Editing Storage Guide: Best Setup for 2023 

Hi Chris and Leon, you are my teacher, hats off to your sequence of information you give, clarity and everything.. loads of ovation to you

THIS IS BY FAR THE BEST VIDEO ON RU-vid ABOUT NAS OR PARTICULARLY STORAGE!

I've loved the "editing rig storage setup / strategy" topic since 2006 when I saved up for my first RAID to cut HD woohoo! Thanks for the details about NAS setup in 2023. I'm daydreaming lately about how cool it is that proxy workflows are still the backbone of remote collaboration and speed. Great video with TONS of value and detail. Thank you so much for taking the time to craft a Masterclass! TJ

Thanks for this! So helpful. All killer no filler, thanks for the one of the most informative, concise, and engagingly-edited videos on any technical video-related topic I’ve watched. Appreciate your hard work!

This is such an amazing video! Thank you guys so much for this. I'd be curious to see what you're day-to-day storage is like. From shooting raw footage to SSD to SSD back-up to the raid, etc. Thanks!

Thats exactly the video I needed! Please do more hardware videos likes this. Love it!

The best video on youtube that properly explains the topic, amazing job guys!

Pausing half way through to say this video is amazing, I have been researching for days trying to find the right large storage system and this video has answered every one of my questions bueatifuly. Was so hard to get quality info on this topic thank you!

Another thorough yet accessible video gents. I am a commercial editor working off a DS1821+ w 10gbe (ditched QNAP TS-H886) & this will be the video I send people asking for advice now!

This is a blast of a video, guys! Thank you very much. I'm working with a Lacie Big 2 RAID 0 of 2x10TBs connected to another drive (20 TBs) in constant back up, and I get capacity, some redundance and speed via thunderbolt 3, but only 1 machine is able to work at a time. The next step will be this kind of NAS solution :)

I love how this is put together! Great work team! One critic I would add on SSD Cache- Through the last year, I have seen negligible benefit in using NVMEs for caching (at least for video workflows) because all most all files required are larger than what is eligible to be cached (per symbology's latest update). I had less that 10gig written to my cache on my 1TB NVME. Caching is more beneficial for docker containers and VMs.

Really helpful! What I would love to see from you guys is a video about how you organize your projects on hardrives. Which folders for which files ? your workflow when it comes to ad sounds, do you duplicate them in your folder ? how do you stay organise to be able to share an entire project on hardrive ? Do you use project manager in adobe premiere when your project is done ? Hope I gave you some ideas :)

Oh my god, I never thought I would be glued to the screen watching about NAS stations :) you are great!

Great video Leon and Chris! I appreciate the information and easy to understand form you conveyed it in. Keep on creating.

You’re channel just become my fav channel. Thank you for the amazing information! 🙏

Very well put together. Thank you! And talking about the warnings for non-Synology drives shows integrity. Great!

One of the biggest lessons I've learnt in my 4 years of freelance editing is you can *NEVER* have enough storage space.

This is so valuable information. The ABC I was needing on storage. Thank you, Chris and Leon.

amazing value given in this video! really loving it and subscribed for the future!!

Gentlemen, this was a great video for people who are new to NAS or considering it. I am not in the video editing domain, but in the LiDAR scanning, point cloud generation, and something like this will help me a lot!

Amazing video thank you! The way everything was broken down was excellent. I would love a video that expands on the different in speeds for each type of set up in correlation to the type of footage being edited. I think the read and write speeds of a normal raid not on a network were missing in the speed test section. Great Video! Can't wait to buy the course.

This is one of the best video's I've seen on this topic for non-IT pros. My only criticism is that a UPS is absolutely necessary.

Excellent video, gentlemen. Your timing is also perfect. I need to migrate from my Drobo (which I love) to a company still in business. Your twelve bay solution is spot on.

Thank you for the captions! Im a deaf editor and deeply appreciate it!

So so useful! Thank you for making this video!

Great point on having a UPS, power failure is the most likely reason for a serious failure.

The lighting in these videos is so good 👌

Thank you for making this video!

This video has helped me in the next step of storage for my production company. Thank you.

You guys knocked it out of the park with this video. Very easy to follow, and informational - Thank you so much! Quick question: I currently have the DS920+ and I'm looking to take advantage of Synology's remote access feature as well as Adobe's Team Project tool. You guys touched on it briefly at the @<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="60">1:00</a> mark in the video, but was wondering if you have another video going into more detail about this. My goal is to work with a go-to remote editor that has access to all of our footage, and doesn't have to download anything onto their personal computer. It's just shared via the Synology Network, and we'd work within Adobe Team Projects. Thanks again!

Amazing video! Very easy to learn and very clear.

Amazing content. I dont know what to say.. Please keep up the good work!

really like the way you guys explain things, nice! 👍👍

First video I see from you guys. First time I hear about you guys. I'm subscribing! You guys are awesome. Thank you!

This was very informative. I found a very useful thank you very much.

Fantastic video, I was able to learn a lot from this and genuinely enjoyed watching. Thank you! I have one question, I'm not sure if I have missed it in the video. How are you addressing data safety with your NAS? Are you, for example, following a 3,2,1 data policy? If so, how do you handle this in practice?

As always great video. Practical and useful. I too have a synology NAS. Very reliable and solid.

Great video. Thanks for the info

This video couldn't have come at a better time. I'm in the middle of creating a pitch deck for the company I'm working for, and I'm looking into cloud storage and NAS systems. For cloud I'm looking at Lucid Link, and for NAS, I'm looking at synology. If you guys can show how you archive your projects after they're done or how you have other freelance editors from a large team send you finished whole project folders for you to archive, that would be awesome! Is there a workflow that you like to use, or are there other types that you've tried and that might work for specific industries? I work for a retail corporation with 6 clothing brands under it, and we create the content in-house, with about 40 or so creatives (photographers, video editors, video shooters, photo editors, and graphic designers)

Amazing video, thank you! Keep on with the good work

Very well done and produced video!

I agree 100%. It is important that some NAS manufacturers constantly upset their software. I I had a QNAP NAS for personal storage which got hacked with ransom ware due to poorly designed cloud access. Like the 3 2 1 rule! Excellent review btw!

Awesome timely information, as I need to upgrade my current storage soon.

Great video and thank you!! I have some requests for future videos if you like: 1) Synology + BMD Cloud collaboration and 2) Color grading panels comparison for DaVinci.

THANK YOU for making the clearest explanation I have ever found on the subject. Question for you (or anyone else who might know): If my internet connection is not great (around 1GB), should I bother with an NAS system?

Amazingly made!

Very helpful and informative! Thank you!

Very helpful video 💚

I think the DIY option is a touch cheaper than calculated if you consider you might already have some of the HDDs and hardware that otherwise would sit somewhere doing nothing ... I turned all those individual HDDs, each containing a single project into a massive NAS... yes I bought the 10 GB ethernet cards and switch, but I can scale up massively compared to the bay limitation of other NAS. I struggle deleting finished projects, (I don't know why) but recently decided to start using davinci proxy generator to give me a 10 bit HD h265 version of the RAW files, so when the project is finished I only keep a way smaller version of the files and use the extra space and HDD to add it to my homemade TRUENAS SCALE. they way my projects roughly work, the client pays for 2 HDDs for the project. one goes to them and one stays with me for post production, most times after the project is finished they prefer to leave the second back up with me, if so, I can use those HDDs to add it to my ever growing home made NAS. Yes those are not NAS drives, and they fail after some years or months, but since I started using RAIDZ2 I had no issues or downtime. a BIG problem for me is that even after completely reinstalling truenas, the file's permissions and written in the filesystem itself so some bad configuration of permissions that I did when I was starting are still present until today and I cant seem to find a way to fix them ... some files written from one user cannot be deleted by other user, even tho both have full read write access rights. ... and managing my huge nas with now more than 20 drives on a consumer motherboard and consumer casing is getting way out of hand. Quick tip, since I'm impressed with the quality of those 10 bit h265 proxies, I have been "forcing" my clients to give me access to a cloud storage of their preference to store the proxies (under their expense), so even in the worst case scenario of both offices (mine and the client's) burning from a nuclear bomb or an accidental deletion, those files are still on the cloud (hopefully underground in another country). and with modern video enhance tools using AI you can literally save any project using those tiny proxy files even if your final output needs to be 4k.

thanks for this video, great job!

great video! I work with Point Clouds and one project can be a terabyte. Storage is a never ending issue for me.

Fantastic video guys. Thank you!

That was a solid review. Thank you!

Finally ❤ ... thanks a lot... the most important subject 👏 ... from professional Channel and team ... presented professionally ... awesome 👌

Guys, this is phenominal info! thanks.

This just came across in my recommended, but thought I'd share my setup because its a slight tweak to the NAS approach that I think is the best of both worlds. I'm a motion designer, so I'm not quite dealing with the same large individual file sizes you editors are, but 3D files very easily add up to hundreds of gigs or terabytes depending on the project. Anyway the TL;DR is to have a large local SSD and have it SYNC to your NAS. I get the speed and stability of local files while also having the redundancy and accessibility of the NAS. It's essentially the NVME cache you mentioned inside the NAS, but not limited by network speeds and more versatile. As I'm changing files, it's not a problem (at least for my needs) if they sync to the NAS at slightly slower speeds. Practically speaking, they're always on the NAS when I need them. Once you're done with a project there's an option to not sync that folder anymore and...boom! Space cleared on your local SSD and you've got the whole project safely tucked away in your NAS.

I have a self-built TrueNas NAS at home. It is so great. A normal computer has a few more benefits than qnap or synology nas's. For example I can also use VMs or I have installed synching. Syncthing automatically synchronizes certain folders to my NAS.

Your videos are amazing! Thanks a lot

Incredibly well done video... I am in awe. All of this is so expensive... But so necessary at some point 🙈

How does your workflow works now that you are all using NAS, do you sync them automatically or just download what you need from each other ? thanks for the review!

Loving this! Thank you so much

Awesome video. Could you do one discussing NVMe drives and what features or minimums required for pro video editing? e.g. Cache size, durability, sustained reads, etc. Very little online about minimum NVMe post production specs

this video is incredibly thorough

Really great vid, thanks for sharing!

Your content is diamond !

Beautifully explained and wonderfully constructed! Best way to take advantage of Iphone 15 pro max video video next?

Thank you for this, I've been thinking of getting a NAS but I wasn't sure what direction to go. This has clarified alot of things for me especially with all the new technology available. We I'd love more tutorials on hardware for us professional freelancers

Great video and some wonderful information! Here's my question. I have a home editing suite, where I am the only one who edits from this edit suite. I have upgraded to the Mac Studio Ultra, with the M2 chip (which is a huge upgrade from my 2017 iMac!). Like you mentioned in this video, I utilize a lot of external SSD drives for client projects, and the amount of drives I have lying around gets to be overwhelming. The Mac Studio has Thunderbolt 4 connections, so if possible, I would love to utilize the speed of those for a new editing storage solution. I'm just trying to figure out what options would be best for this type of setup, where I don't need access remotely, but rather just speed, redundancy and cost effective. If you have any thoughts, that would be great! Thanks!!

i was suucked into this video i never watch a whole vid great job guys.

Great video! I do see different interpretations of the 321 strategy though. Most M&E storage professionals I follow recommend....3 copies of your data, 2 different storage media (HDD, LTO, Cloud etc), 1 copy offsite.

thanks a lot

love the video! great breakdown of your approach. I have a similar setup, NAS with 10gb network. I am curious how you share files across the NAS to your other editors. I am looking into expanding my team and want to know what the others will need if they don't have a NAS themselves.

Great lesson guys, thanks a lot. I hope u get to discuss processing power too. That would be so lovely 🥰

I have an old Synology NAS that I have set up as RAID 5 (IIRC) that gives me 8TB of storage which is fine for what I do at this time. I love having a NAS and I can edit 4K directly from the NAS even though they are older HDD.

I think it’s the more complete video about storage ever ! Great video guys 🙌🏻

Thanks

Awesomeness 🎉🎉

As a beginner looking for storage options this is alot to take in. Networks, switches and alot of jargon im unfamiliar with. It will take some time to fully understand how I can set up a NAS system. I thought it was just plug and play but there is obviously a process.

I'm currently running a Synology DS1821+ and have two nvme read-only caches loaded with eight exos drives, different sizes, and I get at min at least 1076 MB read and 987 write. But I'm also running SHR-1 instead of SHR-2, but it shouldn't make that big of a difference regarding speed. I'm using an Unifi Based switch and system running 10gbe throughout my network.

damn. really wonderful presentation.

I'm still setup like Chris! Thanks for this, very helpful!

Great video!!

GREAT !!

great info

Great video, thank you so much for sharing. Just wondering what monitor do you use or any recommendations for a good one to use with Mac system?

I just upgraded my streaming pc, using my old computer as a NAS unit sounds appealing

Really enjoyed the video guys. Very well produced. I'd like to know if you use each other's NAS to create that offsite redundancy / backup? If so, details of how you manage this and software process would be great to see.

This was massively helpful

Good and easy to understand video 👍🏽

Finally ordered my SSD today!!

Thanks for the breakdown on this premium system. Something I may able to think about in a few years. Any recommendations for the 1k and under folks?

In some instances, you're better off taking an old computer and making it into your home server and go with a DAS instead of NAS for much less. I have 2 OWC Thunderbay 4 RAID enclosures, one is a mini that uses 2.5" SSD's. I purchased the enclosures used for around $100 each. The smaller enclosures is my main RAID drive with 8TB total storage that holds my Lightroom RAWs. The bigger enclosure holds 4 HDDs for 16TB storage and is a direct backup of my main RAID drive. An old 2013 15" MBP is my server. Time Machine backups are also done to an SSD attached to the MBP server. It's all running on 1 gig ethernet, which as a photographer is more than adequate but I will soon upgrade to 2.5Gbe as I already have CAT6 wiring. I love that I can access my photos wirelessly, but when I dock to my Thunderbolt Display, I have a faster and more reliable 1Gbe. I just have to order some 2.5Gbe switches and USB to 2.5Gbe adapters and I'll be upgraded.

Great content guys.....

Great and helpful video! Question - does that warning prevent you from receiving other warnings about SMART status, or bad sectors or temperature readings?

What a fantastic video, covering all the basics of this kind of setup! 👏😎 I'm still hesitant to connect my Diskstations to the internet (Now just using them locally, mirroring one to the other with HyperBackup). What is your secure setup for updating the offsite backup? Would it be safer to just expose the "mirror" NAS to the internet for mirroring _it_ to a third, off-site NAS? - Eero

Well-Done

I like your co-authoring video presentation

When you talk about scaling up when you need more storage, are you talking about getting a larger Synology unit that will hold all you stuff plus more and getting rid of the old one. OR can you use multiple Synology units together? Thank you!

I’m considering an OWC RAID 5, but this looks like a good option too. Especially if I have multiple computers.

great video