Thunderbolt 3

Meet the XCubeNAS Thunderbolt™ 3 Solution

High-efficiency Media Production NAS Solution

In today’s fast-paced world, every second counts. With QSAN’s Thunderbolt™ 3 NAS solution, we’ve provided creative professionals in the media industry a way to store, edit, and backup extremely large multimedia files at lightning-fast speeds.
Next Generation Thunderbolt™  3 NAS
With our next generation NAS with Thunderbolt™ 3 technology, you are able to connect Thunderbolt devices directly to your QSAN NAS with a 40 Gb/s data transmission rate. Using our NAS with Thunderbolt™ 3, users are able to transfer high-resolution videos smoothly and quickly. On average, it takes less than a minute to copy a 4.7GB video using our XN8008T.
Thunderbolt 3 40Gb/s
The First Egalitarian Thunderbolt™ 3 NAS
QSAN doesn’t discriminate. We believe that every creative professional, no matter how large or small-scale they may be, should have the opportunity to use a Thunderbolt™ 3 NAS. That’s why we made a very generous NAS product line Thunderbolt™ 3 ready. No matter the amount of storage space you require, QSAN’s XCubeNAS series has a unit to fit your needs, even if your operation demands up to 288TB of data storage space. We have an entire line-up of Thunderbolt™ 3 NAS for users to choose from depending on your requirements. No longer do you need to be without.

*XCubeNAS XN3000T Series does not support Thunderbolt 3.

TB3 NAS for big media
ZFS + Thunderbolt™  3 = A NAS Powerhouse
Utilizing the enterprise features provided by ZFS, in-line compression, user-defined pools, and Thunderbolt™ 3 40Gb bandwidth, production efficiency is improved the the max; even for multi-editing the same files at the same time. With user-defined pools, users may set the pool as a media streaming pool, further optimizing performance to its maximum potential.

With the affordable cost for QSAN Thunderbolt™ 3 NAS solution, it offers the best performance/price ratio for Workgroups and SMBs with studio’s for media production and file sharing. With using the XCubeNAS Thunderbolt™ 3 solution, media production workflow and efficiency is smoother than ever before.

A NAS Powerhouse
Painless Implementation

With QSAN’s innovative Operating System, QSM, users are able to easily implement your XCubeNAS to their work station. With QSAN’s XFinder utility, finding and accessing your XCubeNAS is no longer a long, taxing process. Simply plug and go.

Painlessly Implement your NAS in your Work Station
Lightning-fast Performance
In most real-life environments, customers are using Hard Disk Drives in their storage devices. QSAN took this into consideration, and to make the test results more realistice, all of the performance results are based on HDD’s. Even without using SSD’s, QSAN’s Thunderbolt™ 3 NAS provides extreme performance for the most bandwidth-demanding operations.

Test Environment
NAS: XCubeNAS XN5008T
Intel® Celeron® 2.9GHz Dual-Core Processor, x2 8GB DDR4 SO-DIMM, Seagate 500GB Barracuda HDD x8
NAS: XCubeNAS XN8008T
Intel® Core® i5 2.7GHz Quad-Core, x2 8GB DDR4 SO-DIMM, Seagate 500GB Barracuda HDD x8
NAS: XCubeNAS XN8012R
Intel® Xeon® 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor, x2 8GB DDR4 ECC U-DIMM, Seagate 500GB Barracuda HDDx8
Host: MacBook Pro
2.3GHz Dual-Core 7th-generation Intel® Core® i5 processor, 16GB 2133MGz LPDDR3

Tested in QSAN Labs. Figures may vary by environment.

Thunderbolt 3 NAS performance numbers
Improve Efficiency and Security in your Workflow
In addition to the phenomenal performance results you’d expect from your XCubeNAS, QSAN also offers users RAID protection and easy file-sharing services that provides users an easy way to share their work with people that matter, and the peace of mind knowing their data is safe and protected.
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Content is King
Xmirror is a QSAN developed software that synchronizes files and volumes between up to 8 different NAS devices anywhere in the world. This is especially important for data protection. In the event that data loss occurs on one NAS due to hardware failure, natural disaster, etc., just hook up another XCubeNAS and it will re-sync with the other devices in the mirror.

In addition to this already great feature, Xmirror allows up to 8 people to work on the exact same file at the exact same time. With the implementation of Thunderbolt 3, your peers working with you on a project around the world don’t have to be held back due to slow connectivity issues.

Finished working on your project and wanna share with customers or friends? QSAN provides an easy share link button that will allow you to send encrypted files to the desired recipient. Just create the link and send the file.

FAQ
Q: Why am I getting slow read performance while testing through Thunderbolt™ 3 interface?

A: On the Mac OS, the default setting would enable the SMB Signing. This SMB Signing enhances the safety of data transmission. However, it will cause slow performance when using SMB signing.

Solution: We suggest disabling SMB Signing for better performance. You may refer to the below steps to disable SMB signing.

  1. Create an nsmb.conf file and type this command: sudo touch /etc/nsmb.conf
  2. Modify the nsmb.conf file and type this command: sudo vi /etc/nsmb.conf
  3. Type the below value to disable SMB signing: [default] signing_required=no
  4. Click esc and then type “ZZ” to save the setting.

Q: Why am I getting stuck and operating abnormally while using Thunderbolt interface to run video editing on Windows?

A: Under normal circumstances with Thunderbolt connection between NAS and video editing client, performance of previewing files loading from NAS can be affected by factors on client such as:

  1. Thunderbolt adaptor card option : RSS (Receive Side Scaling)
    Recommendation: Set to “Disable” (Updated Thunderbolt driver if this option cannot be found)
  2. Thunderbolt Driver
    Recommendation: Make sure your driver is updated to the latest version
  3. MTU of Thunderbolt port
    Recommendation: Set to “9000”
  4. Graphic Card Driver
    Recommendation: Make sure your driver is updated to the latest version

Q: Why can I only get around 22Gbps performance when testing through Thunderbolt™ 3 interface?

A: For Thunderbolt 3 interface, it has 40Gbps bandwidth and 22Gbps for data translation, 18Gbps for display. Therefore, you can only get around 22Gbps performance when testing through Thunderbolt 3 interface.

Q: If I only have a Thunderbolt 2 device, can I still use QSAN’s Thunderbolt™ 3 solution?

A: Yes! By using the Thunderbolt™ 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt™ 2 Adapter from Apple Inc., you can easily connect your devices to your XCubeNAS.

QSAN Thunderbolt 3 Accessories
Certified 40 Gbps Cables

You may purchase Thunderbolt 3 certified 40Gbps cables on the Apple Store, or contact a QSAN Authorized Partner or your local Sales rep.

Thunderbolt 3 Certified Cable
Thunderbolt 3 HBA Card
Host Bus Adapter

You may purchase the HBA Card by contacting a QSAN Authorized Partner or your local Sales rep.