From PC to NAS - Premiere workflow

[Mat_TTM]

Hi,

I am looking to enhance the connection between my PC and my NAS. This is to decrease any lag time when working off projects that are located on the NAS. I plan to purchase the following:

• Synology E10G18-T2 10GbE Dual RJ45 PCIe 3.0 x8 Ethernet Adapter
• ASUS ROG AREION 10Gbe Network Card

My PC has two internal SSDs, which i do work off most of the time, however reccently (and in the future) i will need to be working through Premiere off the NAS more and more.

I have noticed some lag time in loading and playback when working with larger projects that are based on the NAS.

My theory is that by speeding up the transfer speed, it will enable premiere to work more smoothly with projects and footage that are located on the NAS.

Is this likely to work, or am I delusional?

Specs:

Processor - Intel Core i9-9940X CPU @ 3.30GHz
RAM - 64GB

Graphics - Quadro RTX 5000

Windows 10

Synology (NAS) DS1618+ (20TB)

Thanks!

[Carlos Ziade]

I guess those guys are good and they have Adobe compatible solutions:

https://www.studionetworksolutions.com/

[Mat_TTM]

Hi @Carlos Ziade 

Thanks for the reply but I already have a NAS (Synology) and am just curious as to whether increasing the transfer speed betyween the NAS and the PC would have a direct correlation to better playback (less lag) on larger projects which are housed on the NAS, as well as better openning times.

Cheers

[Andy 1968]

10 GB Ethernet is pretty fast but if you striped 8 hard drives together with your NAS it would probably hit a bottleneck. Do you need things on a NAS or could you run an internal RAID and have better throughput?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfT9ivfbJ98&feature=emb_imp_woyt

[Mat_TTM]

Hi @Andy 1968 

Unfortuneately i need the NAS as i basically use it for one client that has TB's of stuff and im constantly either updating or creating new projects for them, which will need further tweaking in the future at a moments notice. So i have the NAS to compensate for the sheer amount of data i need to have immediate access too. I have two interal SSDs which are for general temp clients which works great and performance is not an issue. I do the project directly on those and dont interact with the NAS, export, send off, archive on an external HDD which I almost never need as its only for personal reference.

[Andy 1968]

How many drives does your NAS have? Some computer cases can allow for 12 hard drives for well over 100 TB of storage. You can use 12 TB hot swap hard drives for archieving.

[Carlos Ziade]

this article by Larry Jordan will help you a lot: (make sure you are using the right connectivity cables)

https://larryjordan.com/articles/server-based-video-editing-with-adobe-premiere-pro-cc/

When you start integrating a server into your editing workflow, you need to be concerned about four things:

• Storage capacity
• Bandwidth
• Latency
• How the NLE integrates with the server

[Mat_TTM]

I guess what I would like to know is, if all other bottle neck issues such as bandwidth, cables, etc have been addressed. Is the read/write connection speed between the Synology NAS and the PC associated with the playback of Premiere if all media is housed on the NAS. ie will their be less lag or juttering during playback etc. I understand that there are a million variables but I'd just like to know if my asssumptions are correct...?

[Carlos Ziade]

when i worked at a television network, they had a Synology(im not sure which one) and i tried many times to play HD footage directly from the NAS. I even edited multicamera on Premiere Pro without any lags or issues. I felt sometimes it was even a lot faster than working form my local drives. I'm sure they used HDD Raids and not SSD. I contacted the IT

guy who is my friend and addressed your issue... waiting for his reply and will try to help you best when he does so.. but

note that we used to work with Full HD footage... no idea how 4K and 8K perform

[Kevin-Monahan]

Think you need at least 8 drives to make it work reliably. You only have 6 available bays with that unit. Maybe you can look into an expansion bay? I have seen that others also recommend a 10 GigE switch too, that is, if you're planning to have multiple users editing from the system. I apologize for not having documentation around this setup as they are more common with the worldwide situation right now. I am asking the devs to come up with a white paper, but we don't have anything concrete yet.

Largely, these systems are hard to support, as there are so different components in place. I worked as an engineer at Deluxe and was in charge of the SAN there (XSAN, actually), and we had fiber channel, metadata controllers, switches, in addition to large RAID arrays. We also had a contract with Apple, who came out to visit the site several times during my tenure. About 30 systems were connected.

Most pro environments work in tandem with video VARs that can help them install and troubleshoot systems SAN and NAS systems and video editing. You may want to give your local VAR a call to see if they can help you with any issues that may arise that are beyond the expertise found on these forums. Bob Zelin, SAN confuring specialist wrote this article on the QNAP product you can refer to. I understand you have a smaller setup, but you still have to keep the same issues in mind.

Thanks,
Kevin

[Kevin-Monahan]

I found another post by Bob Zelin over on Reddit. Check it out here.

You purchase a professional Synology, like the DS1821+. You put 16 Gig of RAM into it, and the optional 10G card from Synology. If you don't get the DS1821+, then you get the older DS1819+ if you can find one - and put in 16 Gig of RAM and the optional 10G card. You install ALL EIGHT matching 7200 RPM drives, and put them into a single RAID 5 or RAID 6 RAID group. Your 10G port connects to a 10G switch (like a QNAP QSW-M1208-8C or Netgear XS708T). Your editing computers have 10G NIC cards in them, or if they are Mac, you get thunderbolt 3 to 10G adapters - all which connect to the 10G switch. Then you will have wonderful performance for editing with Adobe Premiere, Davinci Resolve or FCP X. IF you are using AVID Media Composer, you MUST purchase Indiestor Mimiq for each Media Composer workstation, or nothing will work.

IF you want the rest of the office to connect, you put the 1G port of the Synology into your house network. You will NOT connect with USB3. Just stop it with the SSD's, and RAID 0. I do this every day for professional video editors.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Mat,

Did you get this working? Let us know!

Kevin

[Mat_TTM]

Hi @Kevin-Monahan ,

Thats for the above post, very interesting!

I have not had a chance actually, due to some COVID related delays.

But those delays have now ended so I will hopefully get back to you soon with an answer!

Cheers

Mat