Server or NAS?

[Amen]

What would be better?

 

A server can run the license servers, an email server, the fileserver and maybe a firewall.

 

The NAS is a lot easier to setup.

 

The dream setup would be:

 

Synology DX1215

 

fill this with 1 TB ssd :-)

 

Netgear ProSAFE XS712T

 

ASRock X99 WS-E/10G

 

and something similar for a dual processor board for a render node.

[numerobis]

I think this depends on your needs.

How many clients?

How many users?

How many HDDs/SSDs?

 

E-mail-server? So do you plan to run an Exchange Server on it?

And i'm a bit confused about the render node thing. Do you want to use the server as node? Or do you want to build a second one as node?

There are many different options. So to be able to say something helpful you need to bit more precise...

 

Some general thoughts...

I don't think that a dual CPU setup is needed. (unless you want to use it as a node) The bottleneck will be the HDD/SSD and the network - even with a 10G network.

Edited March 9, 2015 by numerobis

[Amen]

I see it is a little imprecise...

 

It would be either a server for files, email, ftp and licenses. It should be relatively simple but 4 - 6 cores are necessary for a good 10Gbe speed. A windows server?

 

Or a Nas and do FTP + EMail in the cloud (Outlook 365). The license server would be on one of the render nodes.

 

The setup should be future proof (therefore the 10 Gbe) and I hate waiting for scene files (usually around 300 mb) to open.

 

I would start with 2 workstations and 2 rendernodes. The files would be on a raid 6 with 6 x 1 TB ssd. (and some simple storage for another backup)

 

The board I posted would be for a workstation, not really relevant to the server or nas question.

 

Writing this, I think the nas would be a lot easier to setup. But why should I use a server? I do not want to miss anything.

 

Thx for the help.

[numerobis]

It should be relatively simple but 4 - 6 cores are necessary for a good 10Gbe speed.

Do you mean ARM or x86 cores?

ARM quadcore https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/DX1215#overview

Intel Haswell i3 dualcore https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/DS3615xs#spec

Intel Haswell Xeon quadcore https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/RS10613xs+#spec

 

EMail in the cloud (Outlook 365).

Why Outlook 365? A simple IMAP account should be enough. No?

 

But why should I use a server? I do not want to miss anything.

Cheaper? More flexible/upgradable?

[Amen]

You are right: I was talking about the DS3615x https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/DS3615xs#spec

 

The RS3614xs+ https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/RS3614xs+ would be even faster, but twice as expensive.

 

I like outlook 365, that is the only reason. I do not consider it too expensive. Compared to a version of Adobe CC (70 €/month) and 3ds Max (195 €/month). All the software one needs for 3d is around 300 € a month. That and a decent budget for hardware - around 500 €... That is quite a lot of money you have to earn every month.

[Francisco Penaloza]

I think it depend of your company size and load of work, for instance, NAS system are good energy friend backup systems, also they do offer some sort of server functions as you mentioned, but if you have heavy traffic or intense CPU usage, they slow down to a crawl compared to a normal server machine.

for instance, it would not be strange for a Viz studio to be, doing a simple 1 or 2 minutes animation, in one moment, you'll be rendering and comping or opening a large photoshop file, in that moment the server or NAS machine should be reading, writing, controlling render servers, and controlling email data, and maybe backing up files at the same time. Multi core CPU or mutliples CPU will work better in this situation and over all more beefy machines.

Regarding your RAID6, you need to choose what is more important to you, safe data or faster streaming data. You could have a faster RAID system, and constant back up in case your working disk fails, or a slower redundancy RAID but in case of one failing disk your data and time to recover that data is minimal. Honestly there is not a "perfect" solution, you need to decide what really will make the difference for your workflow. The more important thing to me is never put all the egg in one single basket

Back up- backup- Backup.

[Amen]

One thing I found out while reading a little bit more... It is not possible to use a raid 5 or 6 with ssds because the trim command is not supported.

 

Raid 0 might work in a few configurations. Garbage collection does work but is not a perfect solution.

 

So my dream SSD Nas or storage server is not really possible at the moment.

[Guest ihabkalache]

your bottleneck in a NAS is the TCP/IP slowness so the gigabit lan and the cpu and memory on the nas device more so than the hard disk speeds, mechanical hard drives these days can give you 150MB/s each, with Raid more, so having SSDs in a NAS is not cost effective at the moment and doesn't provide real world benefit IMO.

[numerobis]

It is not possible to use a raid 5 or 6 with ssds because the trim command is not supported.

https://www.synology.com/en-us/knowledgebase/faq/591