I am researching DAM (Digital Asset Management) software for our Marketing team. 5-6 people
We used Egnyte, but they have much more data. We switched to an SNS EVO, but it turns out unreliable and support is not great.
I am thinking about building a separate fileserver, maybe with TrueNAS or purchasing a Synology. (We have 2 other units for backup and corp fileserver).
Here are the requirements
~40-50 TB of data
tagging pictures, videos
work over SMB (so I can connect it to the current VDI)
easy external sharing
file requests
I have a few options in my head:
1, TrueNAS + Nextcloud
2, Synology
3, Dropbox Business + Synology (for local access)
I have used an SNS Evo in the past, support was decent back then for what we needed. iSCSI with their driver was a pain in the backside and gave us a bunch of grief.
Truenas is not a DAM, you’ll need other software to handle that job and I don’t have any recommendations for that.
As far as media on a Truenas, if possible go with at least 16 drives in groups of 8, then a simple stripe to bring them together into one large volume. 24 drives would be better. Spindle count (drive count) brings better speeds. NVME could eliminate some of the speed requirements, but spinning is still way cheaper in big sizes.
Thank you! I will keep looking for software since that was one of our key decision points with EVO.
We beta-tested the v7.0 for them, so that could be behind the crash. One day the system just failed, and the OS couldn’t start. I contacted them 5-6 days ago and they still couldn’t resolve the problem. Even I prepared everything for them. They logged in 2 times. Maybe it is just my experience.
I had a clock issue that SNS could never fix, even connecting to my local NTP GPS clock. I had to reboot about every two weeks to reset the clock because it would only check during boot.
But they were normally pretty responsive to help requests. That was also 5 or so years ago when we finally ditched it. The server had hardware issues, I couldn’t even get Freenas running on it reliably.
If you want top notch storage and DAM, look into the current Avid servers, they are no longer just for Avid software, Premiere is listed in the supported platforms to try and bring in more customers. If we had the money, I would be running an Avid media storage unit right now, but you can buy a redundant Truenas system direct from ixsystems for less money and it will probably work better for all around storage. We didn’t need DAM so Truenas does what we need right now.
Considering you’re dealing with a substantial 40-50 TB of data, reliability is key. It’s a bummer that Egnyte and SNS EVO didn’t quite meet your expectations. Having dependable support is crucial in those moments when things get tricky.
We stick with EVO after we fix the bugs in the system. (It was a beta at the very beginning.) Marketing like it.
Here is what we have currently.
2x EVO with 40 TB (one main, one live backup)
1x old ReadyNAS (Supermicro) to archive with 10 GbE
2x desktop ReadyNAS to backup the archive
1x Synology 10 TB (2disk) for backing up and sharing final footage*
*This is used by the whole company.
Now the “only” problem is helping the users to make an efficient workflow and clean old footage that they never use.
Considering the budget, I feel okay with the system. This act as a demo system also.
