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Recording audio to a network Drive?

gdgross said:
Yeah, I'm ultimately thinking straight connection between the computer and the NAS, so if the port on the computer and the port on the NAS support higher speeds, they ought to negotiate to their highest common speed. (no switch in between; the switch would be between the NAS and the rest of the network, as this is the single link that I'm most concerned about latency/speed. I can live with a few more switched between the PC and the internet.)
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Totally useless. The latency of pc <-> switch <-> NAS vs pc <-> NAS is really negligible.

Unless both PC and NAS have 10gbps and your switch is 1 gbps only, this is useless.

I vote for QNAP/Synology which are very reliable boxes. Yeah, you will pay a price premium for both brands, especially with Thunderbolt 3 connectivity, but it totally worth it.
 
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...The only thing I would add is that if you had a bunch of other traffic going to the NAS (backups, etc) at the same time, it might make sense to have a secondary 1G connection. Going 10G would negate this.

BTW, with Synology boxes with 2 or more NICs, pretty straight forward to use both. No cost to set up and test. QNAP likey offers the same, but I can't say.
 
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pldelisle said:
Totally useless. The latency of pc <-> switch <-> NAS vs pc <-> NAS is really negligible.

Unless both PC and NAS have 10gbps and your switch is 1 gbps only, this is useless.

I vote for QNAP/Synology which are very reliable boxes. Yeah, you will pay a price premium for both brands, especially with Thunderbolt 3 connectivity, but it totally worth it.
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Noted on the switch non-latency.

Possible that in the future I could have a 2.5Gbe NAS and 10Gb PC (and a 1GBe network) which would make that scenario make sense, but i think for the time being I'm going to go w synology 1Gbe NAS
 
hobowankenobi said:
...The only thing I would add is that if you had a bunch of other traffic going to the NAS (backups, etc) at the same time, it might make sense to have a secondary 1G connection. Going 10G would negate this.

BTW, with Synology boxes with 2 or more NICs, pretty straight forward to use both. No cost to set up and test. QNAP likey offers the same, but I can't say.
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Thanks hobo- also noted. I assume i'll be able to schedule backups or something to avoid this traffic.
 
gdgross said:
Noted on the switch non-latency.

Possible that in the future I could have a 2.5Gbe NAS and 10Gb PC (and a 1GBe network) which would make that scenario make sense, but i think for the time being I'm going to go w synology 1Gbe NAS
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Then everything is going to run at 1gbps.

The bottleneck is the switch.

If your switch is 1gbps, everything is going to run at 1 gbps.

Finding an affordable 10 gbps switch is practically impossible. That's why it's usually directly connected between 10gbps capable nodes.

10 gbps is a future proof buying. There are no models at Synology with 10gbps NIC built-in. You have to add a card into the unit. https://www.qnap.com/en-us/product/tvs-472xt has Thunderbolt 3 + 10 gbps LAN.
 
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pldelisle said:
Then everything is going to run at 1gbps.

The bottleneck is the switch.

If your switch is 1gbps, everything is going to run at 1 gbps.

Finding an affordable 10 gbps switch is practically impossible. That's why it's usually directly connected between 10gbps capable nodes.

10 gbps is a future proof buying. There are no models at Synology with 10gbps NIC built-in. You have to add a card into the unit. https://www.qnap.com/en-us/product/tvs-472xt has Thunderbolt 3 + 10 gbps LAN.
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Right, unless i direct connect the computer to the NAS, which is what i was thinking.

That QNAP looks great, but I don't think i'm ready to drop 1k on a NAS when my computer wont even support 10G right now! hah, so it would definitely be for future expansion. I do plan on getting a new machine in the next year or two.

I notes some of the models were 10G over fiber, but i gotta make it happen over copper - almost zero chance of me fitting more/bigger cables in those conduits!
 
satcomer said:
That sending audio over a network is relatively easy!
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right, but i'm talking about 16 channels of 24bit audio at 48kHz (or potentially greater) with low latency and has to be rock solid.... see earlier in the thread for my back of napkin bandwidth requirements :)
 
Thanks all for your help on this.

FYI all, I ordered a QNAP-TS-453D-4G enclosure. I think this will serve me well once I get drives installed, and be somewhat future proof. I'm planning one (maybe) 2TB SSD for the actual working audio drive, the rest will be backup/file storage/personal dropbox/etc, so they can be slow 5400 spinning drives as far as I'm concerned.

The QNAP as shipped has 2.5GbE ports, which I currently can't take advantage of, as my machine is 1Gbe only, but when I upgrade machines in future, I may well appreciate it. The QNAP can also use 10GbE network by with PCie expansion cards if I find that the 1 or 2.5GbE isn't cutting it.

I'll report back how recording goes once I get it set up with a drive and tested on my 1Gb network! Even if realtime recording doesn't work, I think I'll be glad to have this NAS in my network.
 
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ALSO, can anyone who has knowledge of such things comment on the various HDD configuration/RAID schemes? I'm not very familiar with the best/fastest/etc configurations.

I'm planning the one SSD as my working drive, so I'll have three spare bays/drives to play with. The SSD working drive is the only one who's speed I care about. I also have a 6TB USB3 drive that will be plugged into one of the USB ports on the QNAP.

Some of these TBs may be used for time machine backups, though since i moved to SSD macs, I haven't been as diligent about my backups :-|

I've read in a couple placed that I want to try and configure for iSCSI? (sounds like that's an network protocol and not a drive configuration though)

Sorry for a zillion questions. Some of this may become more clear with a RTFM too...
 
RAID 5 : stripping with parity. Need 3 HDD minimum. This is the most common RAID type in home NAS.
RAID 6 : stripping but with double parity. Minimum 4 drives. You can't do this if you add an SSD.

gdgross said:
I've read in a couple placed that I want to try and configure for iSCSI? (sounds like that's an network protocol and not a drive configuration though)
Click to expand...

iSCSI is a network protocol. We mainly see this for running VMs. You don't need this I think. Requires third party software on macOS.https://www.studionetworksolutions.com/globalsan-iscsi-initiator/
 
pldelisle said:
RAID 5 : stripping with parity. Need 3 HDD minimum. This is the most common RAID type in home NAS.
RAID 6 : stripping but with double parity. Minimum 4 drives. You can't do this if you add an SSD.



iSCSI is a network protocol. We mainly see this for running VMs. You don't need this I think. Requires third party software on macOS.https://www.studionetworksolutions.com/globalsan-iscsi-initiator/
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Thanks pl -

sounds like raid 5 is the way to go then, with three disks, i get basically double the capacity of a single disk.

Will keep the iSCSI in mind. of course the first step is to see how recording works over the network just as is.
 
gdgross said:
ALSO, can anyone who has knowledge of such things comment on the various HDD configuration/RAID schemes? I'm not very familiar with the best/fastest/etc configurations.

I'm planning the one SSD as my working drive, so I'll have three spare bays/drives to play with. The SSD working drive is the only one who's speed I care about. I also have a 6TB USB3 drive that will be plugged into one of the USB ports on the QNAP.

Some of these TBs may be used for time machine backups, though since i moved to SSD macs, I haven't been as diligent about my backups :-|

I've read in a couple placed that I want to try and configure for iSCSI? (sounds like that's an network protocol and not a drive configuration though)

Sorry for a zillion questions. Some of this may become more clear with a RTFM too...
Click to expand...


RAID is generally used for one of three (or all) reasons:

1. SIZE - Creating a bigger volume than you can fit on a single drive
2. REDUNDANCY - to protect against downtime due to a failed drive.
3. SPEED - Faster read/write performance than you can get on a single drive.


Your SSD and fast network should cover #1 and #3. Since you are recording, #2 is not nearly as important on say, a server that can never be down.

I would start with your single SSD and see what you get. If you still have any performance issue, you would want to figure out where the bottleneck is...most likely would network. No need to increase cost and complexity if your simple (single SSD) setup works as intended.

iSCSI is a whole other thing, that can boost performance over network cables by not using TCP/IP. Turns network cables into direct data cables. Consider that to be a good Plan C if:

• 1 gigabit is too slow
• 2.5 gigabit is too slow

If both are too slow...you could consider iSCSI before spending for 10 gig.

As for any open NAS bays...you could throw spare HDs in there and use them as a second, separate volume to share other files, as a backup destination, or as a destination to backup the SSD. Yes, you could use the 3 spare bays for a single RAID 5 array.
 
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gdgross said:
Thanks pl -

sounds like raid 5 is the way to go then, with three disks, i get basically double the capacity of a single disk.

Will keep the iSCSI in mind. of course the first step is to see how recording works over the network just as is.
Click to expand...

If you tap directly into the SSD it should be more than usable. You'll have two volumes on the NAS : one with SSD, one with HDDs.

I don't think a model with NVME SSD would have helped. I would personally have took a model with already installed 10gbps and upgraded my switch, but price is different then. But with 10gbps, NVME SSD are required.
 
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pldelisle said:
If you tap directly into the SSD it should be more than usable. You'll have two volumes on the NAS : one with SSD, one with HDDs.

I don't think a model with NVME SSD would have helped. I would personally have took a model with already installed 10gbps and upgraded my switch, but price is different then. But with 10gbps, NVME SSD are required.
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haha yeah the 10Gbe NAS models enclosures are $$$$!

and thanks!
[automerge]1597959560[/automerge]
hobowankenobi said:
RAID is generally used for one of three (or all) reasons:

1. SIZE - Creating a bigger volume than you can fit on a single drive
2. REDUNDANCY - to protect against downtime due to a failed drive.
3. SPEED - Faster read/write performance than you can get on a single drive.


Your SSD and fast network should cover #1 and #3. Since you are recording, #2 is not nearly as important on say, a server that can never be down.

I would start with your single SSD and see what you get. If you still have any performance issue, you would want to figure out where the bottleneck is...most likely would network. No need to increase cost and complexity if your simple (single SSD) setup works as intended.

iSCSI is a whole other thing, that can boost performance over network cables by not using TCP/IP. Turns network cables into direct data cables. Consider that to be a good Plan C if:

• 1 gigabit is too slow
• 2.5 gigabit is too slow

If both are too slow...you could consider iSCSI before spending for 10 gig.

As for any open NAS bays...you could throw spare HDs in there and use them as a second, separate volume to share other files, as a backup destination, or as a destination to backup the SSD. Yes, you could use the 3 spare bays for a single RAID 5 array.
Click to expand...
Thanks again hobo - sure useful info, and I'll give it a go with a single SSD first - certainly easy enough to try.
 
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satcomer said:
Going 10g is now under dear $200 US!

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Nice, but those look like SFP connections. If i got to 10G, it's gotta be copper. no chance of running new cables for me without serious construction, lol
 
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