QNAP TS-453BT3➡ bhpho.to/2HFzuYm Best bang for buck HDD's (Amazon) ➡ geni.us/uxBQ Thunderbolt 3 budget cables on Amazon (won't slow down nas)➡ geni.us/t2F5vjz Back up UPS Battery (Amazon) ➡ geni.us/iNe9
Max, thanks for this review. By today's standards (2022) do you think this is still a good value? Even though it's discontinued I am still considering one. I bought an OWC Gemini 36TB and the noise of the hard drives is just horrible and distracting while editing. Most people complain about the fan, but it's just a tremendously loud enclosure. Is there a successor to this QNAP?
Useful review Max, thanks! I'm currently testing the TVS-472XT and love the Thunderbolt speeds from it. The 472XT also has a 3.1GHz Pentium. If you were buying today, would you still go for the 453BT3 over the TVS-472XT? I opted for the faster CPU.
Thank you, Gordon! I watched your review it was fantastic! I don't run a lot of apps or other things on my Qnaps so I don't really have a need for the a faster CPU since having 3 computers reading video files from it for editing only reach about 35% CPU usage. I really like the that the 453TB3 is quiet because of the external power brick but I would like to have the faster SSD connection for ssd cache. I ended up recommending this unit for most people who have a low budget since its about $200 less expensive and if you are an a low budget you most likely won't be spending extra on a large enough SSD to make caching useful.
@@MaksimYuryev thanks, and glad you watched my review, it didn't get as many views as I hoped because don't think people expect me to review these things (despite my distant history editing a computer magazine!) - hope to see you soon.
Hi Max, great review! One question. Would you still buy this unit over the TVS-472XT? I dont need that much space but do need the speed. isnt the SSD m2 option better in de TVS-472XT? I just dont know if it directly uses the files your working with out of the SSD cache. Do you use it on the 8bay? Thanks in advance
I don't have a need for editing, but I have a Synology DS418play for my movie server (Plex). I set it up in RAID 10 with some 2TB WD Red drives and it's pretty fast! Haven't noticed any streaming issues. Love the OS, too.
Hi I’m just realizing that Qnap makes dual NAS/DAS systems. For editing, are you creating iscsi luns to store your video files? If so, are you able to access the lun data via a direct thunderbolt connection (from your mac or windows system into the back of the qnap unit)? Also does qnap use BTRFS file system?
Thanks for these videos. I’m running a 2019 iMac with a gigabit Ethernet port. I would like to free up the Thunderbolt 3 ports on my computer to add a graphics card. Can I use a QUNAP connected directly to my computer to edit 4K C-Log and 6k Red Raw footage? What might be the best solution?
Hey man, so I've got the TS-453BT3, and when I go to create a New Volume the 1TB NVME SSD do not show up as being available for setup. I searched around and thought that because they were 1TB NVME that they would not be compatible with the NAS (after doing research and compatibility checks on the QNAP site), I then went purchased slower 1TB m.2 SSD, and they still do not show up as being available in the New Volume drop down menu. Do I need to install drivers or am I doing something else wrong? Would appreciate any and all tips guy. Thanks
Hey max, can you guide me on how to install this NAS device? Is there a RU-vid channel that shows how to instal it you can direct me to or a website or something?
Hi, is it possible to be connected with 3 différents computers (we are an office of 3 video editors and we need to be all 3 connected on the nas). This nas has only 2 thunderbolt ports so how can we be connected all 3 togheter ? Thanks !!
Oh also I see these are being discontinued. Are there any new models that are in this price range that come with ports for high speed direct connection (for video editors)?
I bought this same Qnap device for my RU-vid channel video storage solution based on your previous impressions a few months ago. I haven’t installed it yet but looking forward to do so after watching this video!!! Thanks Max!!
Does this drive have to be treated as a network drive, or can you just plug in the thunderbolt cables and be done with it. I ask, because my office setup is not near my router, and I was planning on using via thunderbolt and not 10gig, for simple ease of use, but will I need it wired to ethernet to even set it up? Does the computer see it at a local drive or a network drive if it is connected via 10gig and also via thunderbolt. I ask because services like backblaze won't backup a networked drive but they will backup a local drive.
Great review, Max. I am going to disagree with you on your drive choice though, not from a speed perspective but for reliability ratings. The drives you selected are really desktop drives not designed for 7x24 operation and a high amount of annual data transfer. For $50 more per drive, yes I know that amounts to $200 for the enclosure, you could get Seagate Exos 7E8 8TB drives and they are rated for 550TB annual workload which is higher than even than most NAS drives out there that typically come in around 180TB/year. As well, the EXOS Enterprise drives have a 5 year warranty which is 2.5x longer than the Toshiba. I, do, however still appreciate this video and your other content. Regards!
Hi, Max, thanks for the great video. I have the same model. Are you running the NAS 24/7 or you shutdown the device when not in use. Please advise. Thanks.
I've set this exact device, which works great until we come into the office the next morning and have trouble "Locating" the QNAP. This company offers ZERO support, so we've had to turn this device on-off every morning in order for our imacs to "locate" and mount the NAS again. Anyone have solutions to this? I understand this isn't a troubleshooting forum, but fair warning for those of you looking to scale your company who are not also Senior-level IT for dealing with the errors of this system. QNAP doesn't keep any detailed logs either, so it's just as frustrating as troubleshooting Adobe Premiere issues.
Nice video Max. A little out of my price range right now but I need to do something as I am running out of storage. Any recommendations for about $300?
If its just you, and its for editing photos and video I would just go for an external SSD. geni.us/f0Y4YP . If you are editing off of your internal hard drive (and its a fast one) I would just buy an external hard drive to archive to for long term storage. geni.us/VmeB . Qnap does have some ethernet connected NAS which have all the great software features so you can back up your phones, tablets, etc and access and share your data from anywhere in the world but the unit itself will cost around $300 and then you need to add a few hard drives. If you want a solution like that but for the lowest price I would say to save up a bit more.
Max, for potential buyers you REALLY need to clarify that the M.2 card is in fact working correctly but ONLY supports M.2 cards using the SATA protocol rather than the NVMe PCIe protocol! From the video it seems that the unit is either broken or falsely advertised but that is incorrect. You just did not read the specs thorougly.
Yes, that is true. The video was quite a bit longer initially but we cut it down. It does work as specified but the Sata M.2 is the max speed. I actually thought it was just the card at first and ended up buying a faster NVME card but the speeds didn't change. I think its because the PCI port is just a 2x (thus why they went with a Sata card)
Hi, great video! I am interesting (READY to buy) on a similar maybe newer model the TS-653D or 453D and I need to know: 1.What would be the read/write difference using the 10Gb ethernet instead of the Thunderbolt 3 connection? 2.Do you think I can use the optional ssd's, as individual volume for After Effects cash files instead of the NAS acceleration purposes? 3.Do you think the NAS drive ram weather it is 4 or 8 GB has to do with the file transfer (read/write) speed! Thanks
From what I understand from elsewhere, the thunderbolt 3 on this device is not giving you true thunderbolt 3 performance because it goes through the ethernet bus (thunderbolt-over-IP) or something like that I understand. So, in reality, are you really getting 40Gbps (theoretical) throughput on those TB3 ports?
Max can I ask what do you use for the offsite copy of your data. ? I like this machine or the QNAP TVS-472XT but having a copy offline means having a second unit right. How do you do it?
Hi Max. I am considering the merits of a NAS for video editing. I use imac pro and FCPX. From what i have learnt so far i will use TB3 as opposed to 10GBE. What is the speed i need i i terms of read/write for 4k editing as i intend to put my FCPX library on the nas. I dont need multiple user access but i do want the raid5 protection. Would i get better speed from something like the OWC thunderbay flex8 for example
That Toshiba is a desktop drive and has no place in a NAS since it lacks the appropriate firmware and may not tolerate vibration well enough. The raid may not recover correctly when a disk fails. Toshiba N300 is the NAS equivalent.
Max hopefully you can help me, I will start editing a feature film in the next and I’m look for a SSD Nas the up to $1500, do you have anything in mind?
Hi Max, my 50 cents about backups. RAID is not a backup, it just adds a bit of redundancy in case of hdd failure. It doesn't cover other threats as theft or user error, or system failure or malware attack or natural disasters. You already know it i think :)
Question???? Ok so when You were talking about setting the raid prioritiy to medium so u can continue editing during a raid rebuild I got a light bulb in my head. I’ve just got this unit and I had initialized it in raid 5 and the raid group was still synchronizing as I was importing fcpx projects from my old lacie drives. I finished the import before the raid synchronization was finished and started to see if it was fast enough to edit. I mounted it as a network drive via tb3 and It was dropping frames with 720p footage and stopping playback. I was getting frustrated thinking this thing is slow as dirt.... so today I’m looking for answers. Do u think it was slow because the raid group hadn’t finished synronizing yet? Guess I’ll find out tonight when I get home from work.... fingers crossed.
RAID 5 is really slow for this kind of disk size, it can even take you more than a day to recover a disk if it has a lot of data. RAID 6 or RAID 10 would be better.
Do you recommend enabling certain settings to improve read/write speeds (such as cache acceleration) ? I was trying to get better speeds than 200mb/s write speed and 600 mb/s read speed with 2 ssds (WD Blue 3D NAND 500GB PC SSD). Or does that sound about right? One wd blue ssd is rated at 550 read sequentially..
buyer beware of one thing . you cannot daisy chain these units , the qnap must be the last item in the chain (with the exception of qnap expansion ) This may not be a problem but it is less than ideal if you have any thunderbolt 2 devices in the chain as I do ( audio interface ) as it require more adapters and if I am not mistaken will slow down the throughput of the nas . Qnap have not even said this and even replaced a unit stressing it was faulty the second unit is the same and the folks over at forum.qnap.com said it is a known issue , on top of this there has been random reboots with no known cause . In short this has been the worst it related purchase I have ever made.
hey max, thanks for a very informative vid as always. what kinds of upload/download speeds should i expect? lets just say im getting 100 mb/s up and downstream from my ISP, should i expect to be hitting that 100 mb/s? the transfer rates are so wonky... sometimes it will drop to as low as 10 bytes/second... sometimes it can get to about 200mb/s, which i realize isnt all that fast, but my connections not that fast either. sorry for the stupid question, but i know diddly squat about networks.... i cant even set up a network printer. HALP!
I got a question What are other ways to edit a video with at least two people at the same time? Do you have to use a NAS like this one or is there another way?
Max I would be really interested in seeing how you set one of these guys up. Especially if you're not using it over a network. Say you just want to use it as a working/backup drive on a single computer. Do you have to do the initial setup on the network? Or can everything be setup via connecting directly to a computer via Thunderbolt or 10GB Ethernet?
Great review. Also, take a look at the QNAP TR-004. Very versatile; It can connect as direct storage but just as importantly makes a great expansion/back-up storage for other QNAP devices. 4-bay, USB Type-C, etc. and only $200.
Hey Max, couple of questions: 1. Is it possible to setup a RAID-5 array with this drive and start with a 2 bay solution and add to it as needed? 2. Did you add other harddrives to your QNAP system? How did that work?
I have a Synology NAS. Love it. I have my lightroom photos in it but have the lightroom library files locally on my PC. Works like a charm with endless space and easy workflow.
I was looking at reviews of sysnology devices on amazon and this brand sounds and feels more end-user friendly, it appears sysnology is charging extra to customers for licenses for extra devices attached to the NAS owned by the customers, like extra money for more surveillance cameras and such.
Thanks, Max! This is the most informative video I've seen to date on any NAS product. I'm in an apartment, so the quiet operation of external power is a real selling point for me: if I had some place to isolate the noise, I'd buy some used enterprise equipment and DIY the router and server. I probably will add the 10GbE card and build out my home network so I can edit directly on the NAS if it's impractical to connect via Thunderbolt: everything is Wi-Fi at the moment. Right now, I'm editing on my MacBook Pro, which is backed up via Time Machine to a bare drive in a caddy connected via USB 3.0, which is backed up to the the cloud (Backblaze). I want a centralized storage for the family: me, wife, high-school age twin daughters. I have the same UPS as you. The battery finally has given up after some years, so I've ordered a replacement.
Any meaning with buying a TB 3 40Mbps cable to this NAS? Thanks for some great video and guidance!!! I just bought this based on the knowledge I gained from your channel. www.langfilm.se
(Singel use computer) iMac 5K 2019. I just bought a Belkin 20Gbps 1m (3,3 feet) 60W cable. Looking at the 40Gbps cables. But 6 feet cost 100$ in Sweden. 🤯
Doesn't it seem like direct attached storage that uses Thunderbolt 3 might be bottlenecked by using spinning hard drives? One day, all drives will be solid state. And that will be a very, very good day.
when you connect to it with thunderbolt does it still work as a network drive or do you get direct access to the disk? I couldn't imagine how that could work with multiple users so must be network drive.
If you have SSD caching you'll get 550/550 (since thats the limitation of the 6G sata connection. and actually you may be able to get more than 300 for write, maybe 400-500 and then 600-700 read if you connect over SMB that Macs and FCX finally support. There's always a little bit of overhead because of networking but even then if you have 4 regular drives and one if for redundancy your absolute max theoretical speed with the hard drives I used is 720MB/s but hard drives rarely run at their full rates speeds and then there is some loss from raid and some more from networking so 600-650 is actually really good on the read. The write could be better than 300 (and like I said with SMB its higher) but even then thats not bad, and if you have two people maxing it out at the same time its still over 300MB/s write. Our Sony 4K footage (100mbps) is actually 12.5MB/s so even if we are both doing 5 camera multi-cam which is the most we ever do, thats only 62.5Mb/s each. If you are shooting GH5 or X-T3 Max bitrates thats 40-50MB/s each. C200 4K 60 RAW is about 150MB/s and even RED 8K raw at max bit rate is about 300MB/s.
What would happen if you put only 4 drives in the 8 bay with raid 5...then you add drives incremetally? Looking at the 8 bay you mentioned here, and start with 4 drives and add drives as times goes by. Or ...can you mix and match? say 4 8TB and 2 12 tb and 2 10TB? Will the raid not work?
If it's using traditional RAID you cannot add additional drives incrementally. If you want that flexibility,you might want to look into Unraid or FreeNAS
QNAP ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-JJGX5x0TeD0.html QNAP uses mdraid so you can expand but it needs disk of the same size but you can expan. FreeNAS uses zfs so you can expand but only in groups. So if you had Mirror 2 10TB drives and wanted to expand you can add another 2x10 TB drives. In you had party 3+1 (4 DRIVEs to expand you would need another 3+1 ) You have mdraid raid.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Growing
Hi Max, why ignoring all the Panasonic releases? I know that you use more into Sony this days, but I miss your amazing reviews and opinions about Panasonic S series. Keep doing the amazing contents for your channel, I loved them. thanks
I've been doing a lot of paid video work so I can't cover everything, and the S1's have been interesting, but now that the S1H is announced I'm in contact with Panasonic to get a review loaner.
Not typically anymore since we have a dedicated editing room but our old office (about a year ago) have everything in the same room and we shot there too. This small unit is basically silent when you put it in quiet mode.
They do have less expensive options but you'll need to connect through gigabit ethernet (which is slow for video editing) or 10GBe which means you'll likely need a $200 adapter or a network card in your PC.
We have tried with more computers as far as speed, but not edited with more since its just two of us most of the time. We mostly edit Sony h.264 footage which is small, but at times I will edit ProRes, C200 Canon RAW, Blackmagic raw, etc. If you're using 100-200mbps footage you can have 4 people use this system without a problem. What codecs do you work with? I could help figure out what the system would be cable of supporting for you. I think If I were to have 4 people and larger codecs I would probably spend just a bit more and go for one of their 6 bays bhpho.to/2Kh2GIr or maybe an 8 bay. Keep in mind all of these lower priced unit have 2x Thunderbolt 3 ports, so the other 1-2 people will have to use ethernet. I'll have an updated version on our 8 bay Qnap that we moved to (for more capacity) and their TB3 to 10Gbe adapter to get more people connected.
I just bought this and am currently getting it set up. So my question is should I get the M.2 ssd's and put them in or is it better not to? I will be using it to edit videos and store all of my content. Thanks for your help
Hey Max, I've been watching your content for a while and listened to your recommendation i have 1 2019 Mac book pro vega 20 32 gb 1 tb and its not performing as i expected I'm using fcpx my render time on a slide show using iPhone pictures was 6 min. Please help
@@brandonragsdale6219 Exporting to ProRes isn't for final delivery but a huge master file. If you photos are already really compressed (like from the iPhone) it doesn't improve the quality just makes the size longer and takes longer to export. I would use the Share>Apple 4K (or 1080P) and then select from Apple Devices, Computer, or Web Hosting (I would use Computer optin since its most compatible) and faster encode should be selected already for the export. These options (faster encode) will result in the intel quick sync being used.
You could use larger hard drives if you want to have more space, but the 8TB are the best deal. We delete stuff we don't' need and offload old projects that we want to keep long term to 8TB hard drives that are cheap. geni.us/7mb7q
If you plan to get rid of this NAS I'll gladly take it off your hands. :D Seriously though, this review and the one of the new one are eyeopeners, I reaaally have a bad experience with RAID, but also looking for a more specialized storage medium like this to backup movies and music more securely than the current cage I'm using. Keep the videos coming.
Nice one. Im still thinking about getting one of this, but so far, im stick with Icy Dock (which is standard 4x sata case). Btw, hows Final Cut with network drive? Possible to work?
