u/dylanfraser-08

Hi everyone,

I’m a wedding videographer and I’ve recently bought my first NAS, but I’m trying to make sure I set everything up properly before I fully rely on it.

Current setup:

• NAS: UGREEN DXP4800 Pro
• Drives: 4x 8TB WD Red Pro enterprise drives
• Current RAID: RAID 5, but I can still change this as I’ve only just set it up
• UPS: Yes, NAS is connected to a UPS
• NAS SSD cache: 1TB M.2 SSD
• PC internal storage: 1x 10TB HDD, which I currently edit from
• External backup: 1x 12TB external HDD, but it’s very slow
• Work type: Wedding videography, mostly large video projects
• Storage need: Usually around 8TB of wedding backups at any given time
• Retention: I delete anything older than 6 months, which is stated in my contract

Before getting the NAS, my workflow was very simple:

1. Store and edit projects from my main internal 10TB HDD.
2. Keep a second backup on an external 12TB HDD.
3. Delete older projects after 6 months.

Now that I’ve got the NAS, I’m trying to figure out the best setup for both backup and editing.

My main questions are:

1. What RAID should I actually be using?
I currently have 4x8TB drives in RAID 5, giving me around 24TB usable. I understand RAID is not a backup, but I’m wondering if RAID 5 is sensible for my use case, or if I should be using RAID 6 / RAID 10 instead. Since I’m dealing with paid client work, reliability matters, but I also need decent speed and usable storage.

2. What should my actual backup strategy be?
I want wedding projects to be double or ideally triple backed up. With my current drives, would a good setup be:

• Active project on PC/internal drive or SSD
• Backup to NAS
• Backup to external HDD
• Potentially cloud backup for finished projects or important client files

Or should the NAS be the main storage and the PC/external drives be the backups?

3. Is editing directly from the NAS realistic?
I currently edit from a normal internal 10TB HDD in my PC with no major issues. Would editing directly from the NAS over network be faster, slower, or roughly the same?

The NAS has 4 HDDs in RAID 5 and a 1TB M.2 SSD cache. I’m not sure how much the SSD cache actually helps for large video editing files.

4. Why am I only getting around 110MB/s transfer speeds?
When transferring files to the NAS or to my external HDD, I’m maxing out around 110MB/s. It took around 15 hours to back up 4TB, which was painful.

I assume this is probably because something in the chain is running at 1GbE, but I’m not sure. My NAS has 10GbE, and I have a 10Gb network card in my PC, but I’m clearly not getting 10Gb speeds at the moment.

What should I be checking? Cables, switch, network adapter settings, NAS port, SMB settings, drive bottlenecks, etc?

5. Would I be better using SSDs in my PC for active projects?
I’m wondering if the smarter workflow would be to buy a few 4TB SSDs, or one large 8TB M.2 SSD for my PC, and use that for active editing, then back everything up to the NAS and external drives.

For example:

• Current wedding/project being edited lives on internal SSD/NVMe
• NAS stores all backups and recent archives
• External HDD is a second offline backup
• Finished projects also get uploaded elsewhere/cloud/client delivery platform

Would this be better than editing directly from the NAS?

6. Should I upgrade the NAS cache?
The NAS currently has a 1TB M.2 SSD cache. Would bigger SSD cache actually improve video editing performance, or is cache mostly irrelevant for large sequential video files?

Would I be better spending money on SSDs in my PC instead?

7. How should I handle remote editor access?
Eventually I’d like my editor to be able to access project files directly from the NAS, edit them, and upload finished projects back.

I’m not sure if this is realistic because of upload/download speeds, VPN speed, security, and project file sizes.

Would the better workflow be:

• Editor downloads proxy files from NAS/cloud
• Edits using proxies
• Uploads project files back
• I relink/export locally

Or can remote editing directly from a NAS actually work well?

8. What would be the cleanest, fastest, safest workflow?
Basically, I’m looking for advice on the best practical setup for a wedding videographer who needs:

• Fast editing
• Safe backup
• Easy archive system
• Ability to delete after 6 months
• Remote editor access
• Not overcomplicate things unnecessarily

I’m happy to buy more storage if needed, such as internal SSDs, bigger NAS cache, cloud backup, or another external drive, but I don’t want to waste money on the wrong thing.

Any advice on how you’d structure this setup would be massively appreciated.

Thanks.

Hi everyone,

I’m a wedding videographer and I’ve recently bought my first NAS, but I’m trying to make sure I set everything up properly before I fully rely on it.

Current setup:

• NAS: UGREEN DXP4800 Pro
• Drives: 4x 8TB WD Red Pro enterprise drives
• Current RAID: RAID 5, but I can still change this as I’ve only just set it up
• UPS: Yes, NAS is connected to a UPS
• NAS SSD cache: 1TB M.2 SSD
• PC internal storage: 1x 10TB HDD, which I currently edit from
• External backup: 1x 12TB external HDD, but it’s very slow
• Work type: Wedding videography, mostly large video projects
• Storage need: Usually around 8TB of wedding backups at any given time
• Retention: I delete anything older than 6 months, which is stated in my contract

Before getting the NAS, my workflow was very simple:

1. Store and edit projects from my main internal 10TB HDD.
2. Keep a second backup on an external 12TB HDD.
3. Delete older projects after 6 months.

Now that I’ve got the NAS, I’m trying to figure out the best setup for both backup and editing.

My main questions are:

1. What RAID should I actually be using?
I currently have 4x8TB drives in RAID 5, giving me around 24TB usable. I understand RAID is not a backup, but I’m wondering if RAID 5 is sensible for my use case, or if I should be using RAID 6 / RAID 10 instead. Since I’m dealing with paid client work, reliability matters, but I also need decent speed and usable storage.

2. What should my actual backup strategy be?
I want wedding projects to be double or ideally triple backed up. With my current drives, would a good setup be:

• Active project on PC/internal drive or SSD
• Backup to NAS
• Backup to external HDD
• Potentially cloud backup for finished projects or important client files

Or should the NAS be the main storage and the PC/external drives be the backups?

3. Is editing directly from the NAS realistic?
I currently edit from a normal internal 10TB HDD in my PC with no major issues. Would editing directly from the NAS over network be faster, slower, or roughly the same?

The NAS has 4 HDDs in RAID 5 and a 1TB M.2 SSD cache. I’m not sure how much the SSD cache actually helps for large video editing files.

4. Why am I only getting around 110MB/s transfer speeds?
When transferring files to the NAS or to my external HDD, I’m maxing out around 110MB/s. It took around 15 hours to back up 4TB, which was painful.

I assume this is probably because something in the chain is running at 1GbE, but I’m not sure. My NAS has 10GbE, and I have a 10Gb network card in my PC, but I’m clearly not getting 10Gb speeds at the moment.

What should I be checking? Cables, switch, network adapter settings, NAS port, SMB settings, drive bottlenecks, etc?

5. Would I be better using SSDs in my PC for active projects?
I’m wondering if the smarter workflow would be to buy a few 4TB SSDs, or one large 8TB M.2 SSD for my PC, and use that for active editing, then back everything up to the NAS and external drives.

For example:

• Current wedding/project being edited lives on internal SSD/NVMe
• NAS stores all backups and recent archives
• External HDD is a second offline backup
• Finished projects also get uploaded elsewhere/cloud/client delivery platform

Would this be better than editing directly from the NAS?

6. Should I upgrade the NAS cache?
The NAS currently has a 1TB M.2 SSD cache. Would bigger SSD cache actually improve video editing performance, or is cache mostly irrelevant for large sequential video files?

Would I be better spending money on SSDs in my PC instead?

7. How should I handle remote editor access?
Eventually I’d like my editor to be able to access project files directly from the NAS, edit them, and upload finished projects back.

I’m not sure if this is realistic because of upload/download speeds, VPN speed, security, and project file sizes.

Would the better workflow be:

• Editor downloads proxy files from NAS/cloud
• Edits using proxies
• Uploads project files back
• I relink/export locally

Or can remote editing directly from a NAS actually work well?

8. What would be the cleanest, fastest, safest workflow?
Basically, I’m looking for advice on the best practical setup for a wedding videographer who needs:

• Fast editing
• Safe backup
• Easy archive system
• Ability to delete after 6 months
• Remote editor access
• Not overcomplicate things unnecessarily

I’m happy to buy more storage if needed, such as internal SSDs, bigger NAS cache, cloud backup, or another external drive, but I don’t want to waste money on the wrong thing.

Any advice on how you’d structure this setup would be massively appreciated.

Thanks.