MP 7,1 10GB NAS for nMP 7.1?

[profdraper]

Wondering if users here might have recommendations for a 10GB NAS to plug into one the nMP's 10GB EN ports?

Leaving out considerations for 10GB switches and/or other network infrastructure for the moment - it would seem that most 10GB NASs provide RJ45 ports for 1GB & SFP+ ports for 10GB (fibre). This in turn then requires yet another pricey adapter to convert from RJ45 to SFP+.

Seeing as the nMP 7.1 provides dual 10GB RJ45 ports, what can we connect to it? Seems limited (unless via a switch & onwards etc.). Personally, I have been looking at four bay NASs that might replace a USB 3.0 IcyDock for faster large media backup. Possibly QNAP, but again these all seem wired with SFP+, eg, the relatively inexpensive QNAP TS-431X-2G.

There are other Thunderbolt 3 NASs about, but this seems to defeat the purpose of having those dual 10GB EN ports.

 

[AidenShaw]

SFP+ is flexible - you can get SFP+ connectors for RJ45, optical, twin-ax.... It's not just fibre.

Get one of these ($42.99):



and a Cat 7 cable.

10Gb SFP+ RJ45 Transceiver, 10Gbase-T SFP+ Ethernet Module Support 10G/5G/2.5G/1.25G, Compatible with Cisco SFP-10G-T-S, Ubiquiti UF-RJ45-10G, UniFi, Meraki,MikroTik,Supermicro and More, 30m

The 10G-SFP-T copper transceiver module is a high performance integrated duplex data link for bi-directional communication over copper cable. It is specifically designed for high speed communication links that require 10 Gigabit Ethernet over Cat 6a/7 cable. This is the first SFP+ transceiver tha...

www.amazon.com

My lab has a Cisco Nexus switch with about 100 SFP+ 10GbE ports. Almost all of my connections are twin-ax - that's the cheapest since it deals with native SFP+ protocols. I have a handful of 10GBase-T and optical transceivers for devices that have copper or optical - but almost everything is SFP+ on twin-ax.

Compare the price of a 24 port 10GbE switch with copper vs a similar switch with SFP+. I think that you'll realize that you're buying 24 of the "pricey" RJ45 transceivers with the copper switch, and buying empty sockets with the SFP+ switch.

 

[pierre1610]

I've got a QNAP TVS-872XT with 8x ironwolf hdd's and 2x 970 Evo M.2 SSDs
I don't have a 2019 Mac Pro (yet) but my cMP and my 2018 Mac Mini both get around 650MB/s read and write to the NAS. It should go faster, but i don't know how to make it....

Its connected using 10GbE RJ45 cat7

 

[AidenShaw]

I've got a QNAP TVS-872XT with 8x ironwolf hdd's and 2x 970 Evo M.2 SSDs
I don't have a 2019 Mac Pro (yet) but my cMP and my 2018 Mac Mini both get around 650MB/s read and write to the NAS. It should go faster, but i don't know how to make it....

Its connected using 10GbE RJ45 cat7

How is the QNAP formatted? I see that they default to "ext4", which is horrifically slow with small files.

 

[profdraper]

SFP+ is flexible - you can get SFP+ connectors for RJ45, optical, twin-ax.... It's not just fibre.

Get one of these ($42.99):

View attachment 886544

and a Cat 7 cable.

10Gb SFP+ RJ45 Transceiver, 10Gbase-T SFP+ Ethernet Module Support 10G/5G/2.5G/1.25G, Compatible with Cisco SFP-10G-T-S, Ubiquiti UF-RJ45-10G, UniFi, Meraki,MikroTik,Supermicro and More, 30m

The 10G-SFP-T copper transceiver module is a high performance integrated duplex data link for bi-directional communication over copper cable. It is specifically designed for high speed communication links that require 10 Gigabit Ethernet over Cat 6a/7 cable. This is the first SFP+ transceiver tha...

www.amazon.com

Perfect, thanks so much. What I wanted: a SFP+ QNAP plugged directly into the nMP7.1.

Later maybe the switch, but will likely wait until new router & mesh wifi6 etc.

 

[aerialbyte]

Synology offers a dual 10Gb RJ45 Ethernet Adapter for their NAS devices, but as far as I know, they do not have a 4 bay model that accepts a 10Gb network card. I believe the smallest option you can get is an 8 bay model.

Synology 10Gb Ethernet Adapter 2 RJ45 ports (E10G18-T2)

Enjoy smooth migration to high-speed 10Gbps Ethernet. E10G18-T2 delivers superior transmission performance with the capability to offload packet processing and free CPU resources for more tasks. It supports IEEE 802.3an/ab (10GBASE-T/1000BASE-T) and 802.3x with dual RJ-45 connectors, providing 20...

www.amazon.com

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Synology offers a dual 10Gb RJ45 Ethernet Adapter for their NAS devices, but as far as I know, they do not have a 4 bay model that accepts a 10Gb network card. I believe the smallest option you can get is an 8 bay model.

Synology 10Gb Ethernet Adapter 2 RJ45 ports (E10G18-T2)

Enjoy smooth migration to high-speed 10Gbps Ethernet. E10G18-T2 delivers superior transmission performance with the capability to offload packet processing and free CPU resources for more tasks. It supports IEEE 802.3an/ab (10GBASE-T/1000BASE-T) and 802.3x with dual RJ-45 connectors, providing 20...

www.amazon.com

i have a Synology with the 10gb Ethernet card. I also wired the house with cat 8 which will be able to do up to 40gbps in the future. Anyway, I see real world throughput of around 920MB/s over it. I have the 1817+ which I think has since been updated.

 

[jinnyman]

i have a Synology with the 10gb Ethernet card. I also wired the house with cat 8 which will be able to do up to 40gbps in the future. Anyway, I see real world throughput of around 920MB/s over it. I have the 1817+ which I think has since been updated.

Very nice. Currently I only use 918+ with 1gb network yielding around 110 MB/s. That transfer speed is really nice. I will probably end up upgrading my home network later this year with similar setup as yours.

 

[pierre1610]

How is the QNAP formatted? I see that they default to "ext4", which is horrifically slow with small files.

it is ext4, my files tend to be 2gb+ each

 

[AidenShaw]

it is ext4, my files tend to be 2gb+ each

Good enough.

Actually, I misspoke. Ext4 is horrifically slow with huge numbers of files in directories. (Very large numbers of directories with a large number of files in each is much faster).

One of my summer interns did a project that created 240M files in one directory. An 'ls' command on the directory takes 48 hours to complete.

 

[pierre1610]

Good enough.

Actually, I misspoke. Ext4 is horrifically slow with huge numbers of files in directories. (Very large numbers of directories with a large number of files in each is much faster).

One of my summer interns did a project that created 240M files in one directory. An 'ls' command on the directory takes 48 hours to complete.

don't often have more than 30 files in a folder. usually range fom 1gb to 20gb in file size

 

[MaxYuryev]

One thing to keep in mind is cheap NAS devices will be slow because of the CPU or cheap 10Gbe network chip being a bottleneck. I had a QNAP 4 bay that we used for a year and a half that worked great. It has 2x TB3 ports, a 10Gbe that I directly connected to an iMac Pro and some other connections.

This model uses the same aquantia 10Gbe chip that the iMac Pro and Mac Pro use. The overall performance is OK but still not super great if you want to max out that 10Gbe connection because of a few hardware limitations. Also keep in mind that with only 4 hard drives it will be impossible to populate the band with of 10GBe even if you buy the fastest HDD’s.

qnap also has a newer better version of that setup that we upgraded to with a faster CPU, more ram, and faster SSD connections. Actually they have 3 versions, a 4, 6, and 8 bay.

I have an 8 bay now filled with drives and 2x SSD’s. We have 3 computers connected right now to it and I just ordered an add in card that has 2x 10GBe connections so we can add in the new Mac Pro as well. We are not using a switch.

I made a VERY detailed review of it covering a TON of stuff.

 

[jasonmvp]

I've got my second story office all 10Gig'd out, along with my basement. I'm working on getting a couple of Cat7 links run between my office and the basement so that I can connect those two switches together with 20GigE (2x10) vs the 2xGigE they are today. Once done, I'll run a test from my Mac to the fileserver which is in the basement.

What I have tested is the throughput between the fileserver and another server sitting right next to it on the same 10GigE switch. This over NFS version 3, which isn't the most efficient when it comes to throughput. However:

joker$ /usr/bin/time -h dd if=/dev/zero of=./testfile bs=1024 count=10000000
10000000+0 records in
10000000+0 records out
10240000000 bytes transferred in 24.939161 secs (410599215 bytes/sec)
    24.94s real        2.41s user        22.51s sys
joker$  /usr/bin/time -h dd if=./testfile of=/dev/null bs=1024 count=10000000
10000000+0 records in
10000000+0 records out
10240000000 bytes transferred in 22.314831 secs (458887633 bytes/sec)
    22.72s real        2.26s user        15.99s sys

That's about 3.2Gbits/sec writes, 3.6Gbits/sec reads. Not bad. It's definitely showing that I can push > 1Gbit/sec

 

[Mago]

Wondering if users here might have recommendations for a 10GB NAS to plug into one the nMP's 10GB EN ports?

Leaving out considerations for 10GB switches and/or other network infrastructure for the moment - it would seem that most 10GB NASs provide RJ45 ports for 1GB & SFP+ ports for 10GB (fibre). This in turn then requires yet another pricey adapter to convert from RJ45 to SFP+.

Seeing as the nMP 7.1 provides dual 10GB RJ45 ports, what can we connect to it? Seems limited (unless via a switch & onwards etc.). Personally, I have been looking at four bay NASs that might replace a USB 3.0 IcyDock for faster large media backup. Possibly QNAP, but again these all seem wired with SFP+, eg, the relatively inexpensive QNAP TS-431X-2G.

There are other Thunderbolt 3 NASs about, but this seems to defeat the purpose of having those dual 10GB EN ports.

I'm familiar with your requirement, already I'm a Synology user, hands down I recommend you to buy Synology.

8 assume you need 10tb usable and redundancy-protecred storage solution, faster than spinners das.

On the high end I suggest you a Synology FS1018 loaded with 12 1tb SSD and a 10G nic (about 3000$ setup), theres no faster than this little monster, a plus is you get dual SSD failure tolerant system, even filled with the cheapest SSD it will saturate the 10G nic (maybe a faster nic is coming for it).

If you like spinners, and can wait, soon will be available the DS1620xs a Xeon based Nas with 6 3.5" bays and dual m.2 nvme slots and 4 2.5gb nic plus pcie slot2, Taylor it as for you needs. No pricing yet but safe to be cheaper than fs1018j.

On the lower end, soon should be available the DS720+ it's rumoured to include 2x 2 5 or 5gb nic and 2 m.2 slots, it besides much smaller (as to pile on top the Mac Pro) and cheaper, it could be a solution if loaded with 2x 10gb helium HDD and 2x512-1tb SSD not the faster but if you don't move big random volumes it maybe the right one, despite the 2.5gb nic, likely a sub-1000$ solution.

About interfacing, you can plug directly your Mac to a Nas w/o switch, just bought a cheap by-pass rj45 adapter and configure both ends properly and it even will work faster.

About "thunderbolt" equiped Nas es, don't spend your money there, these are just an nic emulator thru Thunderbolt cable, the bypass solution besides cheaper it's even faster as none those "thunderbolt" Nas don't exceed 5gbps speed, while you can get closer to the maximum theoretical speed of a 10g nic using a bypass.

There are nic for Synology supporting SFP connectors, its good if you have an 10g switch with SFP it allows you to interconnect with optic fiber, and install you Nas inside a panic room or safe.

There are rumors on a FS1020 Nas (12bay) coming along a 6 bay SSD Nas likely s higher performance ssd-only version of the ds620slim with some Xeon-D CPU and 10G nic.

You can configure a 6 bay Nas with 6x 2tb SSD and get 10tb storage and raid 5, single failure protection (SSD failure rate is well 3 order lower than spinners no real need for raid 6 or dual redundancy)

 

[jeyf]

i have a QNap box and noticed additional network traffic.

possible firmware malware infection
unknown source but consider updating the nas firmware + all applications you run in the nas box
QNap has a malware scan application

seems QNap Inc is on top of the issue and has an official company post .


search the macrumors, there is a additional post

 

[aerialbyte]

On the high end I suggest you a Synology FS1018 loaded with 12 1tb SSD and a 10G nic (about 3000$ setup), theres no faster than this little monster, a plus is you get dual SSD failure tolerant system, even filled with the cheapest SSD it will saturate the 10G nic (maybe a faster nic is coming for it).

What speeds are you seeing on the Synology FS1018?

I have a FS1018 with 12 x Crucial 2TB SSDs in it. I am using the 10Gb Ubiquity Edgeswitch and the fastest WRITE speed I see is 525MB/s and READ speed is 460MB/s. I am using the Blackmagicdesign Disk Speed Test utility on the Mac Pro.

The volume is using Btrfs in RAID F1. I do see that the volume utilization hits 100% when the tests are running.

 

[Mago]

What speeds are you seeing on the Synology FS1018?

I have a FS1018 with 12 x Crucial 2TB SSDs in it. I am using the 10Gb Ubiquity Edgeswitch and the fastest WRITE speed I see is 525MB/s and READ speed is 460MB/s. I am using the Blackmagicdesign Disk Speed Test utility on the Mac Pro.

Seems you have only 5Gbit speed, it easy get close 1 GByte/s write and close read.

525MByte is 5Mbit/s not bad if you have a switch limiting bandwidth, try bto get it working full duplex

Check your network, also use SMB instead AFP not ftp, the faster is to use lun, but it requires a special driver at the Mac side as long I remember.

 

[aerialbyte]

Seems you have only 5Gbit speed, it easy get close 1 GByte/s write and close read.

525MByte is 5Mbit/s not bad if you have a switch limiting bandwidth, try bto get it working full duplex

Check your network, also use SMB instead AFP not ftp, the faster is to use lun, but it requires a special driver at the Mac side as long I remember.

Thanks for the suggestion. That test was with SMB. I tried AFP and the results were similar. I will try connecting the Mac Pro directly into the FS1018 to see what numbers I get.

In regards to the utilization of the disk being at 100%, wouldn't that be a bottleneck?

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

I've got my second story office all 10Gig'd out, along with my basement. I'm working on getting a couple of Cat7 links run between my office and the basement so that I can connect those two switches together with 20GigE (2x10) vs the 2xGigE they are today. Once done, I'll run a test from my Mac to the fileserver which is in the basement.

What I have tested is the throughput between the fileserver and another server sitting right next to it on the same 10GigE switch. This over NFS version 3, which isn't the most efficient when it comes to throughput. However:

joker$ /usr/bin/time -h dd if=/dev/zero of=./testfile bs=1024 count=10000000
10000000+0 records in
10000000+0 records out
10240000000 bytes transferred in 24.939161 secs (410599215 bytes/sec)
    24.94s real        2.41s user        22.51s sys
joker$  /usr/bin/time -h dd if=./testfile of=/dev/null bs=1024 count=10000000
10000000+0 records in
10000000+0 records out
10240000000 bytes transferred in 22.314831 secs (458887633 bytes/sec)
    22.72s real        2.26s user        15.99s sys

That's about 3.2Gbits/sec writes, 3.6Gbits/sec reads. Not bad. It's definitely showing that I can push > 1Gbit/sec

Hey Cat8 cables are out. Not that pricey. And while they do 10G now, they will support 40Gbps later. If youre dropping line, it's worth it to skip ahead:

Amazon.com: cat8 cable

Amazon.com: cat8 cable

www.amazon.com

 

[jasonmvp]

Hey Cat8 cables are out. Not that pricey. And while they do 10G now, they will support 40Gbps later. If youre dropping line, it's worth it to skip ahead:

Yep, I'm aware of that. I already have the Cat7 spool on its way (delivery guy has it in his truck right now). And I'm not sure how long it'll be before 40GE switches and optics will be relatively affordable. Further, 40GE is sort of a stop-gap to 100G, just like (grrr!) 400GE is a stop-gap to TE.

(Yeah, I'm a network guy).

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Yep, I'm aware of that. I already have the Cat7 spool on its way (delivery guy has it in his truck right now). And I'm not sure how long it'll be before 40GE switches and optics will be relatively affordable. Further, 40GE is sort of a stop-gap to 100G, just like (grrr!) 400GE is a stop-gap to TE.

(Yeah, I'm a network guy).

i think copper will punk out around 40gbe So to me the cat 8 is worth it. I have fiber drops that do 100gbe and am drooling that 400 is out. Sick!

 

[Mago]

Thanks for the suggestion. That test was with SMB. I tried AFP and the results were similar. I will try connecting the Mac Pro directly into the FS1018 to see what numbers I get.

In regards to the utilization of the disk being at 100%, wouldn't that be a bottleneck?

I don't think it's an Nas bottleneck, almost 100% it's an switch/cabling issue, check you're working at 10G full duplex all the way Nas-switch-mac, also check your switch management options maybe there's something there causing the bottleneck, this Nas is rated at 1GByte write and 2GB read , using 12sata SSD (500MBñs each) bring enough I/O headroom, an issue related to trim command shouldn't cause that peculiar bottleneck.

 

[jasonmvp]

i think copper will punk out around 40gbe So to me the cat 8 is worth it.

I suspect you're right regarding copper. It'll be interesting to see what happens to the "consumer level" NICs over the coming years. Will we start seeing affordable 40GE? Or will the market just not bother, and instead leave consumers at 10GE?

 

[aerialbyte]

I don't think it's an Nas bottleneck, almost 100% it's an switch/cabling issue, check you're working at 10G full duplex all the way Nas-switch-mac, also check your switch management options maybe there's something there causing the bottleneck, this Nas is rated at 1GByte write and 2GB read , using 12sata SSD (500MBñs each) bring enough I/O headroom, an issue related to trim command shouldn't cause that peculiar bottleneck.

I tried using iperf3 client on the Mac Pro while running the iperf3 container on the FS1018 and saw 10Gb speeds. There may have also been some network congestion occurring during the time I ran the previous tests. Happy to see the results below. Thanks for your input!

% iperf3 -c 10.110.0.8
Connecting to host 10.110.0.8, port 5201
[ 5] local 10.110.0.12 port 56876 connected to 10.110.0.8 port 5201
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate
[ 5] 0.00-1.00 sec 1.05 GBytes 9.01 Gbits/sec
[ 5] 1.00-2.00 sec 1.09 GBytes 9.38 Gbits/sec
[ 5] 2.00-3.00 sec 1.09 GBytes 9.38 Gbits/sec
[ 5] 3.00-4.00 sec 1.09 GBytes 9.38 Gbits/sec
[ 5] 4.00-5.00 sec 1.09 GBytes 9.38 Gbits/sec
[ 5] 5.00-6.00 sec 1.09 GBytes 9.38 Gbits/sec
[ 5] 6.00-7.00 sec 1.09 GBytes 9.38 Gbits/sec
[ 5] 7.00-8.00 sec 1.09 GBytes 9.38 Gbits/sec
[ 5] 8.00-9.00 sec 1.08 GBytes 9.25 Gbits/sec
[ 5] 9.00-10.00 sec 1.08 GBytes 9.32 Gbits/sec
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate
[ 5] 0.00-10.00 sec 10.9 GBytes 9.33 Gbits/sec sender
[ 5] 0.00-10.00 sec 10.9 GBytes 9.33 Gbits/sec receiver