NAS hub (or better alternative) question for media/music production files

[r4ndom]

Hi everyone,

I currently have 2x 1tb SSD's on my motherboard on my PC, but I am out of room and need a new storage solution.

I will be using this storage for 2 things, to store libraries and sample files for music production and also for media files for personal use (movies, music, etc.)

Instead of simply building a "hard drive bay hub", I thought it would be efficient to instead build a NAS setup, and if possible, I can connect it to my PC for more immediate music production use, but also as a media hub for my home to stream movies from any room.

My main questions are:

1. Is there a NAS hub (or other solution) that will let me plug in both HDD's AND SSD's into the hard drive bay? I would like to be able to use both types of drives if possible, just in case HDD's alone don't load my music production files fast enough

2. Is there any other alternative for my needs that I might not be thinking about?

[whyterabbyt]

NAS means the storage is accessed via ethernet. Even gigabit ethernet (120MB/s max) is basically going to wind up slower access than the HDD inside it (200MB/s). Doesnt matter that you could swap HDDs in a NAS for SSDs if your network is already your bottleneck...

If you want to leverage the speed an SSD can provide as an external device, as a 'normal consumer,' then your sane option is USB3, anything else is probably a waste of the SSD.

Unless, of course, you need the data protection of RAID, but you havent actually mentioned that.

Also, IMO, slap a cheap external HDD on whatever other PC you have, or even a raspberry pi, and share that as a media hub, dont mix the two uses. That -will- be fast enough for its purpose on gigabit.

edit : bandwidth units corrected
protip : dont cut and paste your typos

[r4ndom]

NAS means the storage is accessed via ethernet. Even gigabit ethernet (120Mb/s max) is basically going to wind up slower access than the HDD inside it (200Mb/s). Doesnt matter that you could swap HDDs in a NAS for SSDs if your network is already your bottleneck...

If you want to leverage the speed an SSD can provide as an external device, as a 'normal consumer,' then your sane option is USB3, anything else is probably a waste of the SSD.

Unless, of course, you need the data protection of RAID, but you havent actually mentioned that.

Also, IMO, slap a cheap external HDD on whatever other PC you have, or even a raspberry pi, and share that as a media hub, dont mix the two uses. That -will- be fast enough for its purpose on gigabit.

Thanks alot for the detailed response and taking the time. I have some quick follow-up comments if you have another spare minute sometime, I underlined them near the bottom.

So, I thought that maybe I can have a NAS (or a hard drive "hub") that I can plug into my computer either via usb 3 or sata AND have it also be capable of ethernet connection. For some reason I thought a NAS could also be plugged in and be used as a hard-wired hard drive hub as well.

If it's not ideal though that's okay, my main interest is having a hub I can use for music kontakt libraries and sample packs to browse in my DAW. I would just need to find a hub that can simultaneously have SSD's and HDD's in it (if this even exists). I was thinking sample packs can go on an HDD and kontakt libraries can go on an SSD.

It doesn't have to be a NAS, but is there anything that isn't a NAS then that can plug into my computer and also have ethernet capabilities?

My issue is that I've ran out of SATA ports, so are you saying that if I buy a regular hard drive hub and connect it via usb 3 (and not a sata expansion connector of some sort) that would be the fastest option?

Do you think there would be any lag time browsing audio sample previews on an HDD? I would think not because it seems like a quick task.

[whyterabbyt]

NAS is specifically networked storage. And yeah, there are NAS boxes with USB but read the description carefully; just because a specific model might have USB that doesnt necessarily mean they can be connected to a computer via USB; eg often the USB is for connecting an external hard drive to the NAS. Generally the market seems to cover self-contained NAS boxes, or USB-connected drive enclosures. Dont offhand know of anything that does both, but Im not up to speed on what's current. Ive got a mix of RAID-1 NAS, and USB enclosures and docks.

Dont forget, any storage connected to a computer can be shared on the network by that computer.

USB3 would definitely be the fastest external option for consumer use, IMO. Fast enough to leverage more bandwidth than you'll get from an HDD inside it. (Maybe a NAS with 2.5GBe or better would compare, but that's still got a significant cost premium over gigabit I reckon.)

If an HDD is powered down for power-saving, there might be a perceptible lag there as it spins up again, but other than nothing that significant,. Generally previewing samples is a light load compared to eg lots of voices of big multisample libraries and HDDs can still manage that reasonably well...

[Shabdahbriah]

I'm not familiar with any motherboards that only have two SATA ports, but if that is the case with yours, then... an or alternative:

PCI-e x4 Adapter PCIe to M.2 Adapter.png

PCI-e x4 Adapter PCIe to M.2 Adapter-01.jpg

[Yearofthegoat]

Be careful not to mix up units. E.g. Gigabit Ethernet is nominally 1000Mb/s, not 120Mb/s as whyterabbyt says.

In practice it tops out at about 118MB/s (Megabytes), or 944Mb/s (Megabits).

[whyterabbyt]

Be careful not to mix up units. E.g. Gigabit Ethernet is nominally 1000Mb/s, not 120Mb/s as whyterabbyt says.

In practice it tops out at about 118MB/s (Megabytes), or 944Mb/s (Megabits).

Yeah, that's just a simple mistake/typo; kinda obvious since 120 is just 118 rounded up for simplicity.
The point was comparing gigabit bandwidth to HDD bandwidth in the same units, so that lower bandwidth available via a NAS was made clear.

[ebkp]

You could install a large (eg 5-10TB) 3.5 inch HD into your PC, and then share out files across the network. This will give you optimal performance for music production, and also allow you to access movies, music, etc on other devices

[whyterabbyt]

You could install a large (eg 5-10TB) 3.5 inch HD into your PC, and then share out files across the network. This will give you optimal performance for music production, and also allow you to access movies, music, etc on other devices

Yes, but the OP specifically said that he is 'out of room' for internal drives, and that he has no more free SATA ports.
It sounds like there's a particular reason he's after an external solution, ie that an internal solution isnt actually possible. My thought was that he had a small-format system, maybe a NUC or similar.

[T-CM11]

It doesn't have to be a NAS, but is there anything that isn't a NAS then that can plug into my computer and also have ethernet capabilities?

A DAS: https://www.amazon.com/Direct-Attached- ... ed+Storage
Just share it over ethernet via your PC.

[uOpt]

I would prefer a NAS. It is a separate computer and can hold your backups in situations where your entire primary computer gets blown up by a faulty PSU, or scrambles all filesystems due to faulty memory.

If the storage in there ends up being too slow for a certain kind of data you can swap it with something that is local right now and doesn't have to. Once you are through that I would replace internal drives instead of adding USB drives or DAS.