Hi Everyone, I hope I put this in the right category.
So I’m in the middle of setting up a new TrueNAS server for a client. It’s for a video editing workflow for editing blackmagic 6k and 8k footage.
We were setting up the dropbox account on it and it seems I’m not able to create specific share permissions for folders in the dropbox account.
The idea was to be able to have people editing off the DropBox account thats is on the server and then it synching in the evening but we don’t want to give each user full access to all the folders in the shared dropbox on the server.
Is there a setting I’m missing in TrueNAS or is it just not possible the way I want to run it. I’m open to exploring other operating systems but would prefer to stay with a ZFS based system with easy web UI.
Can you set up a computer that goes between both storage endpoints? That way you can mount a share to the Truenas and keep that drive synced with the Dropbox client. Should work, but not certain. This would also provide the access limits you want, no user would have access to Dropbox, only that “server” handling the sync in and out of dropbox would have all the permissions. You wouldn’t need any more of a computer than what can handle the speed of your internet, an old thin client with an OS you want to install should be able to handle most gigabit internet connections and have overhead to spare for the LAN file movement.
I had thought of that, I don’t need metal I could just spin up a VM under TrueNAS the machine is running a 32 Core Epyc and 1TB of ram so I have available overhead however my concern is wouldn’t that machine become a serious bottleneck? I was hoping for a more simple solution…
How big of an internet connection do you have? Unless you have a 10gbps or faster, I don’t think a VM is going to be a bottle neck.
Just for clarification:
Your editors are working inside the building connected to the LAN or working from outside connected to DropBox? Two different workflows that should be defined first.
If DropBox is just an off site backup with possible remote workers, that’s not a big deal. If everyone is remote then you might be getting past my DropBox knowledge.
The internet is 1G up and down. My concern for the bottleneck is more the local Windows Server VMs virtual network card as the server is attached with 4x10gbps in LAG to the main switch also am I not defeating the purpose of ZFS by putting a windows server in front of it?
99% of the time the editors are on the LAN, most offsite editors will be remoting into a workstation to edit from offsite, there is that very rare instance where we have an editor offsite somewhere that the there internet is not stable enough to sustain a remote connection but they are able to download what they need and work locally. (this happens perhaps an handful of times per year)
Yes you are correct, dropbox is mostly offsite backup with occasional offsite use. The idea was also that if by some chance the storge server is down the users could just download the content locally till the server is back up.
(Thanks again for everyone’s help with this, it’s my first time setting up a TrueNAS box on this scale)
Where do you have Truenas Scale running, is it a VM in a Hyper-V system?
I wouldn’t think that another VM taking a little network for 1gbps is going to do anything with 4x10gbps on the network. You can also just schedule to backups to cloud for times when no one is around (if there are times when this happens).
Regarding remoting in to edit, which software suite are you using? Unless something changed, Adobe does not allow any of the products to be used by remote connection. We checked into that when we sent all of our students home, they finally gave in and let students have short term User licenses to finish projects from home. Would be nice if they changed policy because I’d have some info to push to allow remote work for our students.
I’m running TrueNAS Scale on the Metal so if I ran a VM I would be running it there.
Wouldn’t the Windows VM use more then 1Gbps as it’s now handling all the shares throught it?
Yes I will be running a PUSH every evening for the dropbox when no one is there.
We use Parsec with no issues since 2020 so people just log into there workstation from home to edit. We even have external contractors that do it some times. The only limitation is for audio work due to latency but everything else is fine.
Your shares are still coming through Truenas to all your clients. You would just build another client that has permission/access to all the shares and access to Dropbox. Could be a physical Windows, or Linux, or even a RasPi if you wanted (slower access on a Pi). Yes you can run it as a VM, but again, it is just another client that has permissions on all the shares and on all the Dropbox. A Windows or Mac client would make life easier because you could use the Dropbox application to handle what needs to be uploaded/downloaded and probably to set a schedule.