Looking for Home/Work NAS

[Enquiries]

I am looking to setup a home NAS.

Both me and my wife work in the creative industry (Photography, Design, Web Development) and we both work primarily from home. We have a 2.5GB home ethernet network and we have 3 Macs, 2 laptops and a bunch of devices. We have a current data store of approx 22GB, across multiple HD drives, with the 2 main macs backed up to the cloud via BackBlaze.

We need to be able to access the NAS data both from the house and externally, as we also have a studio that we work in less often.

I am not sure about:
- the type of NAS I should be getting
- whether I need SSDs
- do I need a new BackBlaze account for the NAS
- how does the file sync work, do files always reside on the NAS or do the files sync back and forth to the NAS from each Mac. How does this effect working externally.

Key requirements:
2.5GB ethernet minimum
40+ TB to start
OS that allows Plex etc
Maybe a Hybrid model with HD & SSD

Thanks, Kieran

[ed]

Thanks for reaching out! Based on your requirements, I'd recommend the QNAP TVS-h874 from the h74 series. This model is a great fit for your creative work setup and offers the high performance, flexibility, and capacity expansion you need. Here’s why it’s ideal:

Key Features of the TVS-h874
10GbE and 2.5GbE Ports: Perfect for your 2.5Gbps home network, with the option to go 10GbE if you upgrade. This ensures smooth file transfers even with large files like photos, videos, and design assets.
Hybrid Storage Flexibility: The h874 series supports a mix of HDDs and SSDs. You can use traditional HDDs for high-capacity storage (e.g., 40TB) and SSDs for caching, which speeds up access to frequently used files.
QTS hero OS: Running QuTS hero OS with ZFS support, the h874 provides enhanced data integrity, performance, and scalability. This OS is particularly beneficial for creative workflows and offers robust data management.
Plex Support: The h874 can easily handle Plex media server duties, allowing you to stream media at home or remotely.
Recommended Setup
To start with 40TB, consider 6-8 x 8TB or 10TB HDDs in a RAID 5 or 6 configuration, plus 1-2 SSDs for caching. This setup will give you high capacity, data redundancy, and improved performance for your projects.

For remote access, QNAP’s myQNAPcloud will enable secure external access to your files, allowing you and your wife to work from your studio or anywhere else.

With your budget and the scalability of the h874 series, this setup should provide both future-proofing and the power to meet your needs.