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Archive 2023 · Is NAS for me?

graham_martin
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p.1 #1 · Is NAS for me?

I have about 5 external hard drives totaling 10 TBs. They create a lot of clutter on my desk, and there are cables everywhere. There are probably close to 100,000 images on them. I have started looking into NAS devices, and it seems that the two big players are Qnap and Synology. One of the downsides is the initial cost. It looks like I would have to get either a 2 or 4 bay system plus 2 to 4 hard drives. This is strictly for personal hobby use.

What sort of advice can you give me?

Thanks

Oct 05, 2023 at 03:19 PM

jwpstl
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p.1 #2 · Is NAS for me?

I have a similar arrangement but I�m considering small SSDs as replacement instead of a NAS. My needs are simple and just for me so no need for a networked RAID system.

Oct 05, 2023 at 03:32 PM

graham_martin
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p.1 #3 · Is NAS for me?

I can certainly look into that option too.

Oct 05, 2023 at 03:37 PM

chez
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p.1 #4 · Is NAS for me?

How are you currently using your 5 external drives?

Oct 05, 2023 at 04:30 PM

shutterbug40
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p.1 #5 · Is NAS for me?

I set up a Synology NAS a couple of years ago and store all my pics on it, along with other files such as docs (Word, Excel, etc). I also keep duplicates of the really important ones on another drive (separate from the NAS)......such as pics from vacations (Europe last year). Works out well for me.

Oct 05, 2023 at 04:33 PM

rscheffler
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p.1 #6 · Is NAS for me?

You could buy a couple 14, 16, 18 or 20TB drives and copy everything to one, then clone that one to the second drive. And keep all the smaller ones as additional backup.

Maybe get an SSD on which to keep your most recent work and as you finish those projects, move them over to the large capacity HDDs.

NAS is good for creating a larger storage pool out of a group of drives, but RAID adds behind the scenes complexity. Ideally you would either want to mirror drives for redundancy, or multiple drives in a RAID 5 which allows one to fail without losing any data. But if a drive fails, then the array no longer has any redundancy and if any other drive fails before the array is rebuilt, you'll lose everything. IMO RAID is good for immediate online access of your files, but should still be backed up for additional redundancy. This of course adds additional costs that may not be justifiable for your requirements.

Since you're 'only' at 10TB, you can easily cover that and have more storage space available with a single large capacity drive. But it's strongly recommended you keep backups. If not and you lose that one drive (mechanical failure, data corruption, theft, fire, disaster, etc.) and you lose everything!

To avoid desk clutter, you could buy a multi-drive bay that allows you to swap drives and populate it with 'bare' drives, rather than buying multiple single 'external' drives that each have a power cord and/or power brick, USB cable, etc. Much cleaner that way. Yes, the enclosure may cost ~$300 but you also gain direct access to the drive, rather than having it sealed away inside a plastic enclosure (sometimes those enclosures fail but the actual drive is still good).

For example, I recently bought a Sabrent 5-bay USB enclosure and have been happy with it, this is the link to the 4-bay version. Or you could go with a dual-drive docking station such as this one. The bare drives just drop in and don't need to be in an enclosure.

Oct 05, 2023 at 05:09 PM

graham_martin
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p.1 #7 · Is NAS for me?

Thank you very much. That is most helpful.

Oct 05, 2023 at 06:44 PM

graham_martin
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p.1 #8 · Is NAS for me?

Right now I connect my external drives to a USB hub, and go them when necessary to access various images and documents.

Oct 05, 2023 at 08:23 PM

shutterbug40
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p.1 #9 · Is NAS for me?

When I first download my pics, they get loaded to a local drive.....the folder is actually called ScratchPics......then, if they are keepers, they get moved to the NAS. If they are really important like vacation pics to locations I might not go to again (or weddings, family, etc), they stay on the NAS but are duplicated to another location.

If you set up the NAS, be sure to do a good RAID configuration.....it uses a lot more disk space, but you have redundancy with the right RAID config

Oct 05, 2023 at 08:29 PM

graham_martin
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p.1 #10 · Is NAS for me?

Thanks, that's what I am trying to figure out. I have done okay with PCs for the past 20 years or more, but I am confused about things like RAID. I have Googled it, but still don't fully understand it.

Oct 05, 2023 at 08:37 PM

rscheffler
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p.1 #11 · Is NAS for me?

RAID is a way to make multiple drives perform better than they could singly. Speed, total available storage, redundancy but not necessarily all of these together. It was more relevant when HDDs were generally low capacity and slow (they're still pretty slow).

RAID 0 'stripes' data across all drives without any redundancy. It's used for performance (speed) because read/writes can be performed in parallel across the full array and takes advantage of the combined bandwidth that is typically greater than any of the individual drives. It's used to make a larger, faster storage pool, such as for video editing, back before SSDs became more affordable and NVMEs individually eclipsed a HDD based RAID 0's throughput. SSDs can also be used in RAIDs and an SSD based RAID 0 can be ridiculously fast, if there's enough bandwidth to allow it. With RAID 0, total usable capacity is the sum of each drive's capacity (assuming all are the same capacity).

RAID 1 is mirroring. The total drive pool is split in half and identical data sets are on each half. This provides instant backup. Depending on the number of drives it provides more storage than a single drive (if using more than two), but only half of the total available. A disadvantage of instant data mirroring is that accidental deletes or changes happen immediately to both sets. If you don't need super huge storage capacity, you might be better served by using cloning software to back up the first HDD to a second one of equal or greater capacity. Cloning/backup software should also have a snapshot feature to allow you to recover accidentally modified or deleted files. It will also allow scheduling of automatic backups.

RAID 5 stripes parity data across three or more drives so that one drive can fail and data won't be compromised. But as mentioned, if a replacement drive hasn't been installed and the array hasn't been rebuilt, another drive failure would result in total data loss. RAID 6 is basically RAID 5 but with a second parity set to allow up to two drive failures without losing data. RAID 5 usable storage will be the total amount available minus one drive (assuming all are the same capacity). RAID 6 is total minus two drives. Due to the additional complexity of RAID 5 and 6 they won't offer the performance of RAID 0, rather the intent is redundancy not available with RAID 0 and more efficient use of the total storage pool than RAID 1.

For your needs, if you're to go with a RAID, you would want RAID 5 or 6 for the redundancy and more efficient use of total available storage.

As mentioned, I believe the simpler, more cost effective and easier to manage solution will be individual large capacity drives. If you can wait, it might be worthwhile to wait until Black Friday when there's bound to be some deals. For example during Amazon Prime days, I was able to get a couple 18TB Western Digital Red Pro bare drives for $240 each, which otherwise sell in the $330-350 range.

Oct 05, 2023 at 09:53 PM

adamx12m
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p.1 #12 · Is NAS for me?

For years I've had LR on a PC w/ssd for primary editing, when done offload to synology 8bay nas and backup to another synology 2bay nas. Still didn't really have a cloud backup dealing with 14tb of growing media. Used robocopy to copy pics back to PC to a 16tb drive, using Backblaze to the cloud which is cheap. Since everything was filling up my strategy is changing.

- adding new 20tb drive to PC which will hold my LR files for just storage, but I'll still have the 16tb also for growth. Since it's all backed up by Backblaze for like $99/yr, cloud problem solved. I'll use Macrium reflect to backup media to nas but this could be robocopy or rsync. I bought the new exos 20tb for $279, the newer 25tb drives just not available yet and looked pricey.
- replace the 5x6tb drives (21tb) in the synology with 3x20tb (33tb) drives as a SHR raid volume, adding another 20tb will bump it up to 50tb.
- not sure what I'll do with the 2bay synology but is has 2x12tb drives for something.

Editing LR files from the synology was ok, would be better if I was using a 10gbe network but that's a different set of problems and costs. I've had synology for a long time, it's easy to manage and works. I really looked at upgrading to a new synology box but you really have to look at the specs and make sure synology isn't crippling what you want to do like adding non-synology drives or using plex for transcoding. Qnap technically is far superior with faster CPU's and some very sophisticated apps, probably the direction I was going with a TVS-H674. Qnap and Asustor offer SSD nas which I'm sure appeals to video editors. While SSD prices are coming down it's just not there yet with $/tb for the moment.

No question SSD is the future, you have the Micron 30tb drive for $3k and Solidigm has a 60tb drive which I think is not that much more, so it begs the question why bother with nas in the coming years? The nascompares channel on youtube is great for reviews, r/StorageReview on reddit has a ton of knowledge.

Oct 05, 2023 at 10:29 PM

graham_martin
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p.1 #13 · Is NAS for me?

Thank you for such a detailed reply. It will take me a while to digest. Maybe simpler is better for me.

Oct 06, 2023 at 07:46 AM

graham_martin
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p.1 #14 · Is NAS for me?

Thank you for all the information. Once again, it is a lot to digest. Who would have thought that backing up data would offer so many alternatives. I will check out the YouTube videos.

Oct 06, 2023 at 07:49 AM

Bruce n Philly
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p.1 #15 · Is NAS for me?

I have used NASs now for ... oh I dunno... 10-15 years or so. So I am a fan. So here are a few things to know:

1 - They provide a central file storage system where any PC/device on your network can get to them. It looks like another disc drive (or more depending on how you configure it)
2 - In addition to storing backup files (all lightroom pics and catalogs), I use mine to store and serve my vast library of music. This store feeds my main, high-end stereo system, my desk headphone dac/amp, and an old PC in my home theater system where, using a wireless keyboard/mouse, I can play music on that system from the NAS, show pictures from the NAS.. as well as surf YouTube etc. PCs are pretty powerful devices and having a NAS as central storage is fabulous. Oh, and I backup all my PCs to this NAS.
3 - I use 4-bay machines filled with 4 drives... you will use them over time... disks are cheap just get them. Buy drives spec'd for NASs although any will work. Using SSDs is very intriguing... but I never tried it. Spinners are so big and cheap... and you really don't need the performance.
4 - NAS vendors (I use old Netgear Ready NAS) are trying to differentiate themselves so they sell you all kinds of crazy features that you most likely won't use. Don't get hung up on them. The biggest advantage is that they are a central storage system. I have tried out their various functions but end up turning it all off. You can get to them via the internet directly, but again, eh... no biggie really... I keep that all turned off due to a potential security risk.
5 - RAID - honestly, after dicking with various configurations, I just use RAID 5 (Netgear has their equivalent RAID X). Raid 5 is slower on writes because it creates redundant data across the drives, but somewhat faster reads. Again, speed is not an issue with a NAS as it is best used as a central, commonly accessed repository. As a working drive, it is lousy. Don't plan on using it for files/catalogs that you are working on. With RAID 5, a drive can fail and you just snap out/in a new one and the system rebuilds... don't read the hype... it will take days and days to rebuild (even on my friends new synology) but that is OK. Newer NASs are fast enough (my oldies are fine) for me to play music to two different PCs at the same time, run backups and other picture accesses all without hickups. Note later here, I don't use them wirelessly, they are interconnected via wired Ethernet (I don't like wireless for much).
6 - Again, my advice is to ignore all the crazy features.... I just create one single volume with one ID and password... keeping it simple makes life easy and you just don't need all the security, volume features, and all the other crazy protocols supported.
7 - You can buy these on eBay fairly cheaply. I just purchased a second Ready NAS... this product is way out of date, but it is exactly like my other one so management is easy for me. I just don't care about all these new features. Again, it is just a common, big drive.
8 - Backing up your NAS.... while the NAS is supposed to not only be your common files, it is also the backup to all my PCs on my home network. Even through it is RAID 5, the main circuit board can fail and all disks are lost... so you still need to back it up. For that, I run monthly (or more if I have big updates) to a few really big disk drives (two 12 TB) drives I keep on a shelf... plug them into an external caddy. I won't go into detail, but I have quadruple redundancy for backups because I am very paranoid. Yes, this costs money but what about the alternative of data loss... backups should be just figured into your IT life.
9 - I have my two NASs in a small closet where I have all my ethernet cable runs terminated, ethernet hubs, my main cable router, and a wireless hub. All of these devices are connected to an APC UPS... I just had a lightning strike at my house and this device protected all this stuff. All these devices in the closet are connected via ethernet cables through an Ethernet hub.

As you go deep into a life supported by IT, you need to back it up, protect it, and leverage your files across your home via a central NAS.... this just costs money, but pays great dividends. I use YouTube TV (yes, cut the cable cord) on all my TVs, and I have the Google Chomecast dongles play my pictures library as TV screen savers... I really like this feature especially when guests are at the house.

Peace
Bruce in Philly

Edited on Oct 06, 2023 at 09:41 AM · View previous versions

Oct 06, 2023 at 09:19 AM

RoamingScott
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p.1 #16 · Is NAS for me?

If you don't understand RAID, then no, NAS is not for you.

Get a few bigger harddrives and have them replicate and call it a day. 100,000 images is a relatively small number in terms of backups. If you run Windows, you can use Syncback Free to keep two hard drives mirrored on a scheduled interval.

Oct 06, 2023 at 09:34 AM

jeffbuzz
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p.1 #17 · Is NAS for me?

"NAS" means different things to different people. "NAS" literally means "network attached storage". The "network" phrase is often what freaks new users out. RAID does not necessarily have to be part of the equation. Although it typically is. RAID is just a way to spread your data out over multiple disks to have some amount of redundancy and protection against disk failure. All the flavors of RAID boil down to how much protection you want.

Most NAS devices can also be attached directly (USB / firewire) rather than via network. You're already using "DAS" (direct attached storage). So not a big leap here. If you only need to access your storage from one PC, than DAS is fine. I think the main advantage to using a bigger NAS or DAS appliance is simplicity of use. Setup takes some effort. But that pays dividends in daily use.

"JBOD" is another acronym meaning "just a bunch of disks". Most NAS/DAS appliances allow you to setup your storage that way rather than in RAID. You have zero redundancy. Think of it as packing all your current loose disks into one package. This is not providing any type of backup but it is simple. You put 4 x 10TB disks into the box, plug it in and see one 40TB "disk" to store stuff on.

I think NAS/DAS multiple disk appliances are worth the effort. Especially if you have so much data that you're juggling multiple loose external disks already.

Oct 06, 2023 at 11:54 AM

rscheffler
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p.1 #18 · Is NAS for me?

jeffbuzz wrote:
I think NAS/DAS multiple disk appliances are worth the effort. Especially if you have so much data that you're juggling multiple loose external disks already.

But OP only has a total of 10TB across all those disks, which can easily be migrated to a single, large capacity HDD that is much simpler to manage. I do think a multi-disk enclosure or dock makes sense for the OP for backing up/cloning the main large HDD to back up drives. It would reduce desk clutter while still allowing use of multiple drives.

Oct 07, 2023 at 03:29 AM

schlotz
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p.1 #19 · Is NAS for me?

The OWC Thunderbay Units work with both Windows and Mac. They come with softRaid. Don't fret, install it and forget it. Bottom line you will have a single source unit with a very large capacity based upon what size drives you put in it. It directly attaches to your computer, ergo making it a DAS. To that, add one large external capacity HDD to use as a backup and your are pretty mush set. Gone will be the clutter of multiple disks, cables and usb hubs.

Oct 07, 2023 at 06:44 AM

Goodrich
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p.1 #20 · Is NAS for me?

The other option (an addition) would be to backup your pics to the cloud (Amazon, etc)

Oct 07, 2023 at 01:22 PM

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