially, instead of 4 editors sharing one 1Gbps connection they will be sharing two 1Gbps connections. Hope that helps?
Looking into getting a NAS setup like this. I'm running a ProBox 8 bay enclosure now and have multiple HDDs installed. I do graphics, photography, and video work. I have my drives set up as follows: Jobs & Jobs Backup, Video & Video Backup, and some other drives set up the same way. I use GoodSync to copy new files to the backup drives instantly. Each drive is also backed up to Back Blaze online. I'd like to get started with the Synology 8 bay unit and use my same drives set up the same way, and so my backup to Back Blaze stays the same. I don't want to have to re-upload 10TB of stuff which takes a few months to do. I'd also like to edit videos from my laptop accessing the video files from the NAS. Would I be able to accomplish this?
Hi mate.. Great tutorial about synology.. Just double checking about that I can start w only 2 hard drive and add more hard drives later on whether I got a 4, 5 or 6 bay synology , can't I??? I'm about to buy synology ds920+ .. still I can start off w 2 hard drives, can't I??? I'm own my photography and videography real estate business, at this stage just myself so only me be using it.. So I hv to invest in synology NAS , which one would you suggest to me between ds1520+ (5bay) and ds920+ ( 4 bays) in terms speed, maximise RAM and considering i can start off with only 2 hard drives Regards from Sydney
Hey! Good question, the answer unfortunately isn’t as simple as simply adding in more drives (unless you’re not going to be using RAID for failure tolerance). With only two drives you wouldn’t be able to set the NAS up in RAID 5 or 6, which are the RAID types that allow expansion of the storage pool without losing or replacing data. You only need 3 drives to start a RAID 5 pool. I’d choose 3 lower capacity drives rather than two higher capacity drives so that you can do that. That way, later on your can add more drives to your RAID storage pool, expanding the capacity easily. Hope that helps?
@@DigiProTips yes it does mate.. much appreciated it, so leys sai I can buy 3 of 8tb to start off , what do you think?? And buy later on 1 or 2 more depending which one i bought.. ds920+ or ds1520+???
If your budget can stretch to it then the 1520+ would give you more RAM and an extra bay for $150 more. But the DS920+ is a great workhorse of a NAS also: www.digiprotips.com/is-the-synology-ds920-nas-good-for-a-small-video-editing-team/
Would I be able to connect this to my PC directly without using a network? The direct lan ports mentioned? Lan from my PC to the synology. BTW I feel like this video was made just for me. It has my name written all over it. 😂
Hey Andy H. Tu, if you want to connect directly to the NAS you’d actually be much better looking at a Thunderbolt connected NAS from QNAP: www.digiprotips.com/which-qnap-is-the-best-nas-for-video-editing/ You can’t connect direct via Ethernet but to be honest, going through a desktop switch would have hardly any effect of speed if you ensure the networking equipment has more than enough bandwidth for the level of speeds your NAS can output. For example, if you’re looking at 10G out from the NAS then you wouldn’t want a gigabit network set up as you wouldn’t get that full 10G between the NAS and your PC. Directly attached NASs via Thunderbolt could a good alternative if you would rather not worry about the networking side of things though.
@@DigiProTips hmm interesting. So would usb 3.2 be too slow for editing off the nas ? I use of so I'm not sure I have the options for thunderbolt yet. I'll have to see if that's an option.
@@DigiProTips I'm so confused with all this networking stuff right now and NAS lol. So Ive been told that a mechanical drive is too slow and would bottleneck on a 10gbs network. I mentioned isnt that what the RAM, CPU and SSD caching is for? To bring the speed up over 200-300 mb transfer? Supposedly a usb2.0 on SSD would be be fast enough, but based on my editing experience I would disagree as it always lagged and files are unscrubbable with a 4k 60fps footage. If a 10gbs is required for NAS video editing workflow, then doesnt that mean the data we're transfering should be equally or close to being that high as well? Is there more to it than the actual transfer speed that I am not understanding? How much data are we transfering or required to transfer when editing sometthing like a 4k60fps? Do you have a deep explanation for these?
@@AndyHTu it’s difficult to explain here (I have consulting sessions you can book at www.digiprotips.com if you’d prefer) but you need between 200-300Mb/s bandwidth for editing 4K footage in real-time. If just one user is accessing the NAS on a gigabit network then you wouldn’t need 10G. I have more info here: www.digiprotips.com/why-you-need-10-gig-switches-when-working-with-shared-storage-for-video-editing/ IronWolf Pro drives can get up to speeds of 1GB/s so that’s not an issue and as you state, with SSD caching and spec’d out CPU and RAM you shouldn’t have an issue. Maybe look at hiring a NAS first before buying to see if it suits your needs? Hope that helps?
great information, thank you. I did already some research before I found your video and on my shopping list is the Synology DS1821 +. What do you think about this one? By the way the price per TB for a 16TB drive 38.44 Euro compared to 25.83€uro for a 14TB drive. But it seems to be only here in France to crazy expensive.
Hey Thomas, glad you liked the video. Great that you’re looking at going down the NAS editing route too. Will it just be you editing from the NAS or multiple editors? Reason I ask is that the DS1812+ only has two gigabit LAN ports, so if you want to edit 4K with multiple editors you’re going to struggle. The DS1812+ is one of the older Synology models so I’d definitely suggest putting more RAM in it if you get it. You’ll want to do that even if it’s just you editing. I’d really recommend the DS920+ in the DS1812+’s place (link in description).
@@DigiProTips thank you very much for your answer. Right now, it's only me editing but soon it will be also my wife. Maybe I should go with the Synology DS2419+ because otherwise it get too small too soon. I have now 4drives with 4TB and one with 8TB in my PC and it's getting filled up. Do I need to fill the NAS with 12 dives immediately or can I start with 6 or 8 and fill it up later on?
Did you mean to write DS1812+? Because he said DS1821+ Asking Because I just bought the latter (Well the DS1621+ which is the same, just 2 less bays... surprised you didn’t mention this or the XS+) for video editing as well, but now I’m second guessing. It’ll be just one editor 90% of the time probably. I figure if I can add enough memory and NVMe cache, it should be perform well. Not positive... Planning SHR or SHR 2, but also unsure if the features are worth a small performance hit. Have 4x 18TB drives, but could prob buy 2 more for normal RAID... not sure if the more expensive DS1621xs+ is worth it. Either one will need NVMe and memory (plus 10GBe for the DS1621+).
Hi thanks for this video been super helpful. In regards for editing videos, would the DS420+ still work for editing it is it not strong enough? Thanks!
Hey Jon, glad you found the video helpful! The DS420+ is definitely capable but I’d recommend investing in boosting the hardware. With an Intel Celeron CPU and only 2GB of RAM it may struggle with more than a couple of users. Max out the RAM to 6GB (2GB+4GB cards) and use the M.2 SSD slots for as much SSD storage as you can afford to gain the benefit of SSD caching. With those tweaks you’ll be fine. Bear in mind you’ve only got two Gigiabit LAN ports so if you have anywhere above 4 users you’ll want to start looking at a NAS with 10GbE LAN capacity.
can this be accessed thought the internet, if im on a trip and still need to edit? or if i have someone who i hire to edit something and they live in another state, would this work also?
It can! There are two methods, you can connect through an internet browser to upload and download files or you can use Synology Drive, which is a personal cloud service that will sync specific folders with users computers. So you or your editor can have an up-to-date Rushes folder with all the mate to you shoot on your trip and then when you get back the folder is exactly as you were using it on your trip, so you can get editing straight away and there’s no need to ingest footage again.
@@DigiProTips awesome! Thank You very much.. should I get the 4 bay plus series? Will that work and can you add to that one just as well? I'm thinking 4 bay because of price for now.
I’d say if you are looking to have scalability for future expansion then the DS920+ (link in description) is a great 4 bay option that gives you flexibility and throughput in terms of bandwidth (4xgigabit LAN ports). You don’t need to fill all 4 bays if you don’t need to but if you outgrow that you always have the option of the Synology Expansion unit.
we've watched a lot of videos trying to understand the best NAS setup for our needs. This one hit the spot and finally helped us make a decision! Thank you
Thanks for the great feedback, appreciate it!
I bought the Synology DS920+ in Nov 2020 and I have been happy ever since. I maxed out the 2 NVME ports to 1TB each, 8GB RAM, 40TB (29TB actual storage). It's about 45% full as of today. I do photoshop, lightroom, and video editing. I'm just now adding old home videos (Betamax, VHS, Hi8, & 8mm movies) for editing and digital storage.
After watching your video, I'm glad to know I made the right choice. Will also be starting a video ancestry series with old B&W photos and 4K interviews with my parents to learn more about our family history and save it for my kids and future grandchildren to learn from. I LOVE my Synology NAS.
This is a fantastic comment, thank you! I’m glad you’re having a great experience with it.
If you haven't already, I'd consider a backup for the NAS, too. Perhaps offsite or cloud.
The first half of your comment (including the 920+) was pretty much exactly what I was about to comment 😆.
Bought mine early before seeing this video. Wish I saw this earlier. But glad I went with what I got ☺️
Omg thanks so much this is the best video I’ve seen so far! I’ve watched so many videos on this system and I swear no one was speaking English 😫
Thank you so much for the great comment Sundai Love! Glad you found it helpful!
This is the 3rd video on NAS I watched and the most detailed. I know exactly why I need it and what to get. Funny part is the other 2 are bigger creators. The way you explained everything was perfect!
Thanks for that comment, really appreciate it!
Going with QNAP because I want ZFS, but your viewpoint is an interesting spin with Synology.
Personally, if I was going to have multiple people editing from one NAS then I would have a dedicated NAS of strictly SSDs with m.2 caching. ... more than 2 simultaneous people I probably would be looking at teamed 25 GbE .. 10 user's wow then 40 GbE and I'd start looking at TrueNAS or similar and other m.2 / U.2 enterprise SSD solutions. I'd have separate NAS's for workflow and storage along with off-premises. Mirroring.
@@DJaquithFL what is ZFS?
So far the best video about NAS.
Cheers Vadim!
Good info. My synology 5 bay comes tomorrow.
🙌
7:30 - exactly what I wanted to know. Other videos almost scared me off buying a NAS as they gave the impression I wouldn't be able to edit 4k footage from a NAS with 1GbE.
It depends on the type of 4K you shoot. 1GbE is about 125MB/s. Up to five 4K 10bit422 IPB compression clips stacked on a single timeline should be fine, but lower the compression (all-intra, compressed RAW), the less headroom you have.
Seriously? This is the best overview of NAS that I hoped to find today. THANK YOU!!
Thank you. This confirms a lot of my questions for the ds920+ I bought for vfx composting and photography.
I think I was going overkill right out of the gate for my needs, so the 2 bay looks right for me. Appreciate the video.
Excellent video. Got the Seagate IronWolf series. Let's see how they do longterm. Good advice on the bandwidth bonding and 10 Gb option. Thanks!
I have the 1621+. 3x12TB drives. Waited a couple of months and then bought a 16Gb ram upgrade. Waited another 2 months and got the 10Gbe network card. Ease of upgrading is great and you don’t have to pay for everything at the start. Can upgrade in phases.
⬆️ exactly this! Have you found the RAM and network card upgrades have improved performance significantly?
The RAM definitely helped. I haven’t been able to fully utilize the 10Gb yet. When I move in July, I will then be using 10Gb in my office for the iMac and Synology and believe it will be pretty fast.
Once you get on that 10GbE you’ll really notice the difference. Had a team of 10 editors set up recently on iMac Pro’s connected to a Synology rack station through 10G 👌
How did you do with your Raid confirmation?
to use 10 G, don't forget to use 10g port or 10g adapter on the Mac !
7:24 and if you do not have a great network. you can use your internal SSD and use the fast memory locally. connect to the nas using the synology drive client (google drive like) and it will stream sync all your edits to the drive.
Thank you for the information. thinking of 2 bay at this time
You’re welcome J Reve!
6:00 Manual subtitle is wrong, Please fix that.
3:00 Also what i do is look at the life of the drives and calculate 2 /3 rds and that is when i will need to replace them . but is i pass the 75% of use storage its time to upgrade and replace the system . this way the drives are less likly to fail in the first place. and will protect your data. proper external backup plans are also great.
Super useful! Thanks!
Thanks for the info!!!!
Since you have editing experience, would you consider doing a video on best practices for content creators using a Syno NAS? From creating content to storage, editing, sharing, archiving, etc.? I am a newbie, btw. I will check to see if you already have a video on this .... Update: Okay, I just checked your video channel and it looks like you have videos that may answer my questions. I will check them out. Subscribed!
Thanks jfiosi, glad to hear you’ve got the IronWolf drives too!
I don’t have a video specific to that (though that’s a good idea!) but as you’ve seen I have videos on various parts of it.
Great tutorial! Could I use the Samsung 980 M.2 NVMe SSD drives with the 720+?
Thank you so much great information!!! Looking into a 4 bay now.
You’re welcome Stixx Vision
Also there is a way to setup 2 in separate locations and share a USB attached drive between them with hot sync(synology on demand). it will use a google stream style setup so you can set up clones with the team with two networks. Also with any Current synology you now have a FREE VPN yes its to your own network but you can have your connection setup with pie-hole all within the synology system.
i have x2 - 8 Bay 1819+ systems and one spare system for overload. NOTE if you upgrade old systems cant be used for recover but you can have them ready for over flow.
Such a great video, spot On Info...I just bought ..OWC Thunderbolt 3 10gig Ethernet Adapter...Synology DS1621XS +6 bay...Six of the Seagate iron wolf Nas drives....Mikro Tik 5 port 10 gig switch . I am hoping it is not too difficult to set up......I never had a NAS before...too many hard drives....Thanks so much!!!!!
Great purchases! The 10G is going to change your user’s editing experience so much!
Synology’ a easy to get started with, you’ll be flying in no time.
Glad I could help!
@@DigiProTips QNAP's TS-932PX comes with dual 10GBe SFP+ and dual 2.5GBe RJ45 ports, has 9 bays total and costs WAY less.
Totally agree Tobias. I’ve got a post all about QNAPs for video editing here: www.digiprotips.com/which-qnap-is-the-best-nas-for-video-editing/
This video was for Synology’s but you do get more hardware and tech specs for your money with QNAPs. Synology is just a bit easier for first time users to get onboard with in my opinion.
I prefer WD reds I've never had one fell but I have had Seagate drives fell, great video by the way.
Thanks for the comment, same here never had a bad WD
I'm currently using a DS920+ with 32TB of usable space. I'm running out of space though and want more space and the 10GBe connection. The DS1622+ is attractive to me because it can be upgraded to 32GB ram and accept 2 of the DX517 expansion units.
You're not the first person to suggest the 10Gb ethernet connection. #1 does every ISP provide that capability for that upgrade? #2 My current router does not seem to have any 10Gb ports, so I guess I'd need to replace that with one that does.(preferably a synology router so it's compatable with my NAS.
Silly question. The Synology NAS would work just as well on PC as on Mac, correct? Even the 10Gb port for 4K footage?
I'm a photographer when I'm not at my full-time day job. I have been using 5-bay Drobo for the past 15+ years and have slept well at night knowing that I can have up to 2 disk failures without data loss. Now that Drobo has filed for bankruptcy, their future is uncertain and I'm looking at another storage option. I edit only photos. I haven't gotten into video yet & most likely won't.
I've looked at Synology but what completely shocked me is that with Raid 5, IF I were to have a simultaneous 2 drive failure, all my data is lost forever. Is that true? Does Raid 10 allow for 2 simultaneous drive failures? Another question about NAS. My home workstation is upstairs in my bedroom and have Google Nest WIFI router at my desktop (where my modem & computer are) AND have an extra Google "point" in my den and on my main floor. Can the NAS be placed in the den to avoid the noise of the unit and still be able to access it fast on my computer upstairs? Thank you.
RAID is not about protecting data. It is about data availability. Have access to your data all the time. If disk drops you still have access. Protecting your data is backup. So you still need to backup your RAID.
Then what’s the points of RAID1?
@@ds617 Availability. If one disk dies you can still use the NAS. You can run your compay.
What if I put 2 8tb and 2 16tb hdds in a ds930+? Will it work?
QNAP TVs 672XT THUNDERBOLT You can edit direct from the NAS
I suppose I still possess a knowledge gap as to how to connect the NAS to my existing home office. For example, do I connect the NAS directly to my cable modem and then connect to it via wifi, which is how my workstation is connected to the internet, or must I be hardwired via network card/cat45 cable from my workstation into my cable modem? If someone could chime in... Thanks!
Hi Declan, depending on the NAS you have you should connect it to either a Gigabit or 10Gigabit Desktop Network Switch. The network switch is the interface between your router and everything that is hard wired to the internet.
So for example, you connect a 5 port switch to your router. You then connect your NAS and two PC’s to 3 of the 4 remaining ports on the switch. That means your NAS and PC’s are connected to the internet but that also your PC’s are connected to your NAS through the switch as well.
This article may help you visualise it a bit better: www.digiprotips.com/two-storage-solutions-to-optimize-your-growing-post-production-team/
Hi, i have a question :) When i go for the ds720, i need to connect the nas to my router or imac/laptop? My router is in the garage, and my living room with the imac/laptop is in lvl1, so no cable connection (we use wifi). What is happening when iam traveling, with my laptop. I need to edit my footage on my laptop? ty!
Hey Daniel, I’m afraid the answer is yes, you need to connect via ethernet if you intend to edit from the NAS. Your Synology connects to the router or switch and then your computers are Ethernet connected to that same router/switch as well.
When you travel, the easiest thing to do is use the personal cloud app from Synology to automatically sync OR you can remote access your server via a web browser using the ‘Quick Connect’ feature. But definitely need Ethernet to edit with, WiFi isn’t fast enough or stable enough I’m afraid.
Hi there sorry for the message, this is a great video and I'm happy to make the right choice for my workflow. I have just a question. What is the best sharing standard I can use? NFS, SMB, or what? I'm a Mac user and I need to work on Adobe Suite of Final Cut. Usually, I'm the only user. Thanks and I wish you all the best.
I have three big 14 TB external drives that are all mirrored, one I keep offsite and back up monthly, my two on site drives are synced daily. If I switched to a NAS I would need three of them for a true backup. If your house burns down, earthquake, hurricane, flood, theft... you will lose everything on your NAS. I saw one RUclipsr who would produce a video, upload it to RUclips and then delete all of his files. No massive storage needed! 🤣 I edit my videos on an internal SSD drive. I'm still not sold on getting a NAS..
Everyone has their preference! I’d say if you’re working in a team then the benefits of fast shared storage of a NAS are instant though.
wow bro this blowns my mind, let me know if i understood: u are telling me that i could edit 4k video in my two computers with the videos i have in the synology 720+? cuz i thought that u need the 1xxx versions for that but if i can save that money buying the 720+ it will be great! can u answer to my comment cuz im not sure if i understood correctly that point and this is the first nas i will buy and it will be principally to edit video from my two computers in the same network in my little office. thanks
Hey Rhaul2, if you’re editing from 2 PCs over a gigabit connection to the NAS then yeah, you should be able to do 4K in real-time. There’s a table on my article here:
www.digiprotips.com/which-is-the-best-synology-nas-for-improving-your-video-editing-storage-workflow/
That shows 4K footage needs between 230-300Mb/s for bandwidth, so two computers over 1000Mb/s is still sufficient. You’ll want some fast disks in there and/or an SSD cache to ensure good speeds in the NAS too.
Great video... I am new to NAS but next year looking to get the new Imac 27 which will have a 10gb ethernet port... Could I plug the NAS straight into it or would I still need to go over the network? Cheers
Hey Clive, thank you! If you are looking to connect to your NAS directly you might actually be better off looking at QNAP NASs which have Thunderbolt connectivity: www.digiprotips.com/which-qnap-is-the-best-nas-for-video-editing/ otherwise you would still need a network switch to connect via 10G Ethernet
i have ds218 2bay can i add a 4 bay to my configuration ?
Great video! Too bad your subtitles don't' sync up with the video.
hello, my speedtest says that my download speed is 120 mb/s. Is it enough to 4k editing?
I've got the 1618+ and always thought it was too slow to edit with via the gigabit connection... but just tried it again with 4k, via gigabit and it might just work! Right now it's a raid 5 with some Western Digital NAS drives, getting just over 100 MB/second. Can I add SSD cache to this one? Can I do the dual gig thing? No clue how! At the moment it's in a close with 2 cat 5e connections available, but one is for the interent. Since I don't have Cat6 running there I'm guessing the 10gig card wouldn' t help? What the most efficent way to get it faster? Thanks for a great video!
Great Video, thinking about getting the DS920 I do video production and want to start making documentaries. my goal is to hire an editor and personally being able to edit from it when I travel, I am still trying to wrap my head around if that's possible, with the DS920
Hey Noah, it depends how much gear you take with you travelling and how you packed it. You wouldn’t really want one of these rattling around in the cargo hold and they’re not the lightest of weights either.
For editing from at home/office/studio it’s perfect but for travelling I’d say you are probably better off using an external and maybe using the Synology Drive cloud sync to keep all your media on the NAS back at home/studio as well as on the external drive so that you can link everything back up really quickly to edit.
Great video and I used one of your affiliate links. Question: two ethernet ports but you said four people can edit at one time, I'm assuming use an ethernet splitter?
Awesome! Thanks for the link use too! So you’ll connect to the NAS through a desktop network switch (multiple Ethernet ports). Both your computers and the NAS connect to the switch and then you connect the switch to your router so that everything has internet access. The two Ethernet ports on the NAS allow you to ‘bond’ the ports and connect both to the switch which will share the bandwidth of both ports as if it were one IP address. Essentially, instead of 4 editors sharing one 1Gbps connection they will be sharing two 1Gbps connections. Hope that helps?
Looking into getting a NAS setup like this. I'm running a ProBox 8 bay enclosure now and have multiple HDDs installed. I do graphics, photography, and video work. I have my drives set up as follows: Jobs & Jobs Backup, Video & Video Backup, and some other drives set up the same way. I use GoodSync to copy new files to the backup drives instantly. Each drive is also backed up to Back Blaze online.
I'd like to get started with the Synology 8 bay unit and use my same drives set up the same way, and so my backup to Back Blaze stays the same. I don't want to have to re-upload 10TB of stuff which takes a few months to do. I'd also like to edit videos from my laptop accessing the video files from the NAS.
Would I be able to accomplish this?
Hi mate..
Great tutorial about synology..
Just double checking about that I can start w only 2 hard drive and add more hard drives later on whether I got a 4, 5 or 6 bay synology , can't I???
I'm about to buy synology ds920+ .. still I can start off w 2 hard drives, can't I???
I'm own my photography and videography real estate business, at this stage just myself so only me be using it..
So I hv to invest in synology NAS , which one would you suggest to me between ds1520+ (5bay) and ds920+ ( 4 bays) in terms speed, maximise RAM and considering i can start off with only 2 hard drives
Regards from Sydney
Hey! Good question, the answer unfortunately isn’t as simple as simply adding in more drives (unless you’re not going to be using RAID for failure tolerance). With only two drives you wouldn’t be able to set the NAS up in RAID 5 or 6, which are the RAID types that allow expansion of the storage pool without losing or replacing data. You only need 3 drives to start a RAID 5 pool. I’d choose 3 lower capacity drives rather than two higher capacity drives so that you can do that. That way, later on your can add more drives to your RAID storage pool, expanding the capacity easily. Hope that helps?
@@DigiProTips yes it does mate.. much appreciated it, so leys sai I can buy 3 of 8tb to start off , what do you think?? And buy later on 1 or 2 more depending which one i bought.. ds920+ or ds1520+???
If your budget can stretch to it then the 1520+ would give you more RAM and an extra bay for $150 more. But the DS920+ is a great workhorse of a NAS also:
www.digiprotips.com/is-the-synology-ds920-nas-good-for-a-small-video-editing-team/
@@DigiProTips thank you so much mate,, regarding of maximizing the RAM , only 8gb ?? i do hv a kingston 16gb DDR4 2666 from my laptop , can i use???
@@DigiProTips so it seems 1520+ has all the ds920+ features + 1 more bay . isnt it??
I watched another video on how to set up a Synology. Ten minutes into the video they finally told me that a Synology is a NAS. 🤣
🤣
Would I be able to connect this to my PC directly without using a network? The direct lan ports mentioned? Lan from my PC to the synology. BTW I feel like this video was made just for me. It has my name written all over it. 😂
Hey Andy H. Tu, if you want to connect directly to the NAS you’d actually be much better looking at a Thunderbolt connected NAS from QNAP:
www.digiprotips.com/which-qnap-is-the-best-nas-for-video-editing/
You can’t connect direct via Ethernet but to be honest, going through a desktop switch would have hardly any effect of speed if you ensure the networking equipment has more than enough bandwidth for the level of speeds your NAS can output. For example, if you’re looking at 10G out from the NAS then you wouldn’t want a gigabit network set up as you wouldn’t get that full 10G between the NAS and your PC.
Directly attached NASs via Thunderbolt could a good alternative if you would rather not worry about the networking side of things though.
@@DigiProTips hmm interesting. So would usb 3.2 be too slow for editing off the nas ? I use of so I'm not sure I have the options for thunderbolt yet. I'll have to see if that's an option.
@@DigiProTips I'm so confused with all this networking stuff right now and NAS lol.
So Ive been told that a mechanical drive is too slow and would bottleneck on a 10gbs network. I mentioned isnt that what the RAM, CPU and SSD caching is for? To bring the speed up over 200-300 mb transfer? Supposedly a usb2.0 on SSD would be be fast enough, but based on my editing experience I would disagree as it always lagged and files are unscrubbable with a 4k 60fps footage. If a 10gbs is required for NAS video editing workflow, then doesnt that mean the data we're transfering should be equally or close to being that high as well? Is there more to it than the actual transfer speed that I am not understanding? How much data are we transfering or required to transfer when editing sometthing like a 4k60fps? Do you have a deep explanation for these?
@@AndyHTu it’s difficult to explain here (I have consulting sessions you can book at www.digiprotips.com if you’d prefer) but you need between 200-300Mb/s bandwidth for editing 4K footage in real-time. If just one user is accessing the NAS on a gigabit network then you wouldn’t need 10G.
I have more info here: www.digiprotips.com/why-you-need-10-gig-switches-when-working-with-shared-storage-for-video-editing/
IronWolf Pro drives can get up to speeds of 1GB/s so that’s not an issue and as you state, with SSD caching and spec’d out CPU and RAM you shouldn’t have an issue.
Maybe look at hiring a NAS first before buying to see if it suits your needs?
Hope that helps?
great information, thank you. I did already some research before I found your video and on my shopping list is the Synology DS1821 +. What do you think about this one? By the way the price per TB for a 16TB drive 38.44 Euro compared to 25.83€uro for a 14TB drive. But it seems to be only here in France to crazy expensive.
Hey Thomas, glad you liked the video. Great that you’re looking at going down the NAS editing route too.
Will it just be you editing from the NAS or multiple editors? Reason I ask is that the DS1812+ only has two gigabit LAN ports, so if you want to edit 4K with multiple editors you’re going to struggle.
The DS1812+ is one of the older Synology models so I’d definitely suggest putting more RAM in it if you get it. You’ll want to do that even if it’s just you editing.
I’d really recommend the DS920+ in the DS1812+’s place (link in description).
@@DigiProTips thank you very much for your answer. Right now, it's only me editing but soon it will be also my wife. Maybe I should go with the Synology DS2419+ because otherwise it get too small too soon. I have now 4drives with 4TB and one with 8TB in my PC and it's getting filled up. Do I need to fill the NAS with 12 dives immediately or can I start with 6 or 8 and fill it up later on?
Did you mean to write DS1812+? Because he said DS1821+
Asking Because I just bought the latter (Well the DS1621+ which is the same, just 2 less bays... surprised you didn’t mention this or the XS+) for video editing as well, but now I’m second guessing. It’ll be just one editor 90% of the time probably. I figure if I can add enough memory and NVMe cache, it should be perform well. Not positive...
Planning SHR or SHR 2, but also unsure if the features are worth a small performance hit. Have 4x 18TB drives, but could prob buy 2 more for normal RAID... not sure if the more expensive DS1621xs+ is worth it. Either one will need NVMe and memory (plus 10GBe for the DS1621+).
@@mrhobs With most Synology models, the last 2 digits of the model name is the year it was introduced so likely, it was an error.
Hi thanks for this video been super helpful. In regards for editing videos, would the DS420+ still work for editing it is it not strong enough? Thanks!
Hey Jon, glad you found the video helpful! The DS420+ is definitely capable but I’d recommend investing in boosting the hardware. With an Intel Celeron CPU and only 2GB of RAM it may struggle with more than a couple of users. Max out the RAM to 6GB (2GB+4GB cards) and use the M.2 SSD slots for as much SSD storage as you can afford to gain the benefit of SSD caching. With those tweaks you’ll be fine. Bear in mind you’ve only got two Gigiabit LAN ports so if you have anywhere above 4 users you’ll want to start looking at a NAS with 10GbE LAN capacity.
Thanks so much!
can this be accessed thought the internet, if im on a trip and still need to edit? or if i have someone who i hire to edit something and they live in another state, would this work also?
It can! There are two methods, you can connect through an internet browser to upload and download files or you can use Synology Drive, which is a personal cloud service that will sync specific folders with users computers. So you or your editor can have an up-to-date Rushes folder with all the mate to you shoot on your trip and then when you get back the folder is exactly as you were using it on your trip, so you can get editing straight away and there’s no need to ingest footage again.
@@DigiProTips awesome! Thank You very much.. should I get the 4 bay plus series? Will that work and can you add to that one just as well? I'm thinking 4 bay because of price for now.
I’d say if you are looking to have scalability for future expansion then the DS920+ (link in description) is a great 4 bay option that gives you flexibility and throughput in terms of bandwidth (4xgigabit LAN ports). You don’t need to fill all 4 bays if you don’t need to but if you outgrow that you always have the option of the Synology Expansion unit.
@@DigiProTips thank you very much for the information. This sounds great! Thank you.
You can build a TrueNAS at a fraction of the cost and fast superior hardware.
Absolutely agree but for non-tech pros these are a great starting point.
the subtitles are all over the place : (
Synology can't beat Qnap for production nas
Got an article on the very same thing on the website; www.digiprotips.com
Also got a video coming on QNAP soon… 👀
your mic levels are like -20dB.