Using a NAS system for multitrack recording

fremen

fremen

Axe-Master
Vendor
Hi all,

after another computer failure*, I'm considering getting a NAS system for everything - not only storage, but DAW stuff (no more than 12 tracks simultaneous recording), video editing etc. I'll then have a SSD in my desktop computer for OS, everything else will be in the NAS server. What are the pros & cons ?

*I currently have a Desktop computer with Win10, OS is on a M.2 disk and there are 4 more SSDs : 1 has Win7 installation (which I can acess when I want, but now it gives me blue screen of death), 1 is my main hard drive with all my files, 1 is used for multitrack recording/video capture, and the last 1, which has recently died, had my drums sampls (Perfect Drums etc). Recently the Archives one started disappearing, and now my computer doesn't boot at all, even with all the SSDs disconnected. I'm using the Archives disk in a dock with a laptop
 
What is your network card speed? I assume you're planning to use wired ethernet?

Are people generally using NAS for recording?

I would probably look for a multi-disk enclosure that you can connect with USB 3 or something...
 
2cents w/20ye, raid1, @ minimum raid5 recommended (speed) raid10 for large data footprints, some good options are record locally then backup to your NAS daily or DAS onto a raid volume.
 
Audio is low transfer rate. For reference, I'm slinging 128 channels of audio on a 1G Ethernet in a DANTE network.
A NAS should work fine.

however, local storage will load and save faster. You may want to keep the current projects local and archive to NAS.
 
Keep working files local.... look at an utility called ROBOCOPY for uploading to a backup medium, if on Windows. There's a command line switch to mirror (/MIR) your working directories to the NAS.
 
fremen said:
Hi all,

after another computer failure*, I'm considering getting a NAS system for everything - not only storage, but DAW stuff (no more than 12 tracks simultaneous recording), video editing etc. I'll then have a SSD in my desktop computer for OS, everything else will be in the NAS server. What are the pros & cons ?

*I currently have a Desktop computer with Win10, OS is on a M.2 disk and there are 4 more SSDs : 1 has Win7 installation (which I can acess when I want, but now it gives me blue screen of death), 1 is my main hard drive with all my files, 1 is used for multitrack recording/video capture, and the last 1, which has recently died, had my drums sampls (Perfect Drums etc). Recently the Archives one started disappearing, and now my computer doesn't boot at all, even with all the SSDs disconnected. I'm using the Archives disk in a dock with a laptop
Click to expand...

Sample stream access needs to be higher performance than you can get over ethernet. If the issue is archival, there are many solutions that allow robust backup of your projects, so I'd focus on that instead of accessing your data over the network.
 
These tools run in the background and automatically backup anything written on my SSD disks, right ?

I know NAS system are primarily used for backups, my question is, are the hard drive they use reliable for constant write/rewrite/delete etc. I will use them for everyday work on PC, not the usual backup only
 
Winscp needs to be configured, you'd want to have the folder your keeping critical data in backed up with it, another option would be to just get a computer with built-in RAID1 for the OS (windows) many of the workstations I've deployed for developers were configured and have been running 24/7 for well over 5 years with SSDs, most motherboard these days have RAID0 and RAID1 builtin, my company uses Cloudberry for backups and its cheap so rather than having everything on a DAS or NAS if your PC just backed up to the cloud you'd never need to worry about loosing your data from a disaster like fire, flood etc. and the hassle of deploying a storage at your home.
 
fremen said:
I know NAS system are primarily used for backups, my question is, are the hard drive they use reliable for constant write/rewrite/delete etc. I will use them for everyday work on PC, not the usual backup only
Click to expand...
Generally, no. At least not over ethernet. Sustained read/write operations are going to be much slower than a local drive. You can do some tweaking to your network configuration to try and isolate the PC and the NAS on a subnet that's wired to improve the situation but on the whole I think you're going to find making network attached storate (NAS) as your primary data drive an underwhelming experience.

You'd do better to invest in a RAID box that allows you to attach it to your PC via some other protocol like Thunderbolt or even USB3.0 if you're wanting to use the drive for streaming I/O type of work on a day to day basis.
 
Thanks Ian, I'll follow your advice and check what's available regarding Raid boxes here. Merry Christmas to all !
 
Looks like your ASUS motherboard has built in support for RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 modes via the 6 SATA ports.

Personally, I'd stick with platter drives (HDD's) for storage. They're a little slower and use more power, but more reliable, especially in the long term with heavy usage. The speed of SSD's is great, but when they die, they often do so without warning and take their data with them.
 
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