10gbe, SSD, Ram - Overkill?

[Enquiries]

I run a photography studio
SETUP: DS1821+ with 8x20TB WD Red Pros. Raid 5. I have a M1 Mac mini without a 10gbe port. I'm connecting the NAS directly to the Mac mini via ethernet.
MAIN USE: Backup 40TB of data per year. SD cards via reader on M1 Mac, transferring to folder on NAS.
SECONDARY USE: Browse Raw files, organize data, Transfer to portable SSDs for editing, transfer to portable HDDs via USB COPY as a second copy. Upload JPG files (10tb/yr) to cloud for 3rd backup.
1. Will a 10gbe adaptor on the NAS and a "thunderbolt 4 to 10gbe" adaptor on the Mac mini increase my transfer speeds? I use Sandisk SD cards (170 MB/s) with a prograde memory card reader (capable of 1.25gb/s). Or am I bottlenecked somewhere?
2. Will installing NVME SSD add any benefit for my use? I will not be using this for plex or anything like that. Just a huge central HD for my studio. It would be nice to browse files quickly.
3. Will increasing RAM do anything for me?
Any other recommendations?

[ed]

A 10GbE adaptor on the NAS and a Thunderbolt 4 to 10GbE adaptor on the Mac mini can indeed increase your transfer speeds. The transfer speed between your memory card reader and the Mac mini will be limited by the fastest of these two components, which is currently the 170 MB/s from the Sandisk SD cards. If you are looking to further increase speeds, you may consider using a faster memory card or a faster memory card reader. The 10GbE connection between the NAS and the Mac mini will provide a much faster connection than a standard 1GbE connection, allowing you to transfer large amounts of data much faster.

Installing an NVMe SSD as a cache drive in the NAS can provide some benefits for your use case. An NVMe SSD can provide much faster read and write speeds than a traditional hard disk drive, which can help improve the overall performance of the NAS, especially when browsing files and accessing data. However, since you won't be using the NAS for tasks that require high storage performance, such as media playback, you may not see a significant performance increase with an NVMe SSD.

Increasing the RAM in your NAS can improve its performance, especially if you are using the NAS for memory-intensive tasks such as large file transfers or data processing. More RAM will allow the NAS to store more data in memory, reducing the need to access the hard disk drives and improving overall performance.

P.S. Try to get USB card reader and connect it fireclty to a NAS. This will be a quickest way to transfer data/ or at least to test card capabilities in real life.