So this was originally a post completely roasting a particular youtube video that I had been suggested from a fresh FreeTube install, but I realized that basically all of the flubs in the video were just, common NAS misconceptions. All things I think the average "I built my own computer but that's about what I know" kind of person will think. And, frankly, stuff parroted in youtube videos!
So while I only named the video in that draft, I think the idea I want to get across would be better framed without that video involved at all. Or at least, very minimally.
I probably don't need to make this post but I really wanted to get this idea out of my head and draft out of my drafts.
Real quick, if you've seen my posts you probably know what most of this is so I'm going to make a really quick summary.
- ZFS is very important for a NAS and not having it is a major shortcoming
- You can spend a lot less money on the networking if you're smart about it
- Appliance NAS boxes are hilariously overpriced and make the entire concept of a NAS look bad in most people's eyes because of it
These are in no particular order.
All drive arrays are created equal.
Lots of people will just assume that all arrays are more or less equal, unless they're hardware raid. MDADM, a slew of various concoctions from your typical NAS box seller, RaidZ, etc. I really do feel like, for a NAS, the features of ZFS handling the drive arrangement as well as the filesystem are extremely important. Especially the fact that it verifies data on read instead of just assuming it's fine. I've not looked super into it but I've not seen this touted as a feature on the usual synology/qnap junk. (This means you drop a comment if I'm wrong)
The whole point of an array is not just to have all the disks working together, but to put your trust in the array rather than any single disk. It should not matter if a single disk says the wrong thing, or fails a single write, or decides it's had enough. No single drive should be trusted, and most array setups can't adequately cope with that.
There's also performance considerations for more advanced filesystems. ZFS has these if you want to get into the weeds, but I've not personally had to use them (or had the money for faster storage to mess with it) so I can't get too into detail. But I think it's safe to say that for video editing, you could make due with a single NAS with mechanical and solid state drives, albeit with a bit of extra setup work.
A lot of these points are going to be "don't buy an appliance NAS box".
Fast networking is expensive
Expensive is relative and I'll have to kind of refer to that video here for price points. First off, I think a lot of people would be happy with 1G or, if you happen to already have the equipment, 2.5G. I think most people who do need faster access only have one, MAYBE two computers that would need a 10G connection.
So, pricing. The video also reminded me that a lot of appliance NAS boxes make faster networking an added option, and of course they charge a premium for that networking card. It also quoted 4 port 10G switches as starting at $300 and network cards at $100. Switches, with SFP+ ports instead of copper, can be had for half that. PCIe adapters are $50ish for dual port Intel units, less for single port Mellanox ones (that can be a bit buggy, but are REALLY cheap). The kicker here is they're all SFP, so you need transceivers, but the secret is the copper SFP+ adapters are really expensive, while fiber is actually pretty cheap, $15 an optic or less. And if you're not doing really long runs through walls, you can sometimes even get by with a $20-30 DAC cable. The other secret is, if you only have two devices that need high speed access, just throw that dual port Intel NIC in the NAS and run the networking directly to the other computers instead of using a switch. Again, more setup, but saves you a lot of money.
So while it's not as cheap as having a bundle of cat9+ cable, plugs, and a crimper, it CAN be done for a lot cheaper than I think people think. And again, if you're just doing file storage you probably don't need it, it's when you start trying to edit videos directly off the NAS or copying TBs of files at a time where it comes in handy.
of course this becomes a lot harder if you don't have free PCIe ports, but that means you'd have to overspend a ton on your motherboard to get modern networking built in. Did you know the cheapest motherboard at microcenter right now with built in 10G networking is the better part of $400? And the cheapest AMD board $100 more than that? You didn't build a fancy MicroITX system that only has a PCIe port for your graphics card, right? You didn't get a gigantic case with a vertically mounted GPU so you can see when the fans die and blocks every other port on the motherboard, right?
NASes are expensive
"But they're worth it!"
They are, but you don't need to spend that much. I've made a whole post about how cheap they can be but the true answer is: appliance NASes are expensive. I've harped on this a lot so I'm going to try and be succinct here.
Appliance NAS boxes basically charge you per bay. This was pointed out in that video I mentioned, quoted at around $125 per bay. 4, 5, 8 bays, no volume discount. If you roll your own, you'll spend less on that on an entire new HBA card and cabling to add 8 or even 16 drives... depending on how your power cabling works out. I've personally bought a 12 bay disc shelf, from the electronic bay, with caddies, for less than that.
Appliance NAS boxes are underpowered. If you just want file storage and nothing else, yeah having some tiny embedded class CPU is good, actually better than what you can do yourself for power usage. But when you want to start running services on there, it becomes limiting fast. The first Synology box that comes up on Amazon right now is 5 bays (plus two internal M.2), 700 fucking dollars, and has an embedded Ryzen R1600. Think Zen 1, 25w max TDP, 2c4t. 10G networking costs extra, by the way.
But hey that's less than $125 per bay, I guess!
Appliance NAS boxes encourage you to spend even more on hard drives. Past a certain capacity, hard drives go way up in $/TB as the storage density and TB/watt is very desirable. Having very few bays to work with and not getting a discount on buying a lot more bays sucks, and this is ignoring qualified drives or, even worse, buying the drives from the NAS vendor themselves.
I again went on about this at length in my cheap NAS post but in short, used SAS drives are like $7.5/TB on the high end if you're not looking at really dense drives. New SATA drives are, at best like $12/TB. Often well over 15. Old used drives can have issues, absolutely, but the whole point of an array is to mitigate unreliable drives in favor of cost. Plus the bathtub curve on new drives is real.
The upside of appliance NAS systems is they're easier to set up but... honestly? If you've built your own computer before, you can build a TrueNAS box. And I've seen professionals fuck up appliance NAS boxes before. I wouldn't say TrueNAS is easier but the gap is a hell of a lot smaller than you'd think.
NASes aren't cool
This is actually true.
Something the video did do a good job of pointing out, is that these things are extremely useful. If you've decided to follow me for... I mean this is basically what I do here, shout into the void about computers. Anyway if you follow me you've seen how much I'm always beating the drum about this stuff. A computer is a tool for ingesting, storing, manipulating, presenting, and sending data. Everything a computer does is data. Storage is a huge part of that, but it's just not cool and people don't pay as much attention to it as they should. And frankly, there's a lot of money to be made in someone else holding that data for you. The word "data hoarder" gets thrown around a lot but so do news articles about subscription services prices going up, stuff being delisted or split across dozens of services, literally no company in the world bothering to spend enough money on their IT to avoid someone sneaking in and walking out the door with sensitive info. A NAS might not be the solution to all of those problems, but it sure as fuck can make your life a lot easier.
And, if it's not obvious already in this post, I feel like off the shelf NAS boxes push all of that out of people's heads because they assume it's either too expensive, or won't be capable of meeting their needs. Or not capable without being too expensive.
Everyone should have a NAS, it's more important than a high end GPU.
Alright out of the drafts with you!
