NAS vs Server

[ZA_Sean]

Office is doing a nice hardware upgrade, and we are making the transition to Revit. We don't need our big server machine, I think, as we only use it for file storage being that we have a cloud based Exchange server, so I'm looking at an NAS setup. Does anyone have experience with NAS and Revit files? We did have an NAS on a tiral basis for working with AutoCAD files (a cheap DLINK DNS-320L) and we noticed considerable slow down in file access and write speeds vs the Server, but I'm looking at getting a QNAP-TS-253 Pro NAS with 8GB RAM.

Any thoughts?

[Chris.Aquino · Accepted solution]

At this time, NAS (and SAN) devices are not supported to work with Autodesk products. 

Since Autodesk procuct use SMB to manage files, use of a NAS (or SAN) can cause issues like the ones you are seeing as there is now (at least) one more step the information has to go through before it gets read/written.

For more informaiton, we have created the following articles:

Autodesk support for non-Microsoft networks

Autodesk support for Network Attached Storage (NAS) and Storage Area Network (SAN) devices

Please let me know if you have any further questions.

[mtrblt]

Our office has used Iomega StorCenter ix2-200 for the past 4 years & it seems to work fine, but sometimes it is slow.  We're mostly running revit w/ the central files on the NAS.  Machines have windows 7 64 bit.  The local/ central sync can sometimes be slow, so we have set save times (local) more frequently than sync times (local/central).  Biggest files are in the 100-150mb range and syncing can sometimes take close to a minute.

I'm looking to replace it now mostly because I'm looking for a better software interface w/ better backup controls.

The Iomega has an ok interface but there is no way to control when/ how it writes files to Amazon S3 (which is how it backs up), so I'm looking for better software interface, primarily.

Read/ write speed would also be more welcome.

I'm also looking for any feedback from anyone else running revit on a NAS device.

Thanks in advance.

[Anonymous]

mtrblt - you ever upgrade that NAS? We're in the same boat looking to upgrade NAS or maybe go server route. I was wondering how that Iomega drive was taking so long to sync? We currently have a pretty slow seagate central with read of 65 mb/s and write of 38 mb/s and a 150 mb revit file takes about 10 seconds to sync. Tested it with this http://www.808.dk/?code-csharp-nas-performance . 

[ZA_Sean]

I ended up getting a QNAP TS-253 Pro, and using that NAS test, got about 100mb write and 100mb read

[mtrblt]

tyfullerton

we upgraded to a synology ds716+

we still use the iomega nas for archiving

NAS tester results:

synology

Average (W): 11.76 MB/sec
Average (R): 11.81 MB/sec

iomega

Average (W): 10.62 MB/sec
Average (R): 11.74 MB/sec

I guess I have some network issues! 

Maybe I should invest in a more robust router...what do you use to get speeds like that?

I can tell you the synology feels faster in every way...opening large photoshop files, using the software interface etc.  In Revit it's a little hard to parse because the hardware change accompanied a change from rvt 2015 to rvt 2016.

The other big issue has to do with the software interface:  there is no comparison between the iomega interface (crappy & discontinued support) and the synology dsm (awesome).

[ZA_Sean]

You might not have a 1Gb switch/router, or your network cards in your workstations are not 1Gb.

[ZA_Sean]

Another thing to consider is the LAN port speed on the NAS. If it only has a 1gb ethernet port (So 125 Megabyte/sec), everyone connecting to the NAS is sharing that 1gb connection. If you have 5 people opening/saving files, each persons speed would be throttled to about 25MB/sec (25 x 5 persons = 125 MB/sec).

Our new NAS has a 10gb ethernet port, connected to a 10gb port on our network switch, then our workstations are still 1gb ports. Now, we all share the 10gb connections. There's only 5 of us in office, so we can max out our 1gb cards at 120MB/sec at all times.