Would SSD benefit my photo workflow 1621+/10gbe?

[Furbz85]

Hi people,

first of all: thank you if you are helping me out!
I've got a ds1621+ hooked up via 10gbe on my iMac via a thunderbolt adapter.
Running speed tests to my nas with Black Magic I have 500+ write and about 1000 read.
So far so good!

But, and that is the strange thing. Coming home from a wedding and copying my
files to the nas I have slow speeds. About 1gbe speeds. Not the worst, since I let the machine
do its work and I usually take some coffee and relax. But..

Running my software, Capture one, via the 10gbe is a pain in the ass. It is slow, even
jumping from picture to picture. So I've got two ideas and I'd like your help wether I am approaching this wrong or not.

1. I use too small file sizes (25/30 mb) and those do not benefit loading from my 10gbe hdd reads. Will this problem be solved by using cache ssd's?
2. I have got some settings wrong on the nas that do nog benefit my workloads.

What am I doing wrong and should I buy the SSD's (thinking about 2 in stead of one for fail safety)

Thank you in advance: Ferdi

 

[Rusty]

1. I use too small file sizes (25/30 mb) and those do not benefit loading from my 10gbe hdd reads. Will this problem be solved by using cache ssd's?
2. I have got some settings wrong on the nas that do nog benefit my workloads.

What am I doing wrong and should I buy the SSD's (thinking about 2 in stead of one for fail safety)

Cache might help but it would be best to run the SSD cache analysis 1st to get a bit better "image" of it and should you use it or not.

Getting a dedicated SSDs in the main slots would be a better investment from a speed standpoint for sure. In a combination with 10G eth, you will get a much better experience.

 

[jeyare]

Coming home from a wedding and copying my
files to the nas I have slow speeds. About 1gbe speeds. Not the worst, since I let the machine
do its work and I usually take some coffee and relax. But..

Could you please explain in more detail what " copying " means?
What is transferred to where by what:
1. source media (SD card, ... or USB connected camera)
2. source media reader and the interface (USB2,3, ... eSATA, TB ver)
3. reader or USB connected into NAS directly or through your MAC
4. when copying through your MAC, ten how (copy-paste into your SMB target or into local drive, then synced to SMB, ...)
5. is there enabled indexing services or thumbnail creation (NAS)?
6. even you upload the file into Photos?
... please describe this "black hole"

Running my software, Capture one, via the 10gbe is a pain in the ass. It is slow, even
jumping from picture to picture. So I've got two ideas and I'd like your help wether I am approaching this wrong or not.

I don't know your NAS setup:
- exact drives
- RAID
- SMB setup, when used for the transfer

I don't know your network setup (what is between your TB 10G adapter and the NAS:
- nothing, it is a direct connection
- something.

Don't use the Blackmagic speed tester. Better is to use a real/common scenario:
- same data sample (your common transfer bunch)
- same for the transfer scenario (mentioned above in the "copying" stage)
Otherwise, the Blackmagic will show you "nice" but unrealistic results.

 

[Furbz85]

Thank you all so much for your reply! This is my workflow:

I use XQD cards that I hook up on my Mac via usb 3. Copying via Finder takes considerably more
time to copy than via Photo Mechanic. So first bump looks to be the Mac finder. Card speed is 400MB (megabyte, not bit) and the reader is a Sony xqd reader. But this is not the main problem: since I can get a coffee and wait for the nas
to get all the files copied to.

The problem starts really when I am going to edit:
I have a, non encrypted, folder on the nas. There live my files and my photo library (I use Capture one).
In Capture one jumping from one photo to another (I mostly have around 3000/4000 photos to go through
I find myself waiting far too long jumping from one photo to another.
Photos are 30 MB and my reads should be (give or take) around 500MB. This should be a non problem
editing my photos. Theoretically!

I use the ds1621+ with a 10gbe card inside attached directly to my Mac (via a thunderbolt 3 converter<->ethernet).
I is setup with SRH1 with a minimal of SMB2. My nas is filled up with Ironwolf drives. I recently setup my NAS like Spacerex recommends in this video:

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There are no real benefits with photo editing to be honest.
So: I thought I had the maximum speed available on the Nas setup, but somewhere along the
way I is bottlenecked. And I don't know where to find the problem.

@jeyare does this give enough information to give me some help?
Thank you in advance!

 

[jeyare]

Following your description it’s more about Catalog setup/performance than network/NAS tuning.
I’m Adobe positive, don’t know C1, but there are plenty google resources regarding the C1 catalog performance issue.

My point:
- catalog handling is fundamental bottleneck for any similar software
- use two diif tools to preview Catalog files (same NAS target) from your MAC and check the performance
- whe both of them are faster than C1, you need find the useful setup within the C1

 

[Furbz85]

@jeyare sorry for my late reply. I had some personal issues to deal with. Appologies.
I have been experimenting with my connection and discovered some stuff:

- Big files copy much faster than small files.
I've copied 9 gb as seperate photos (67 seconds)
I'v copied the same photos, but now in a container (Capture one catalog) and it took 20 seconds. That is an amazing difference in speed. Conclusion: bigger files copy faster. Seems like small files is like a road full of traffic lights and big files are like the high way.

- File handeling within the big catalog seems faster. But still a little laggy.
- My synology uses max 25% CPU and a little ram whilest edditing: so CPU is no bottleneck. Ram (4gb) doesn't seem
to be the problem either.

- Since I get high speeds on big files my cable (CAT6a) seems to be fine

- Some software seems faster handeling SMB than others:
MacOs finder is about 20% slower than Forklift (an Finder/FTP/SMB app alternative) and Photo Mechanic. So there is some time to win.

Bottom line: I need to get higher IOPS for the 30/40 MB files. Will SSD Cache help me with that? It's still sad that 60BG Raw files takes ages, while a movie with the exact same size flies over my 10gbe.

What brand do you guys recommend? Are Synology's own brand really better than an Iron Wolf ssd or WD Red ssd? (I'm talking about m2 NVME).

I hope someone could enlight me with this. Thank you so much in advance.