Blackmagic Forum

Just wondering if anyone is using a ZFS formatted NAS for their storage for Resolve? Especially interested if you are working with UHD/4K media. Also, are you using 10gig Ethernet or a different networking solution, such as infiniband or Fibre?

I've been told that Resolve needs block level access, i.e. a SAN, but was interested if anyone was successfully using a NAS.


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If you by NAS mean a network drive, Davinci has no problem reading and writing to it, at least on windows. What might be an issue is that on a network dive you have an extra layer of abstraction (the server hosting the drive itself) compared to block level access.
It is a dual edged sword: The server can cache data so the transfer speed is faster (ie directly from ram), but it increases latency a little bit for every read and write.

I am assuming that you have done some calculations about the raw read speed required (ie the data rate for the media itself), the number of hard drives and seek times. I am not familiar enough with ZFS to know if it can do something similar like RAID striping (to spread the load out on more than one HDD).
Since you are doing networking, the latency in the network itself can also play a role (if the server hosting the files are not physically close, where close is within 100 miles). The TCP transfer window size is also important, but that is more complicated than what you're asking here

Thanks for the response Mads.

Yes, am talking enterprise class NAS. Lots of drives, 10Gig (possibly 40) network & switch with a powerful server hosting the storage. No long cables, though 10gig over Fibre has minimal latency anyway.

My bigger concern was someone telling me that Resolve needed block level access, i.e. a SAN, so I was trying to see if anyone was working using NAS for storage and if they'd had issues.

Going NAS over SAN has lots of advantages. No point though if it doesn't work with Resolve.


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In particular, is anyone using a TrueNAS offering?

Looks amazing for the price, but want to know how is performs in real world terms.

TrueNas/Freenas would work well if you put a large ARC based SSD layer up front from your spinning disk storage so that you do not lose playback. ZFS with spinning disk does not scale appropriately as only ZFS pools can be striped together to gain performance. ZFS groups themselves only perform at the speed of a single drive unlike traditional RAID groups.

Honestly way cheaper to get some Fiber based storage and use sanMP in my experience only of course.

alexoreman wrote:TrueNas/Freenas would work well if you put a large ARC based SSD layer up front from your spinning disk storage so that you do not lose playback. ZFS with spinning disk does not scale appropriately as only ZFS pools can be striped together to gain performance. ZFS groups themselves only perform at the speed of a single drive unlike traditional RAID groups.

Honestly way cheaper to get some Fiber based storage and use sanMP in my experience only of course.

Thanks Alex. Definitely some things to consider there.

Does what you are saying apply when we are talking in terms of RAID Z? From my understanding that has much greater performance than the equivalent RAID 5? And with RAID-Z2 or Z3 you can afford to have multiple drives fail. Also TrueNAS allows block level access over Fibre from my understanding, so pretty much is a SAN. TrueNAS also works as a hybrid array, a mix of flash & spinning disks, though we may consider all Flash as well.

Not being argumentative, just trying to be informed

No problem Adam,

My comment about not scaling pefromance as a normal LSI/Atto based RAID 5 or 6 volume is true with the RAIDZ configs I have made on freenas and old SUN Microsystems devices. Each RAIDZ only performs at the speed of a single drive even if you have say 6 speedy drives in a Z2 pool. To attain any speed on a ZFS file system you need to "stripe" many smaller RAIDZ pools together and then each RAIDZ pool is added together in performance like a traditional RAID set would.

When you add an SSD layer pool in front of the fast spinning Zpool I have seen performance numbers over 1,200MB/sec on a lower spec system. All SSD systems are out there as well, we just have never gone down that route.

Iscsi over 10 gig or Fiber Channel works great as well for high bandwidth clients, it's all a box of open source so get support for it (TrueNAS is freenas' Enterprise side) or read a few books ahead of production time When it all goes wrong it requires command line expertise to bring back.

alexoreman wrote:No problem Adam,

My comment about not scaling pefromance as a normal LSI/Atto based RAID 5 or 6 volume is true with the RAIDZ configs I have made on freenas and old SUN Microsystems devices. Each RAIDZ only performs at the speed of a single drive even if you have say 6 speedy drives in a Z2 pool. To attain any speed on a ZFS file system you need to "stripe" many smaller RAIDZ pools together and then each RAIDZ pool is added together in performance like a traditional RAID set would.

When you add an SSD layer pool in front of the fast spinning Zpool I have seen performance numbers over 1,200MB/sec on a lower spec system. All SSD systems are out there as well, we just have never gone down that route.

Iscsi over 10 gig or Fiber Channel works great as well for high bandwidth clients, it's all a box of open source so get support for it (TrueNAS is freenas' Enterprise side) or read a few books ahead of production time When it all goes wrong it requires command line expertise to bring back.

Thanks Alex,

That is all really useful info. I've used Linux systems for years so I know enough command line kung fu to get myself into trouble Whatever we end up doing, support will be a big factor in our decision. IX have 24/7 support so that is a big reason to go for a turnkey system over a DIY. Regardless, I'm interested in expanding my knowledge in this area regardless so plan to do more research myself.

It'd definitely be a hybrid SSD/Spinning array or all Flash system so speed should be good. They're aware of our needs too but will be good to raise what you have said so I can understand how they will go about creating the stripe.

We're talking to a couple of other vendors as well about different storage solutions. It's just that a few techs I have talked with recommend a ZFS NAS so was interested in Real World Use cases. As most of us usually discover, things don't always do what they say they do in the brochure

has anyone running a TrueNAS (core) with Resolve? What is the experience?
I am looking for a NAS for editing and potential grading C300mk3 MXF footage (about 400 MBit/s)
1-3 editors vie 10 GB-Ethernet. Recommendations are highly appreciated.

Jonathan Happ wrote:has anyone running a TrueNAS (core) with Resolve? What is the experience?
I am looking for a NAS for editing and potential grading C300mk3 MXF footage (about 400 MBit/s)
1-3 editors vie 10 GB-Ethernet. Recommendations are highly appreciated.

Have you looked at something like QNAP's TS-1263 (redundant power supplies may or may not be needed for you) or OWC's Jupiter boxes?

Hey, these OWC are new for me. Looking nice! Propably only resellers in USA?
QNAP and Synology are also an option, yet I like the ZFS system.

Do you have person experience with the TS-1263XU-RP?

Jonathan Happ wrote:Hey, these OWC are new for me. Looking nice! Propably only resellers in USA?
QNAP and Synology are also an option, yet I like the ZFS system.

Do you have person experience with the TS-1263XU-RP?

Not sure about OWC's export options. I buy a lot of little things from them to keep my aging MacPro going just a little longer. They've always been great to deal with.

I do not have any direct experience with the 1263. I do have some with the desktop version, the TVS-872. QNAP has always been solid for me. Hardware works well. Software works well. With some NVMe cards and a 10G connection, it's super speedy. I Imagine in a multi-user environment like yours, it would still be quick.

I'm looking into building a new desk with a rack setup which is why I started looking into the Jupiter boxes and the 1263. I have not priced out the Jupiter boxes though to see how they compare to QNAP. An empty (no drives) 1263 is running about $2k usd. The NVMe expansion card is $150 and 1TB Samsung 980 Pros are about $230 each. The expansion card will take 2 980s.

The Jupiter boxes are either 8 or 16 bays and the QNAP is a 12 bay. Not sure how that fits into your environment but could be something to lean you one way or the other.