I think it would be good to do an ongoing series about the tech backend of being a creator. You've got storage. But you really need to go into detail on backup and backup strategies for many different user scenarios. From occasional hobbyists and family photographers, to wedding photographers, to small TH-camrs, to big channels like yours. You are one of the few photography TH-camrs who have the background to truly understand these concepts well enough to explain it all in enough detail to actually be useful, while also explaining it in a way that novices will understand. I've seen other photography TH-camrs try to explain backups, but they ultimately fall on their faces because they don't really know what they are talking about.
I would like to find more detail on specific raid setups for a nas you want to expand. Tony mention having to drives then expanding how does that affect the raid form? Do you have to make an in software adjustment beyond expanding into a new drive?
@@carlosv1691 the RAID that Tony spoke about in this video is SHR (Synology Hybrid RAID) it’s completely plug and play, you can use mismatched drives in any amount and add or remove them on the fly.
I have a QNAP as well as a dropbox account for 15TB. I've had two NAS fail (not the drives, but the NAS itself) and corrupt *all* the drives. Sent them in for backup rescue, but couldn't be saved. So I now use a local NAS for daily video work that cloud can't help with, and a dropbox doing backup on the NAS.
Hi, Tony! Lee here, the Deaf guy who sent you an appreciative email about adding close captions to the videos of yours. Back to subject at hand, I've known about NAS for decades and never really understood the functionality of it. A frat brother of mine who worked in networking since the 80s and I recall he was raving about NAS several times and I had no clue what it -really- is. Thanks to you, I'm getting the idea of how it works and I'm gonna dig deep into this because I have lost data ages ago - priceless data (wedding photos, for a start). And that sinking feeling is not something I wish to experience again. Thanks for showing hopes of data-saving acquisition!
FYI, if you don't have any off-site copy, your backup is at risk of two common issues. 1) fire, 2) lightning/power surge. I didn't do off-site copies... Until my house was hit by lightning. At a minimum, make a copy and store it at a friend's house or safety deposit box. As Tony said, there are non cloud solutions to do off-site backups.
This is bad advise, putting a hard drive away for 5 years in a safety deposit box will not protect against bit rot. It needs to be actively managed for data integrity. One might trust optical archival storage, for long term unmanaged storage. Easiest is just to get Backblaze NAS backup.
@@arvidjohansson3120 It is incomplete, I agree. However, in my experience, people are generally not as tech savvy as Tony, you or I. This advice is where to start and because this is the comment section of a TH-cam video, it is missing nuance and completeness. For anyone reading this, in the storage world, three copies of data, with one copy being off-site is the starting point for long term backups. A good cloud based service will make multiple copies and geographically distribute them while also checking to make sure the data isn't gone bad. The easiest way, that I have found, for people who don't want to or can afford a cloud based service is to rotate two external storage drives between the home and somewhere else. Ideally once month. This would be a starting point to build up to something better.
Until recently I was able to take a backup copy to my office and lock it in my desk. Now that I'm among the people who is almost completely working from home this is no longer an option. I haven't figured out how to do an offsite copy otherwise but I'm considering cloud storage as an option.
One of your most important videos yet! I learned in the Air Force how important RAID technology was. We had an aircraft that needed word-wide digital mapping data available at a moment's notice (while airborne). Each aircraft had a carry-on RAID capability that integrated the aircraft data system with 72 TB of online storage, with multiple redundancies (giving us about 60 TB of unique storage files). Every one of our planes had this, and prior to or after each sortie the entire RAID system was brought into the squadron and refreshed with the latest data. To say that the RAID array was critical would be a gross understatement. Keep up the good work. This was a great video . . .
Quick story on my 1815+ Synology NAS, it's an 8-bay I bought years ago for a client and then one day the motherboard failed and the NAS was rendered useless despite having RAID 5, the whole unit wasn't working so called Synology, this was on a Friday, they shipped me a new unit by air immediately free of charge, received on Saturday, rebuilt array over the weekend and back operational by Monday morning. This after warranty had expired... and I don't remember having the ship my old defective one back I probably did after everything was settled. I have to say I was pretty impressed, they obviously knew how mission critical people's data was, they may not do this for every model but it's the only time I can remember that a company pulled through for me. Another note was I used to use Rsync to sync (in real-time) to a remote NAS, loved that feature but looks like that's no longer supported.
8:38 is the very important part, everyone! Excellent reminders in this video. I had data on an iMac internal drive and lost it all when the drive failed. Years later had other data on an external USB drive until it was pulled off of a low table when the cable was pulled accidentally. The drive never started up again. Now my Synology NAS is doing great at data loss but I don't yet replicate it anywhere else.
Thanks for posting. I just lost my NAS (10 years old). Two drives out of four went kaput without warning. It contained roughly 6TB of mostly photographs. Fortunately, I had a backup NAS. In additional, also have a HDD as a third backup, which I keep in the bank and update about once a month. So no data lost.(If I had lost data you would have read in the papers: "Hubby Looses HDD, wife shoots HDD, arrested for HDD abuse". News at 11pm) Instead of getting a replacement NAS, I opted instead for a 16TB external HDD by OWC. So far so good. At the moment, I have NAS, 12TB, backing up to a 16TB HDD (dual disk), and to a 6tb HDD.
Cannot stress the importance of two locations. I lost my NAS in a house fire last year. 48tb gone. The photo albums from the 70’s survived somehow though!
Thank you Tony for that video! I’ve got a 1618+ back in 2018 which I filled with 4TB drives at the time, and it’s now full, but I can still expand it with 2 more expansions, or bigger drives if I want. I didn’t know about the data scrubbing feature, so I just enabled it, and I hope I didn’t do that too late… I’ve been following your channel for 10 years now, and I always keep learning something.
@@TonyAndChelsea The funny thing is, that whenever my friends had lost their data, I was able to recover them, but whenever I’ve lost mine in the past, it was done in such a catastrophic way, that my skills would be useless to recover them either entirely, or even partially in some cases… Murphy’s law when it comes to that is a thing! :)
I bought a five drive Synology NAS drive a couple of years ago after I lost my main drive and its back up. I use a Synology Hybrid Raid 2, which is RAID 2. Super simple to set up and probably the best bit of kit I have ever bought.
Yeah it's amazing. You know I'm a fanatic for the latest and greatest gadgets, but the two oldest bits of tech in my kit are the Synology NAS and my 16-year old Toyota pickup. Synology offered to send me a new NAS and I declined because mine is going fine! It's just solid.
I spent 30 years as an IT manager for a National Weapons Laboratory research facility in the east SF bay. I know the value of a redundant backup systems and periodic trial restore exercises. It is not enough to have a robust backup strategy without periodically testing the restore capability. Also, having an off-site repository of your data ensures a reliable recovery in case of catastrophic events. I have had QNAP NAS servers for over 15 years for my own personal data and am a believer. My backup QNAP server has a backup server, so I feel pretty confident knowing my 60TB of data is going nowhere. This technology has come down so much in price, and the sense of security is priceless.
Almost my entire career has been around selling enterprise class storage with my side hustle and passion being photography. I have had NAS devices, file servers, eterenal hard drives, etc. However I now have everything on Amazon Photos. Unlimited Capacity, Fast and easy retrieval, user friendly interface and if you are a Prime member it is free. Might not be a solution for those with video but for still photography it is perfect. Built on AWS S3 with 11 nine durability, millisecond latency, and accessibile from any device it is a no brainer.
I just went to Prime level last month. I'll look into it. I had an ASUS account for years but it got expensive and SLOW! In house I am still at the stage of reminding myself to shuffle off copies to external USB drives with the cheapo utility SyncToy; then that drive is unplugged drive until the next time which is when I get home from a shoot.
Great advice. I have a Synology 4 bay NAS with WD "Red" NAS HDDs (4x2tb). I regularly back up the important directories off of it to a pair of WD Elements AC powered portable 3tb HDDs. The NAS is on an UPS so it's protected from power spikes and surges that invariably follow a power outage and suddent restoration (most local distribution power lines have auto-reclose circuit breakers so you'd see a power off/on once or twice and if the fault hasn't cleared then it's off til the power company can do repairs).
One thing you always have to remember about RAID (is *NOT* a backup solution) is that it is not a backup solution. If a file gets corrupted (say, via a bug in the software on the originating computer), it’ll happily replicate that corrupted file.
It was a video of yours maybe a year or two ago that prompted me to switch from DROBO to Synology, particularly since the DROBO guys were obviously on the rocks. I use 4 DS 1821+ units. One set rotates to a bank safety deposit box and one lives in a fire resistant file cabinet in my basement and one is my main catalog to work from. I only have about 40TB of data but always growing. The Synology works way more consistently and flawlessly than the DROBO. It just works. Good advice to get a Synology. Now if I could only get paid to say that.
A few years ago I lost a hard drive full of photos and shed many tears. I did some research and ended up getting a NAS and configuring it in raid 1 so the hard drives are redundant. Best move I've ever made for my photos!
I have a synology 4-bay and it has been a lifesaver. It was a little of a learning curve when I started, but I'm convinced it's how I need to operate from now on. Time to get an expansion unit.
I've been using QNAP 4-bay NAS'es for many years now, RAID-5. Had disk failures, but no data loss. Additionally I have a 2-bay "NAS" in RAID-1 configuration, used for manual backups for the most sensitive data. A NAS is the best thing since sliced bread, honestly. 😁
Man, I got sick and tired of the camera and lens race years ago, and only watch this channel because I love Tony and Chelsea, but this video spoke to me. I'm gonna get me that DS223 and a couple of good 10TB drives at the least. I don't save much of what I shoot, but I do keep in SSDs and USB drives some data, plus my valued pictures and RAW files I wouldn't be able to replicate and would cry over if I lost them to bit rot. Thanks for this video, Tony.
Just assembled a four-drive NAS a couple of weeks ago with a total of 29.1 TB formatted storage in a RAID 10 configuration. I have files going back 20-plus years and figured it was time to consolidate, reorganize, and archive the virtual digital spaghetti bowl I've created; the NAS is ideal for this task IMO.
been eyeing a NAS for quite some time now. glad you showed this from a photographer / consumer POV. reddit and other videos are all from tech geeks and don’t really make it understandable for me
Many people have multiple hard drives in a PC to do just this however NAS has huge benefits. Buying one and then hoping to be able to understand & configue it all seem overwhelming. It would be awesome to see a video to show how its all done.
Thanks Tony. This is really important stuff to know. My daughter gave me Passport as storage and back up of photo files, etc. etc. It failed. Passport the company stoped giving updates and I could not access the device to the files...it sits on my desk as a reminder of not to trust storage devices or the companies who make them. Redundancy is the key as you have taught us through the years. Now, I just have to save up the money...nuts. As always keep the good work and keep'em flying...👽👽👽👽👽
I built a NAS a few months ago, out of an old computer. I have ended up with Google and Dropbox accounts that I was hoping to eventually get rid of, since I use them only for transferring files to customers. I just haven't figured out how to safely give access to parts of it yet, from outside my network. It's only 2 pools right now, 1 2 tByte and one 8. (2-2tbye drives and 2 8). I eventually hope to increase it once I figure out how to set it up properly. I only have about 15 tbytes total that I feel the need to back up right now though. Very timely and important video for many of us!.
Setting up a NAS might seem straightforward for tech enthusiasts, but it does require a bit of IT know-how for others. Security is a major concern, and without proper education, it's true that there's a risk of potential hacking. Additionally, when you factor in the cost of hard drives, NAS setups can get expensive. For those looking for a simpler and possibly more cost-effective solution, online cloud storage is a viable alternative. It's user-friendly, and the convenience it offers might outweigh the complexities of managing a NAS setup. It really comes down to personal preference and comfort level with technology.
I use a NAS sinds 14 years, for now i own a Synology DS1821+ as the main nas. A DS414+ at my parents their home as backup (sync) and a usb drive that is attached to the main NAS that makes a copy every night. Works like a charm..
Listen to Tony folks. I'm a software engineer who has seen data loss happen at both the consumer and enterprise level. It can happen to anyone, and when it does, it's devastating. If you're a creator, do yourself a favour and invest in a NAS to backup your vital files. It is vital to your business. Also, as you get larger jobs, it may even become a requirement from your clients before they're willing to work with you. They want assurances that you've already set up a process of backups so there cannot be a catastrophic failure during a critical project (source: working with VFX firms producing content for large film studios).
Thanks Tony. Good work as always. I wish you had at least given a nod to security risks with a NAS. Such risks are both real and substantial, and are essential to the decision re using a NAS. Even a basic intro to the subject is incomplete without this. Thanks again for your efforts.
Well, all storage has security risks. Synology has a great write-up here: kb.synology.com/en-us/DSM/tutorial/How_to_add_extra_security_to_your_Synology_NAS I feel like the Synology NAS is way more secure than a regular drive connected to your computer. Ours uses 2 factor authentication, but also versioning and off-site snapshot replication backups that should allow us to roll-back even if we do get compromised by something like ransomware.
Agree that Synology NAS is a great solution. I have one that is still going strong after 10 years of continuous use. Using the Synology drive client to sync a large hard drive on the PC also provides a significant performance boost to the editing software compared to working directly from the network drive.
I'm an amateur and even I use mirrored drives in my Synology NAS. I do use hard drives which, as Tony mentioned, are incredibly cheap compared to SSD drives. So far, no failures. A lifetime of photos/memories are in that box.
What a great video. This is the first time I have ever even seen you on youtube... Like you I am a power user of Synology Nas and I just have to say, this was such a terrific video. Easy to understand, pleasant to watch, and most importantly just a great bit of information for people who create a lot of content / data. Thank you! Well done.
As a computer professional and an amateur photographer (I did do wedding stuff 30 years ago) It certainly would be handy, and if I had multi-terabyte mission-critical files, I'd get a NAS, but I find I don't need one. I've done this the ultra-cheap way...an old networked machine using an old TV that has a VGA connection for a monitor. 3 separate multi-terabyte drives - one for backups of the home stuff, the other does the photography stuff for the whole family as we are all avid photographers., and the 3rd is a larger drive, backing them them both up and is external, so if a disaster occurs (flood etc) I could just grab that drive and restore later. I use a free SW called SyncBack and it backs up certain folders at 3am. I could set up RAID arrays and all that, but the couple of time I needed to restore files, it worked fine as is.
How are you protecting yourself against bitrot? If you aren't scanning the drives regularly and repairing corrupted files, those drives are slowly degrading, and you won't know until you attempt to access the files. What about theft?
I have been using Synology NAS for 10 years. Started with a single DS1813 and have added 2 additional units over time. The list of other features that are invaluable to photographers could be the subject of a few more videos as well
wow I remember 15 yrs ago I worked with a team organising data recovery resilience for British Telecom and we did just that we had banks of Petabyte drives in Scotland Wales and England to create a proper disaster recovery system, I guess its still going now im retired now, I keep thinking about a NAS but I stopped selling images some time ago and (touch wood) Ive never lost a drive, ive had old drives that start to run slow so ive replaced with more solid state, maybe just been lucky Thanks for the Vid Tony always informative and concise :)
Thanks Tony. Im finally convinced to go for the NAS. I had HDD failed and all 12 days worth of photographs were gone. The problem im facing and many others as well: is the set up process. Do you think you have time to do a video on a complete guide to set up the NAS, especially on the 8 bay. Much appreciated, thanks so much. Vincent from Singapore.
I loved my Drobo for years, but the company went bankrupt. The unit still works, but I think I'll switch now to Synology. I didn't realize they had such similar features.
As a hobbyist with a very low budget, I use iCloud to sync my devices. I edit and organize through photos app (and a few others). Then, about once a quarter, I export all my folders from my primary Mac to a desktop with redundant huge drives (2 copies!). That backup is then backed up to an external drive. I also save all of my favorite photos to a folder in apple's drive (as jpegs). Found this is real cheap ($10 month for bigger iCloud) and real easy. Been wanting to get a DAS (desktop attached storage) to eliminate the desktop. I don't trust external drives. @TonyNorthrup didn't mention the price of increased bandwidth needed for NAS to work with video editing. Regardless, Synology is the No 1 choice in backups. Might give them another look today (it's cyber Monday after all). I too would like to see more of the behind the scenes techie side of how he runs things. I too am a tech professional and would like to get his perspective.
I need to replace my old, WD NAS setup with something more expandable. I plan to do that after an upcoming move. So I guess I’m Synology’s target customer here. Good job putting them on my radar. Things I’d like to know: 1) Does it support remote access so I can upload/download files while in the field? I travel. It’s quite common for me to be out in some hotel somewhere wanting to backup my latest images. 2) How does the increasing efficiency you described work? My understanding has always been that in a typical RAID1 setup, I have a drive and I have a drive that mirrors it. So if I have, say, 10 drives of 10 terabytes each, I only have 50 terabytes of available storage because half the space is taken up by mirroring the data. Perhaps there’s something I don’t understand here about RAID storage? 3) When I add additional bays on my Synology NAS, how is the file transfer speed? It sounds like Bay 1 fills up, so I attach Bay 2 to it. So now I’m copying from PC to Bay 1 and Bay 1 passes on to Bay 2. Does that slow file transfers appreciably? 4) What is the connection between the bays and between the bays and my PC? Are we looking at Ethernet? USB 3? Something else? 5) Which unit is the base unit? I see the expansions on the Synology website. But it’s not clear to me which unit I buy first that I can then add expansions to later on? Thanks in advance for any answers.
1) Yes, we do this all the time. You can transfer directly to your NAS (remote access is provided by Synology QuickConnect) or synchronize a Google Drive folder (which means you can still sync if the NAS is powered down or your home network is offline). Google Drive tends to have more bandwidth than your typical home connection, too. 2) Synology RAID doesn't have to use mirroring (RAID 1), though it can. Synology Hybrid Raid (SHR) is very flexible, and only needs the capacity of your largest drive in the array for parity. 3) The transfer between bays happens with E-SATA so there's not really a performance hit. You'll likely configure all your drives into one big volume so the data will be striped across every drive, so you're not really moving files between individual drives. 4) E-SATA between the bays. To your computer, Ethernet, WiFi, whatever works. We use 10GbE. 5) If you want expansion, I'm suggesting the DS1522+ but maybe you want a model with more bays. This picker can help: www.synology.com/en-us/support/nas_selector
I built my own NAS with parts from a decommissioned computer. My 4U case supports 13 drives and I’m at 12 drives. Buying one has way less headache because you don’t need to put together an operating system, apps, or worrying about hardware compatibility issues. But it is cheaper for people willing to tinker with computer hardware and software.
@@TonyAndChelsea i use UNRAID as my OS. Filerun is the file syncing software in a docker form. You a set 2 step authentication on it. My other services are not passed through my router firewall, meaning no port forwarding. I run Tailscale on my UNRAID and Tailscale clients on my computers and mobiles devices. In Tailscale, I can control what device can access my NAS. UNRAID supports XFS, Btrfs, ZFS and ReiserFS. Mine is set to check parity every month. I’ve been running mine for several years. So far only a 2TB drive failed. I have 4x8TB, 4x14TB, 2x3TB and 2x 5TB drivings running with a 1TB SSD as cache. All drives other than 14TB ones were shucked from external hard drives. All mechanical drives are WD red, or white label red. 2 14TB ones are decommissioned data center drives.
@@TonyAndChelseaZFS scrub (oracle) handles bitrot on XigmaNAS or NAS4Free which are good roll your own solutions. In theory you are supposed to have error correcting memory (cheaper on an AMD motherboard) but QNAP and Synology dont do this as far as I know. The support lifecycle on QNAP or Synology is better than an iphone but not as good as those generic "roll your own solutions". Autosnapshot provides some protection against encryption ransomware, but offline copy should be part of any NAS based backup solution.
I have never used Synology or Qnap NAS. I am useing several Supermicros in a cluster using ZFS. They are far more powerfull and can handel much more throuput. I guess the newer Synology have more proceesing power now. Also, as some already pointed out, Synology uses proprietery disk controllers. If you can't find a replacement, you are in trouble. ZFS can be setup independent of any disk controller. All you need is an HBA for your drives.
Great video, Tony! I’ve actually considered getting a NAS for myself a few times. I’m kind of tech nerd so that’s part of the reason why But I don’t have enough data to justify getting a huge Nas, I would probably get something with two hard drive slots, get two 4tb or 8tb hard drives, and have one of them as a duplicate to the other for redundancy. I’m also not a video content creator, it would be mainly for stills, so I think this kind of storage would be enough for me for a long time
same boat! also, RAID is actually only for redundancy. so if you don’t mind having a bit of downtime, you could just rebuild from a backup. for that you could just use like those 40 bucks drive bays, where it creates a 1:1 copy from one Harddrive to the other. no network connection obvoiusly
I have the same bay as you but with 8 x 10 TB drives. Raid 6 (2 can fail), and the 8th drive is hot-swappable as I travel and am not always around to replace a drive. I don't have as many images as you, but 10 years of digital photography means it is over 8 TB. I also send it to Back Blaze It is going to cost $600 a year for the 8TB.
I had in use a Microsoft home server. It would take 2Tb drives and added them it's array of drives with the option of making a back up along the way. I had a second system to mirror the first. Drives would fail often. Some in a year others after two or three years. I also had a four drive NAS with a RAID. When one drive failed I could not recover. For me not a problem as it was the third back up but that has put me off trying a raid solution again. At least with the Home Server method I could read each drive as a normal drive to get the files back. I moved to 6Tb and then 16Tb. My latest is a pair of 20Tb drives. Moving 16Tb of data over took a very long time. I have image files corrupt where the first part of the image displays but the rest is blank or green. Nothing important but the backups were also corrupted and the third copy as well. Easy to spot in photographs, even if the thumbnails now take a long time to display (Windows 10 is aging) but impossible to find in video files. Even if stored and only powered up to add to the back up a drive looses data randomly. It is suggested that the content be re-created often - moved from where ever it was stored. Okay for a couple of Tb but when you have 120Tb the task takes months even if most of that is machine time, not your time. Another task is documenting the files. Create a text file with descriptions, or a spreadsheet. A few years later you may struggle with names, dates and locations so documenting as you go along helps. If it doesn't matter then perhaps the files don't matter either why pay for storage of files that don't matter?
It’s a bet meta, but something I’d love to see is a walkthrough of your photo and video workflows. From photo -> post or video -> upload. Like, how do you ingest your photos and videos? How do you organize your photos/videos? For example: ingesting onto a MacBook and then copying to the NAS must take a long time and is pretty inefficient (especially over WiFi). You’ve touched on it a little in some other videos, but I don’t recall seeing anything end-to-end, and I’d be super interested to see it. ps. Been a fan since your MCAD books.
I can still remember when you told us the 10 TB cloud storage from Google for $300 per month was worth it. Back then I already thought about how many redundant drives you could buy for $300 per month. As NAS is nice, but I would not feel safe when all of my photos were in the same container. It could still be damaged by fire, water or whatever. Thieves could steal the whole NAS. Your files are much safer, if there is another NAS in the home of one of your friends. In return your friend has a NAS in your house. Then all files would even survive, if either your house or the house of your friend gets destroyed. You could encrypt all your files, so that your friend will not get access to all of your files.
I purchase a Synology DS414slim (4 bay with a small footprint using 2.5" drives) back in 2015 and took it overseas for a year. My main focus at the time was the small footprint. However, the performance of the unit has been less than desirable and the newer DSM software requires more memory that the unit has. The migration path to a newer unit has issues as well. So, I am a bit stuck. Newer units shouldn't have the same problems I have had.
My setup is having a server. it's an Intel server motherboard. Entry level but still something solid. ECC memory. I run the Unraid OS there. It's Linux based but costs a bit of money. Unless the default there is someone actually developing it and not a total OSS project that is at the benevolence of developers to do it. But still a bit more manageable than only a Linux distro and everything you do you do it yourself. Haven't used Synology but I suspect Unraid is much more on the side for thinkers. The server is connected via UPS. For remote backups it's a bit harder but I've placed a Raspberry pi at my mom's place and one at my uncle's. It has an external 3.5" drive. I use a wireguard VPN tunnel out from my server so it can send backups. It's nightly. This is my hobby and maybe new files are imported a few times a month so it's not like Tony's need for instant backups.
I love my Synology drive and use it for my files but also my family's as well. I concur that you need a second NAS for a backup as a single nas is not a perfect solution. I had a volume fail after a raid5 drive fail on my nas. With the backup I was back up and running with no data lost in a couple of days. Without it I would have lost everything.
This is very good logic presented in the video and of course you should use nas , redunancy and all of that when making backup. There is on thing though: all these ( main and extensions ) are in one place - suppose the house catches fire or some other calamity happens and you lose all your stuff. That basically amounts to keeping all eggs in one basket - that is why you have to replicate all this stuff to another place to be a bit more secure.
I don’t have the ability to have an offsite backup. I built a “windows” NAS just a computer with a ton of storage I made available to my network. I did it so I could pay for offsite backup, which wouldn’t support a NAS device. Have you ever looked into a diy solution like unraid? I guess the nice thing about your solution is you don’t have to pay apple for iCloud back up.
Tony, do more to prepare viewers for the sticker shock on some of the NAS. AN EMPTY 8 bay enclosure can cost over 1000 USD! Another thing. The great features you mentioned may not be available on all the NAS systems (only on the more expensive ones.)
I watched this a month ago...I had a seagate 1tb barracuda fail in just 4 years of use, lost a lot of photos and Im having to dig through all my devices to see if I have them saved anywhere.
Tony, Great info and thanks for explaining all this. Planning to buy a NAS ...was window shopping a few days ago ....your video was valuable ...plan to buy now.
GREAT stuff, Tony (and Chelsea)! I think I have the same 8-bay Synology that you showed (DS1817+). It's been absolutely fantastic, giving me peace of mind as well as quick access to all of my files. My primary use case (besides hobbyist photography and basic file backup) is being able to view photos and videos on all of my devices, including on Apple TVs. For backup, I also use Synology Hybrid Raid (with only 4 drives in my 8-bay unit), then Hyper Backup to an attached USB drive; finally, I use Cloud Sync to Backblaze B2 for off-site. My only ongoing cost is about $6-7 per month for Backblaze, depending on how much capacity I use. I just can't overstate the importance of storage and backups for everyone who values their digital assets - especially photographers and creators!!
Okay, I’m interested…tell me how to move from my Drobo with all my data & direct attached format to a Synology NAS system. I’ve searched high & low but haven’t found a good instructional video on that transition.
I’ve always wanted to do this type of backup. I currently use two HDDs that are always mirrored, but I want to move to a network share like this. I’ve just always been afraid of the learning curve to actually do it and set it up. This option looks very easy.
I got this during corvid. Same setup. Took 2.5 years to sort through over 40 terabits. But now finding ppl or getting remotely is incredible. The tech support is Great. The first time it was sorting there was an error and it had to start over. And its almost impossible to actually do a backup. Unless you know a way for me to do it.
I have to revisit Synology NAS. I bought one over 3 years ago, Set up was a pain for a nontech person. Like all programs, the Synology suite needed constant updating so every week I got a notice I needed to update my files. Then to add to the misery, the Synology NAS randoming turned off in such as way as to require resetting up from scratch. i decided it was a lemon, not worth it. It sits as a paperweight today and I use SSD drives that I back up all the time. Obviously people have better experiences than me.
@tony just make sure you back it up to another device somewhere else thoroughly because if it fails and you can't find a similar enough model you will have a rough time recovering that data. You can't just put the drives in a regular jbod to recover it.
I can't say it enough times, RAID is not a backup, even 2 drive fault tolerance ..... you need to back everything that is on this device up to another separate device, and preferably a different vendor device that uses a different technology and also preferably even then, you should be doing offline backups that are physically not spinning
I've been rocking Synology for the last 10 years. And this week I've been thinking about some new drives replace my four 8Tb drives, as I'd got a Disk Full warning. That was until I fully understood that I'd set up my Snapshots to save everything for years. Over night I got 13TB of space back by learning how to use Snapshots more efficiently. Still drooling over some 20TB drives though.
Any tips for maintaining a persistent connection to a Synology NAS to a Mac Studio using SMB? It unmounts the NAS shares when idle and I have to use finder go to server again to mount it. I had used AFP for years on my previous iMac without this problem, AFP is not functional, too buggy on Apple silicon, looks like they hardly tested AFP since it is in some stage of being phased out. Otherwise the setup performs like a champ!
I purchased a Drobo system 6 years ago, it was swapped a few years ago due to a malfunction...the replacement device seems to be failing now and Drobo is no longer in business. I'm looking for another solution and looks like Synology may be it. Thanks Tony.
So you need to keep two different sets in two different locations in case of a disaster or theft. Some of us don't have the luxury of having two physical locations available. How would backup from disaster or theft if you have only one location? Thanks.
Tony, how do you deal with the fact that lightroom classic does not allow you to put catalogs on remote shares? These catalogs can get quite large: if you have 120TB of photos, the catalogs would almost certainly be in terabytes in total size given all the previews and stuff contained within. Where would you put the catalogs if not on the NAS?
Somebody could give you more details, but I think the best practice for efficiency and redundancy is to save your catalog in your computer and save a backup of the catalog in your NAS. Leave the raw files in the NAS and make 1:1 previews in your computer.
I have one... from a long time ago... but apparently there's a thing with the older Synology units (mine is an 8 drive also).... it didn't make the move from one house to the other even though it was carefully moved... I still love Synology, but I'm pretty ticked about this one (I use them professionally, and those do require you to use Synology or a very, very short list of approved drives)
Thanks for this video. I have questions about off-site backup. For a setup where you buy a second NAS and set it up at a relative or friends house, does either location need special Internet connectivity (e.g. higher bandwidth, static IP, etc.)? Second, am I likely to run into problems if my backup partner is fairly tech illiterate?
Good video! Just note that Synology doesn't allow you to use the BTRFS file system on their cheaper models, making it unsuitable for the use of anyone who doesn't like bit rot. Pretty ridiculous considering that they didn't develop it and don't pay for it.
I would love to see a video on your photography process from shoot to print. Manly on the upload, sifting, storing. I do not have a NAS but have heard programs like lightroom do not allow direct processing off a NAS. This why I am curious on how you workload process.
But do you edit off of the NAS? If yes what kind of wifi do you need to use to get a good (120MByte ps) read and write speed? Or must you use LAN? Or do you edit off of SSD (internal or external) and then move the file to NAS? But then if you are using capture one or Lightroom then it’s difficult to locate the files off of wifi as the catalog is referring to the SSD. I really think that NAS is the answer but the WiFi speed always brings me back to external hard drives!
Hi, Tony, thank you for this. Quick question - Am I correct in assuming that you can mix SSD with HDD? I can see both answers possible, and did not find that answer on the shopping site.
Loved the video. With such big files such as video how is the upload time to the NAS over wifi. I would imagine it would take quite some time to upload a bunch of raw photos or a drone video. How has your experience been? Are you able to upload while on location if you wanted or are you waiting til you get back to your home or office. Thank you for the video.
We're running WiFi6 and 10 GbE, so WiFi throughput is typically a little under 1 Gbps, and wired throughput is 3-5 Gbps. When we were in NYC for the a9 III launch, I transferred the video from my Omso Pocket 3 to my phone, and then uploaded from my phone directly to the NAS. It was limited by the speed of my wifi/cellular connection, but it's a very functional workflow. I sync current projects to Google Drive so I can also just upload to the sync'd folder, which is nice if my home Internet is down, for example.
I should go into this more but I have a 10GbE network and get 3-5 Gbps to the NAS, so I can work from it, but my current projects are on my laptop drive. I pull older content from the NAS in real-time. My Lightroom catalog and previews are local, but my raws live on the NAS.
@@TonyAndChelsea Please do. I would like to know more about workflow. E.g., using a MacBook Pro, possibly an external drive for traveling and the NAS. Right now I have one LR catalogue with photos on the M1 MacBook Pro, and several external drives. It has become a nightmare to manage. No one seems to have a good workflow for this. Thanks.
I wonder if you are using any proper version handling system, like the ones used for SW handling (e.g. Subversion) but maybe more adapted to photography/video. I have not found any such solutions but I may be looking in the wrong places. What I would like to have ithrough this is version history, for example if I or any of my tools accidently deletes a file then I can go back in history and find the original. Currently I do this manually but it is a bit cumbersome.
If you are on a budget, or don't mind a DIY solution, then build your own NAS. For maximum savings, turn an old PC build into a NAS. My setup is a older core I 6700k build running trueNAS. Using 6 SATA drives using the SATA ports on the motherboard and 2 m. 2 drives, 1 256GB for the Is, and a 1TB for metadata caching, then an HBA card for another 8 ports. when I need to expand further, I will purchase used server disk shelf, and add another HBA with an external connection to it. With the current system, I can easily expand it to an additional 64 hard drives before I need to consider a new CPU and motherboard for more PCIe lanes) With many DIY NAS solutions, you can customize how many drive failures the array can handle. If you want, you can do 4 drive redundancy. NAS solutions like synology are primarily focused on ease of use, where they have one of the easiest and fastest setup process, but they convenience comes at a high price premium, as you are essentially entry level gaming PC pricing for what is essentially netbook (when you consider the low power CPU and very little RAM) with lots of SATA ports.
Forgot to add, I also backup my smartphone to my NAS using the FolderSync app (best Android backup all I sound so far), where whenever I am on my home network and the phone is charging, it will sync any new user data over to the NAS.
This morning I was copying old external hard drives to newer larger WD hard drives and found out that I have 4 drives that are bad and not reading. I think I'm going to have to mail 3 drives out for recovery because I can't recover them using recovery software on my computer. I have images that I need on all. I've been thinking about using a NAS for years but never pulled the trigger. It's a pretty big investment. Now I'm seeing that it's an investment I should have made a long time ago. (face palm) Question. If I buy the Synology DiskStation DS1823xs+ 8-Bay can I fill it with 8 Seagate IronWolf Pro 20TB SATA III 3.5" Internal NAS Hard Drive, 7200 RPM? Is that compatible? Also, is there any other hardware I need to buy to make that setup work? Thanks for making this video and for your time in answering my question.
This topic on saving photos and videos from being lost made me think about the photographs that have been lost when people die. Not just average person taking photos but also semi professional and professional photographers. I think since the 1950’s children don’t keep the photos of past generations. A lot of our culture history vanishes especially about family lives. I have slides of a family that were left where I was living without information to find the family members. All the photos I have will be trashed when I die as I have no children. My brother’s children have no interest about our family history and don’t keep anything.
I am trying to archive family photos digitally to make it as easy as possible for future generations. Perhaps this is wasted effort (nobody wants grandma’s china) but I am working for that future family genealogist who may find joy in it. In the meantime I am enjoying the memories.
@@rebeccamoore4177 it is certainly worth doing for your family or relatives that would be interested their past heritage, and what life looked like during those years.
Is NAS just a super backup? I have all my photos on my computer. Less than 2Tb right now. Does a NAS replace my hard drive or just back it up? Do my photos stay on my computer or do they all go to the NAS. Does lightroom then import to the NAS?
You'll always have a local hard drive in your computer, and that's where you should store whatever you're currently working on. For me, I keep my Lightroom catalog and previews on my local computer, but all the raw files are stored on the NAS. Of course, if you use your NAS as primary storage, you need a separate backup for it. I use a second NAS at a family members house and it backs up across the Internet.
Do you work off the NAS or just use as BACKUP up strictly? Seems like the read/write speeds would be too slow for some of my higher 6k edits which need much faster editing speeds. What kind of speed increase can you expect using a NVME vs a 3.5 drive in a NAS?
For videos, my current project is loaded on my local drive and I access the NAS as needed when pulling older footage. For photos, my Lightroom Catalog & Previews are on the local drive while my raw files are on the NAS. It's not somuch a throughput issue as a latency issue. Re: speed, I use a mirrored SSD cache and 10 GbE, and I usually get about 3500-5000 Mbps throughput. And m.2 NVME could definitely outperform that but my fairly old NAS supports either m.2 or 10 GbE, not both at the same time.
Do you and Chelsea use the Synology Bee? It appears to be a high-quality USB thumb drive. I’m just wondering whether the 4 TB model is worth the $250 price. Thanks!
Is this Synology with 8 drives noisey? Is the connection to your computer fast enough to be able to edit video stored on the Synology or is it slow so it is only useful as backup storage?
Could you describe your workflow? Do you edit from your Nas or do you edit locally stored files? Is it able to edit video from it etc? Or make a video taking about that workflow
I keep my current video projects stored on my local drive and offload them to the NAS as soon as the project is published. For stills, I keep my Lightroom Classic catalog & previews on my local drive and store all my raws on the NAS.
So the performance can vary, but typically I get 2500-5000 Mbps. The biggest bottleneck is drive performance; big magnetic drives are usually fairly slow. You can largely alleviate that by adding an SSD cache (using 1 or 2 drive bays) or some models support m.2 nvme high-speed storage for cache. If you can upgrade the RAM in your Nas, do so. I got a big performance boost from that. The network can also be slow. Wired is always faster than wireless, especially considering latency. With wired, 10 Gbe (which might require upgrading both the Nas and the client) is fast enough to shift the bottleneck elsewhere in my experience. Hope that helps!
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I think it would be good to do an ongoing series about the tech backend of being a creator. You've got storage. But you really need to go into detail on backup and backup strategies for many different user scenarios. From occasional hobbyists and family photographers, to wedding photographers, to small TH-camrs, to big channels like yours. You are one of the few photography TH-camrs who have the background to truly understand these concepts well enough to explain it all in enough detail to actually be useful, while also explaining it in a way that novices will understand. I've seen other photography TH-camrs try to explain backups, but they ultimately fall on their faces because they don't really know what they are talking about.
I'm reasonably certain GeraldUndone has a video (or more than one) on this.
I would like to find more detail on specific raid setups for a nas you want to expand. Tony mention having to drives then expanding how does that affect the raid form? Do you have to make an in software adjustment beyond expanding into a new drive?
@@carlosv1691 the RAID that Tony spoke about in this video is SHR (Synology Hybrid RAID) it’s completely plug and play, you can use mismatched drives in any amount and add or remove them on the fly.
@@alexblank91 the only thing I could find on his channel was one review of three different NAS units.
@@GrantSR I'll see if I can dig up something more. He's done so many videos over the years, but I suspect it may have been in one of his live streams
I have a QNAP as well as a dropbox account for 15TB. I've had two NAS fail (not the drives, but the NAS itself) and corrupt *all* the drives. Sent them in for backup rescue, but couldn't be saved. So I now use a local NAS for daily video work that cloud can't help with, and a dropbox doing backup on the NAS.
Hi, Tony! Lee here, the Deaf guy who sent you an appreciative email about adding close captions to the videos of yours. Back to subject at hand, I've known about NAS for decades and never really understood the functionality of it. A frat brother of mine who worked in networking since the 80s and I recall he was raving about NAS several times and I had no clue what it -really- is. Thanks to you, I'm getting the idea of how it works and I'm gonna dig deep into this because I have lost data ages ago - priceless data (wedding photos, for a start). And that sinking feeling is not something I wish to experience again. Thanks for showing hopes of data-saving acquisition!
FYI, if you don't have any off-site copy, your backup is at risk of two common issues. 1) fire, 2) lightning/power surge.
I didn't do off-site copies... Until my house was hit by lightning.
At a minimum, make a copy and store it at a friend's house or safety deposit box. As Tony said, there are non cloud solutions to do off-site backups.
Yeah I keep a second NAS at a family members house and synchronize it over the Internet.
Indeed, in our company, we make "Fire Copies." I.E. Offsite backups.
This is bad advise, putting a hard drive away for 5 years in a safety deposit box will not protect against bit rot. It needs to be actively managed for data integrity. One might trust optical archival storage, for long term unmanaged storage. Easiest is just to get Backblaze NAS backup.
@@arvidjohansson3120 It is incomplete, I agree. However, in my experience, people are generally not as tech savvy as Tony, you or I. This advice is where to start and because this is the comment section of a TH-cam video, it is missing nuance and completeness.
For anyone reading this, in the storage world, three copies of data, with one copy being off-site is the starting point for long term backups. A good cloud based service will make multiple copies and geographically distribute them while also checking to make sure the data isn't gone bad.
The easiest way, that I have found, for people who don't want to or can afford a cloud based service is to rotate two external storage drives between the home and somewhere else. Ideally once month. This would be a starting point to build up to something better.
Until recently I was able to take a backup copy to my office and lock it in my desk. Now that I'm among the people who is almost completely working from home this is no longer an option. I haven't figured out how to do an offsite copy otherwise but I'm considering cloud storage as an option.
One of your most important videos yet! I learned in the Air Force how important RAID technology was. We had an aircraft that needed word-wide digital mapping data available at a moment's notice (while airborne). Each aircraft had a carry-on RAID capability that integrated the aircraft data system with 72 TB of online storage, with multiple redundancies (giving us about 60 TB of unique storage files). Every one of our planes had this, and prior to or after each sortie the entire RAID system was brought into the squadron and refreshed with the latest data. To say that the RAID array was critical would be a gross understatement. Keep up the good work. This was a great video . . .
Quick story on my 1815+ Synology NAS, it's an 8-bay I bought years ago for a client and then one day the motherboard failed and the NAS was rendered useless despite having RAID 5, the whole unit wasn't working so called Synology, this was on a Friday, they shipped me a new unit by air immediately free of charge, received on Saturday, rebuilt array over the weekend and back operational by Monday morning. This after warranty had expired... and I don't remember having the ship my old defective one back I probably did after everything was settled. I have to say I was pretty impressed, they obviously knew how mission critical people's data was, they may not do this for every model but it's the only time I can remember that a company pulled through for me. Another note was I used to use Rsync to sync (in real-time) to a remote NAS, loved that feature but looks like that's no longer supported.
Great story!
@@TonyAndChelsea Not shilling really happened years ago, appreciated them for that, it saved my ass.
Have a look at syncthing, its related to rsync but I prefer it to rsync for offsite backup as it traverses firewalls and NAT more automatically.
Just use any LINUX distro and rsnapshot which uses rsync. But this may not be for the fainthearted photographer with unsufficient IT knowledge.
@@andybarnard4575 Looks good thanks for sharing!
8:38 is the very important part, everyone!
Excellent reminders in this video. I had data on an iMac internal drive and lost it all when the drive failed. Years later had other data on an external USB drive until it was pulled off of a low table when the cable was pulled accidentally. The drive never started up again. Now my Synology NAS is doing great at data loss but I don't yet replicate it anywhere else.
Thanks for posting. I just lost my NAS (10 years old). Two drives out of four went kaput without warning. It contained roughly 6TB of mostly photographs. Fortunately, I had a backup NAS. In additional, also have a HDD as a third backup, which I keep in the bank and update about once a month. So no data lost.(If I had lost data you would have read in the papers: "Hubby Looses HDD, wife shoots HDD, arrested for HDD abuse". News at 11pm) Instead of getting a replacement NAS, I opted instead for a 16TB external HDD by OWC. So far so good. At the moment, I have NAS, 12TB, backing up to a 16TB HDD (dual disk), and to a 6tb HDD.
I totally agree with you, Tony. I bought my Synology NAS 11 years ago. Has worked impeccably since then.
This guy reminds me of an infomercial salesman.
I’ve had two 8 disc NAS units die on me. Trying to resurrect the second since it’s out of warranty. Buyer beware
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Cannot stress the importance of two locations. I lost my NAS in a house fire last year. 48tb gone. The photo albums from the 70’s survived somehow though!
Thank you Tony for that video! I’ve got a 1618+ back in 2018 which I filled with 4TB drives at the time, and it’s now full, but I can still expand it with 2 more expansions, or bigger drives if I want. I didn’t know about the data scrubbing feature, so I just enabled it, and I hope I didn’t do that too late… I’ve been following your channel for 10 years now, and I always keep learning something.
Glad to help! You could also replace your existing drives with bigger drives (one at a time) but yeah an expansion bay is probably easier.
@@TonyAndChelsea The funny thing is, that whenever my friends had lost their data, I was able to recover them, but whenever I’ve lost mine in the past, it was done in such a catastrophic way, that my skills would be useless to recover them either entirely, or even partially in some cases… Murphy’s law when it comes to that is a thing! :)
I bought a five drive Synology NAS drive a couple of years ago after I lost my main drive and its back up. I use a Synology Hybrid Raid 2, which is RAID 2. Super simple to set up and probably the best bit of kit I have ever bought.
Yeah it's amazing. You know I'm a fanatic for the latest and greatest gadgets, but the two oldest bits of tech in my kit are the Synology NAS and my 16-year old Toyota pickup.
Synology offered to send me a new NAS and I declined because mine is going fine! It's just solid.
SHR2 is RAID 6, 2 drive parity.
I spent 30 years as an IT manager for a National Weapons Laboratory research facility in the east SF bay. I know the value of a redundant backup systems and periodic trial restore exercises. It is not enough to have a robust backup strategy without periodically testing the restore capability. Also, having an off-site repository of your data ensures a reliable recovery in case of catastrophic events. I have had QNAP NAS servers for over 15 years for my own personal data and am a believer. My backup QNAP server has a backup server, so I feel pretty confident knowing my 60TB of data is going nowhere.
This technology has come down so much in price, and the sense of security is priceless.
Almost my entire career has been around selling enterprise class storage with my side hustle and passion being photography. I have had NAS devices, file servers, eterenal hard drives, etc. However I now have everything on Amazon Photos. Unlimited Capacity, Fast and easy retrieval, user friendly interface and if you are a Prime member it is free. Might not be a solution for those with video but for still photography it is perfect. Built on AWS S3 with 11 nine durability, millisecond latency, and accessibile from any device it is a no brainer.
I just went to Prime level last month. I'll look into it. I had an ASUS account for years but it got expensive and SLOW! In house I am still at the stage of reminding myself to shuffle off copies to external USB drives with the cheapo utility SyncToy; then that drive is unplugged drive until the next time which is when I get home from a shoot.
Great advice. I have a Synology 4 bay NAS with WD "Red" NAS HDDs (4x2tb). I regularly back up the important directories off of it to a pair of WD Elements AC powered portable 3tb HDDs.
The NAS is on an UPS so it's protected from power spikes and surges that invariably follow a power outage and suddent restoration (most local distribution power lines have auto-reclose circuit breakers so you'd see a power off/on once or twice and if the fault hasn't cleared then it's off til the power company can do repairs).
One thing you always have to remember about RAID (is *NOT* a backup solution) is that it is not a backup solution. If a file gets corrupted (say, via a bug in the software on the originating computer), it’ll happily replicate that corrupted file.
It was a video of yours maybe a year or two ago that prompted me to switch from DROBO to Synology, particularly since the DROBO guys were obviously on the rocks. I use 4 DS 1821+ units. One set rotates to a bank safety deposit box and one lives in a fire resistant file cabinet in my basement and one is my main catalog to work from. I only have about 40TB of data but always growing. The Synology works way more consistently and flawlessly than the DROBO. It just works. Good advice to get a Synology. Now if I could only get paid to say that.
A few years ago I lost a hard drive full of photos and shed many tears. I did some research and ended up getting a NAS and configuring it in raid 1 so the hard drives are redundant. Best move I've ever made for my photos!
Good work! Be sure you have BTRFS and data scrubbing to prevent bitrot, which can still happen with RAID.
@@TonyAndChelsea great advice, thank you!!
I have a synology 4-bay and it has been a lifesaver. It was a little of a learning curve when I started, but I'm convinced it's how I need to operate from now on. Time to get an expansion unit.
I've been using QNAP 4-bay NAS'es for many years now, RAID-5.
Had disk failures, but no data loss.
Additionally I have a 2-bay "NAS" in RAID-1 configuration, used for manual backups for the most sensitive data.
A NAS is the best thing since sliced bread, honestly. 😁
Man, I got sick and tired of the camera and lens race years ago, and only watch this channel because I love Tony and Chelsea, but this video spoke to me. I'm gonna get me that DS223 and a couple of good 10TB drives at the least. I don't save much of what I shoot, but I do keep in SSDs and USB drives some data, plus my valued pictures and RAW files I wouldn't be able to replicate and would cry over if I lost them to bit rot. Thanks for this video, Tony.
Just assembled a four-drive NAS a couple of weeks ago with a total of 29.1 TB formatted storage in a RAID 10 configuration. I have files going back 20-plus years and figured it was time to consolidate, reorganize, and archive the virtual digital spaghetti bowl I've created; the NAS is ideal for this task IMO.
been eyeing a NAS for quite some time now. glad you showed this from a photographer / consumer POV. reddit and other videos are all from tech geeks and don’t really make it understandable for me
Many people have multiple hard drives in a PC to do just this however NAS has huge benefits. Buying one and then hoping to be able to understand & configue it all seem overwhelming. It would be awesome to see a video to show how its all done.
Thanks Tony. This is really important stuff to know. My daughter gave me Passport as storage and back up of photo files, etc. etc. It failed. Passport the company stoped giving updates and I could not access the device to the files...it sits on my desk as a reminder of not to trust storage devices or the companies who make them. Redundancy is the key as you have taught us through the years. Now, I just have to save up the money...nuts.
As always keep the good work and keep'em flying...👽👽👽👽👽
Ugh sorry to hear that!!
I built a NAS a few months ago, out of an old computer. I have ended up with Google and Dropbox accounts that I was hoping to eventually get rid of, since I use them only for transferring files to customers. I just haven't figured out how to safely give access to parts of it yet, from outside my network. It's only 2 pools right now, 1 2 tByte and one 8. (2-2tbye drives and 2 8). I eventually hope to increase it once I figure out how to set it up properly. I only have about 15 tbytes total that I feel the need to back up right now though. Very timely and important video for many of us!.
Setting up a NAS might seem straightforward for tech enthusiasts, but it does require a bit of IT know-how for others. Security is a major concern, and without proper education, it's true that there's a risk of potential hacking. Additionally, when you factor in the cost of hard drives, NAS setups can get expensive.
For those looking for a simpler and possibly more cost-effective solution, online cloud storage is a viable alternative. It's user-friendly, and the convenience it offers might outweigh the complexities of managing a NAS setup. It really comes down to personal preference and comfort level with technology.
Self Hosting for the win. Own your data folks. Good job Tony; much respect for the video.
Much appreciated!
I use a NAS sinds 14 years, for now i own a Synology DS1821+ as the main nas. A DS414+ at my parents their home as backup (sync) and a usb drive that is attached to the main NAS that makes a copy every night. Works like a charm..
Listen to Tony folks. I'm a software engineer who has seen data loss happen at both the consumer and enterprise level. It can happen to anyone, and when it does, it's devastating. If you're a creator, do yourself a favour and invest in a NAS to backup your vital files.
It is vital to your business. Also, as you get larger jobs, it may even become a requirement from your clients before they're willing to work with you. They want assurances that you've already set up a process of backups so there cannot be a catastrophic failure during a critical project (source: working with VFX firms producing content for large film studios).
Thanks Tony. Good work as always. I wish you had at least given a nod to security risks with a NAS. Such risks are both real and substantial, and are essential to the decision re using a NAS. Even a basic intro to the subject is incomplete without this. Thanks again for your efforts.
Well, all storage has security risks. Synology has a great write-up here: kb.synology.com/en-us/DSM/tutorial/How_to_add_extra_security_to_your_Synology_NAS
I feel like the Synology NAS is way more secure than a regular drive connected to your computer. Ours uses 2 factor authentication, but also versioning and off-site snapshot replication backups that should allow us to roll-back even if we do get compromised by something like ransomware.
Agree that Synology NAS is a great solution. I have one that is still going strong after 10 years of continuous use. Using the Synology drive client to sync a large hard drive on the PC also provides a significant performance boost to the editing software compared to working directly from the network drive.
Yeah that's how I use it for our video production-working locally with continually synced folders.
Agree 100%, I'm running 2 DS1019+, 5 10tb drives each, 1 for RAW and 1 for edits, plans to add expansion units to each
I'm an amateur and even I use mirrored drives in my Synology NAS. I do use hard drives which, as Tony mentioned, are incredibly cheap compared to SSD drives. So far, no failures. A lifetime of photos/memories are in that box.
What a great video. This is the first time I have ever even seen you on youtube... Like you I am a power user of Synology Nas and I just have to say, this was such a terrific video. Easy to understand, pleasant to watch, and most importantly just a great bit of information for people who create a lot of content / data. Thank you! Well done.
As a computer professional and an amateur photographer (I did do wedding stuff 30 years ago) It certainly would be handy, and if I had multi-terabyte mission-critical files, I'd get a NAS, but I find I don't need one. I've done this the ultra-cheap way...an old networked machine using an old TV that has a VGA connection for a monitor. 3 separate multi-terabyte drives - one for backups of the home stuff, the other does the photography stuff for the whole family as we are all avid photographers., and the 3rd is a larger drive, backing them them both up and is external, so if a disaster occurs (flood etc) I could just grab that drive and restore later.
I use a free SW called SyncBack and it backs up certain folders at 3am. I could set up RAID arrays and all that, but the couple of time I needed to restore files, it worked fine as is.
How are you protecting yourself against bitrot? If you aren't scanning the drives regularly and repairing corrupted files, those drives are slowly degrading, and you won't know until you attempt to access the files. What about theft?
I have been using Synology NAS for 10 years. Started with a single DS1813 and have added 2 additional units over time. The list of other features that are invaluable to photographers could be the subject of a few more videos as well
Tony great information! Pricing NAS now.
Good choice! Be sure to think ahead at least 10 years when sizing max capacity because these have a really long lifespan.
wow I remember 15 yrs ago I worked with a team organising data recovery resilience for British Telecom and we did just that we had banks of Petabyte drives in Scotland Wales and England to create a proper disaster recovery system, I guess its still going now im retired now, I keep thinking about a NAS but I stopped selling images some time ago and (touch wood) Ive never lost a drive, ive had old drives that start to run slow so ive replaced with more solid state, maybe just been lucky Thanks for the Vid Tony always informative and concise :)
Thanks Tony. Im finally convinced to go for the NAS. I had HDD failed and all 12 days worth of photographs were gone. The problem im facing and many others as well: is the set up process. Do you think you have time to do a video on a complete guide to set up the NAS, especially on the 8 bay. Much appreciated, thanks so much. Vincent from Singapore.
I loved my Drobo for years, but the company went bankrupt. The unit still works, but I think I'll switch now to Synology. I didn't realize they had such similar features.
2 questions please : 1) what software do you use ? & 2) do you have an offsite backup of any kind, and if so, what ?
I use the Synology software, which works great. My second NAS is located off-site and snapshots are replicated across the Internet.
As a hobbyist with a very low budget, I use iCloud to sync my devices. I edit and organize through photos app (and a few others). Then, about once a quarter, I export all my folders from my primary Mac to a desktop with redundant huge drives (2 copies!). That backup is then backed up to an external drive. I also save all of my favorite photos to a folder in apple's drive (as jpegs).
Found this is real cheap ($10 month for bigger iCloud) and real easy. Been wanting to get a DAS (desktop attached storage) to eliminate the desktop. I don't trust external drives. @TonyNorthrup didn't mention the price of increased bandwidth needed for NAS to work with video editing. Regardless, Synology is the No 1 choice in backups. Might give them another look today (it's cyber Monday after all).
I too would like to see more of the behind the scenes techie side of how he runs things. I too am a tech professional and would like to get his perspective.
Would love to see you do a video on the basics of setting up a NAS. Thanks for another great video.
I need to replace my old, WD NAS setup with something more expandable. I plan to do that after an upcoming move. So I guess I’m Synology’s target customer here. Good job putting them on my radar. Things I’d like to know:
1) Does it support remote access so I can upload/download files while in the field? I travel. It’s quite common for me to be out in some hotel somewhere wanting to backup my latest images.
2) How does the increasing efficiency you described work? My understanding has always been that in a typical RAID1 setup, I have a drive and I have a drive that mirrors it. So if I have, say, 10 drives of 10 terabytes each, I only have 50 terabytes of available storage because half the space is taken up by mirroring the data. Perhaps there’s something I don’t understand here about RAID storage?
3) When I add additional bays on my Synology NAS, how is the file transfer speed? It sounds like Bay 1 fills up, so I attach Bay 2 to it. So now I’m copying from PC to Bay 1 and Bay 1 passes on to Bay 2. Does that slow file transfers appreciably?
4) What is the connection between the bays and between the bays and my PC? Are we looking at Ethernet? USB 3? Something else?
5) Which unit is the base unit? I see the expansions on the Synology website. But it’s not clear to me which unit I buy first that I can then add expansions to later on?
Thanks in advance for any answers.
1) Yes, we do this all the time. You can transfer directly to your NAS (remote access is provided by Synology QuickConnect) or synchronize a Google Drive folder (which means you can still sync if the NAS is powered down or your home network is offline). Google Drive tends to have more bandwidth than your typical home connection, too.
2) Synology RAID doesn't have to use mirroring (RAID 1), though it can. Synology Hybrid Raid (SHR) is very flexible, and only needs the capacity of your largest drive in the array for parity.
3) The transfer between bays happens with E-SATA so there's not really a performance hit. You'll likely configure all your drives into one big volume so the data will be striped across every drive, so you're not really moving files between individual drives.
4) E-SATA between the bays. To your computer, Ethernet, WiFi, whatever works. We use 10GbE.
5) If you want expansion, I'm suggesting the DS1522+ but maybe you want a model with more bays. This picker can help: www.synology.com/en-us/support/nas_selector
I built my own NAS with parts from a decommissioned computer. My 4U case supports 13 drives and I’m at 12 drives.
Buying one has way less headache because you don’t need to put together an operating system, apps, or worrying about hardware compatibility issues. But it is cheaper for people willing to tinker with computer hardware and software.
I admire rolling your own, but do you have BTRTS and data scrubbing to prevent bitrot? How are you keeping it protected against ransomware?
@@TonyAndChelsea i use UNRAID as my OS. Filerun is the file syncing software in a docker form. You a set 2 step authentication on it. My other services are not passed through my router firewall, meaning no port forwarding. I run Tailscale on my UNRAID and Tailscale clients on my computers and mobiles devices. In Tailscale, I can control what device can access my NAS.
UNRAID supports XFS, Btrfs, ZFS and ReiserFS. Mine is set to check parity every month. I’ve been running mine for several years. So far only a 2TB drive failed. I have 4x8TB, 4x14TB, 2x3TB and 2x 5TB drivings running with a 1TB SSD as cache. All drives other than 14TB ones were shucked from external hard drives. All mechanical drives are WD red, or white label red. 2 14TB ones are decommissioned data center drives.
@@TonyAndChelseaZFS scrub (oracle) handles bitrot on XigmaNAS or NAS4Free which are good roll your own solutions. In theory you are supposed to have error correcting memory (cheaper on an AMD motherboard) but QNAP and Synology dont do this as far as I know. The support lifecycle on QNAP or Synology is better than an iphone but not as good as those generic "roll your own solutions". Autosnapshot provides some protection against encryption ransomware, but offline copy should be part of any NAS based backup solution.
I have never used Synology or Qnap NAS. I am useing several Supermicros in a cluster using ZFS. They are far more powerfull and can handel much more throuput. I guess the newer Synology have more proceesing power now.
Also, as some already pointed out, Synology uses proprietery disk controllers. If you can't find a replacement, you are in trouble. ZFS can be setup independent of any disk controller. All you need is an HBA for your drives.
Great video, Tony!
I’ve actually considered getting a NAS for myself a few times. I’m kind of tech nerd so that’s part of the reason why
But I don’t have enough data to justify getting a huge Nas, I would probably get something with two hard drive slots, get two 4tb or 8tb hard drives, and have one of them as a duplicate to the other for redundancy.
I’m also not a video content creator, it would be mainly for stills, so I think this kind of storage would be enough for me for a long time
Whatever the cost of setting up a dual-drive mirroring NAS, it is far less expensive than losing all your content.
same boat! also, RAID is actually only for redundancy. so if you don’t mind having a bit of downtime, you could just rebuild from a backup.
for that you could just use like those 40 bucks drive bays, where it creates a 1:1 copy from one Harddrive to the other. no network connection obvoiusly
I have the same bay as you but with 8 x 10 TB drives. Raid 6 (2 can fail), and the 8th drive is hot-swappable as I travel and am not always around to replace a drive. I don't have as many images as you, but 10 years of digital photography means it is over 8 TB. I also send it to Back Blaze It is going to cost $600 a year for the 8TB.
I had in use a Microsoft home server. It would take 2Tb drives and added them it's array of drives with the option of making a back up along the way. I had a second system to mirror the first. Drives would fail often. Some in a year others after two or three years. I also had a four drive NAS with a RAID. When one drive failed I could not recover. For me not a problem as it was the third back up but that has put me off trying a raid solution again. At least with the Home Server method I could read each drive as a normal drive to get the files back. I moved to 6Tb and then 16Tb. My latest is a pair of 20Tb drives. Moving 16Tb of data over took a very long time.
I have image files corrupt where the first part of the image displays but the rest is blank or green. Nothing important but the backups were also corrupted and the third copy as well. Easy to spot in photographs, even if the thumbnails now take a long time to display (Windows 10 is aging) but impossible to find in video files.
Even if stored and only powered up to add to the back up a drive looses data randomly. It is suggested that the content be re-created often - moved from where ever it was stored. Okay for a couple of Tb but when you have 120Tb the task takes months even if most of that is machine time, not your time.
Another task is documenting the files. Create a text file with descriptions, or a spreadsheet. A few years later you may struggle with names, dates and locations so documenting as you go along helps. If it doesn't matter then perhaps the files don't matter either why pay for storage of files that don't matter?
It’s a bet meta, but something I’d love to see is a walkthrough of your photo and video workflows. From photo -> post or video -> upload. Like, how do you ingest your photos and videos? How do you organize your photos/videos? For example: ingesting onto a MacBook and then copying to the NAS must take a long time and is pretty inefficient (especially over WiFi).
You’ve touched on it a little in some other videos, but I don’t recall seeing anything end-to-end, and I’d be super interested to see it.
ps. Been a fan since your MCAD books.
I can still remember when you told us the 10 TB cloud storage from Google for $300 per month was worth it. Back then I already thought about how many redundant drives you could buy for $300 per month.
As NAS is nice, but I would not feel safe when all of my photos were in the same container. It could still be damaged by fire, water or whatever. Thieves could steal the whole NAS.
Your files are much safer, if there is another NAS in the home of one of your friends. In return your friend has a NAS in your house. Then all files would even survive, if either your house or the house of your friend gets destroyed. You could encrypt all your files, so that your friend will not get access to all of your files.
I purchase a Synology DS414slim (4 bay with a small footprint using 2.5" drives) back in 2015 and took it overseas for a year. My main focus at the time was the small footprint. However, the performance of the unit has been less than desirable and the newer DSM software requires more memory that the unit has. The migration path to a newer unit has issues as well. So, I am a bit stuck. Newer units shouldn't have the same problems I have had.
My setup is having a server. it's an Intel server motherboard. Entry level but still something solid. ECC memory. I run the Unraid OS there. It's Linux based but costs a bit of money. Unless the default there is someone actually developing it and not a total OSS project that is at the benevolence of developers to do it. But still a bit more manageable than only a Linux distro and everything you do you do it yourself. Haven't used Synology but I suspect Unraid is much more on the side for thinkers.
The server is connected via UPS.
For remote backups it's a bit harder but I've placed a Raspberry pi at my mom's place and one at my uncle's. It has an external 3.5" drive.
I use a wireguard VPN tunnel out from my server so it can send backups.
It's nightly. This is my hobby and maybe new files are imported a few times a month so it's not like Tony's need for instant backups.
I love my Synology drive and use it for my files but also my family's as well. I concur that you need a second NAS for a backup as a single nas is not a perfect solution. I had a volume fail after a raid5 drive fail on my nas. With the backup I was back up and running with no data lost in a couple of days. Without it I would have lost everything.
This is very good logic presented in the video and of course you should use nas , redunancy and all of that when making backup. There is on thing though: all these ( main and extensions ) are in one place - suppose the house catches fire or some other calamity happens and you lose all your stuff. That basically amounts to keeping all eggs in one basket - that is why you have to replicate all this stuff to another place to be a bit more secure.
I don’t have the ability to have an offsite backup. I built a “windows” NAS just a computer with a ton of storage I made available to my network. I did it so I could pay for offsite backup, which wouldn’t support a NAS device. Have you ever looked into a diy solution like unraid? I guess the nice thing about your solution is you don’t have to pay apple for iCloud back up.
Tony, do more to prepare viewers for the sticker shock on some of the NAS. AN EMPTY 8 bay enclosure can cost over 1000 USD! Another thing. The great features you mentioned may not be available on all the NAS systems (only on the more expensive ones.)
I watched this a month ago...I had a seagate 1tb barracuda fail in just 4 years of use, lost a lot of photos and Im having to dig through all my devices to see if I have them saved anywhere.
Tony, Great info and thanks for explaining all this. Planning to buy a NAS ...was window shopping a few days ago ....your video was valuable ...plan to buy now.
GREAT stuff, Tony (and Chelsea)! I think I have the same 8-bay Synology that you showed (DS1817+). It's been absolutely fantastic, giving me peace of mind as well as quick access to all of my files. My primary use case (besides hobbyist photography and basic file backup) is being able to view photos and videos on all of my devices, including on Apple TVs.
For backup, I also use Synology Hybrid Raid (with only 4 drives in my 8-bay unit), then Hyper Backup to an attached USB drive; finally, I use Cloud Sync to Backblaze B2 for off-site. My only ongoing cost is about $6-7 per month for Backblaze, depending on how much capacity I use.
I just can't overstate the importance of storage and backups for everyone who values their digital assets - especially photographers and creators!!
Okay, I’m interested…tell me how to move from my Drobo with all my data & direct attached format to a Synology NAS system. I’ve searched high & low but haven’t found a good instructional video on that transition.
I’ve always wanted to do this type of backup. I currently use two HDDs that are always mirrored, but I want to move to a network share like this. I’ve just always been afraid of the learning curve to actually do it and set it up. This option looks very easy.
I got this during corvid. Same setup. Took 2.5 years to sort through over 40 terabits. But now finding ppl or getting remotely is incredible. The tech support is Great. The first time it was sorting there was an error and it had to start over. And its almost impossible to actually do a backup. Unless you know a way for me to do it.
I have to revisit Synology NAS. I bought one over 3 years ago, Set up was a pain for a nontech person. Like all programs, the Synology suite needed constant updating so every week I got a notice I needed to update my files. Then to add to the misery, the Synology NAS randoming turned off in such as way as to require resetting up from scratch. i decided it was a lemon, not worth it. It sits as a paperweight today and I use SSD drives that I back up all the time. Obviously people have better experiences than me.
@tony just make sure you back it up to another device somewhere else thoroughly because if it fails and you can't find a similar enough model you will have a rough time recovering that data. You can't just put the drives in a regular jbod to recover it.
I can't say it enough times, RAID is not a backup, even 2 drive fault tolerance ..... you need to back everything that is on this device up to another separate device, and preferably a different vendor device that uses a different technology and also preferably even then, you should be doing offline backups that are physically not spinning
Yeah, i discuss at the end of the video that I backup m primary NAS to a second NAS in a different location.
I've been rocking Synology for the last 10 years. And this week I've been thinking about some new drives replace my four 8Tb drives, as I'd got a Disk Full warning. That was until I fully understood that I'd set up my Snapshots to save everything for years. Over night I got 13TB of space back by learning how to use Snapshots more efficiently.
Still drooling over some 20TB drives though.
Any tips for maintaining a persistent connection to a Synology NAS to a Mac Studio using SMB? It unmounts the NAS shares when idle and I have to use finder go to server again to mount it. I had used AFP for years on my previous iMac without this problem, AFP is not functional, too buggy on Apple silicon, looks like they hardly tested AFP since it is in some stage of being phased out. Otherwise the setup performs like a champ!
I purchased a Drobo system 6 years ago, it was swapped a few years ago due to a malfunction...the replacement device seems to be failing now and Drobo is no longer in business. I'm looking for another solution and looks like Synology may be it. Thanks Tony.
Ugh sorry to hear about your Drobo! Definitely get the files transferred ASAP!!
So you need to keep two different sets in two different locations in case of a disaster or theft. Some of us don't have the luxury of having two physical locations available. How would backup from disaster or theft if you have only one location? Thanks.
Tony, I own two Synology NASs. Both contain the same data one of which backs up to the Synology C2 online storage.
Tony, how do you deal with the fact that lightroom classic does not allow you to put catalogs on remote shares? These catalogs can get quite large: if you have 120TB of photos, the catalogs would almost certainly be in terabytes in total size given all the previews and stuff contained within. Where would you put the catalogs if not on the NAS?
Somebody could give you more details, but I think the best practice for efficiency and redundancy is to save your catalog in your computer and save a backup of the catalog in your NAS. Leave the raw files in the NAS and make 1:1 previews in your computer.
@@Fasc3000 I know about this option. My main point in my comment is this: "These catalogs can get quite large..."
I have one... from a long time ago... but apparently there's a thing with the older Synology units (mine is an 8 drive also).... it didn't make the move from one house to the other even though it was carefully moved... I still love Synology, but I'm pretty ticked about this one (I use them professionally, and those do require you to use Synology or a very, very short list of approved drives)
what about off-site backups / second geographical location in case of fire or other threats at one location?
My second NAS is in a remote location, synchronized across the Internet.
@@TonyAndChelseawhat is your network speed?
I got 5 bays nas,what do you mean about a single for parity? How will it store the 4 other drives data?
Thanks for this video. I have questions about off-site backup. For a setup where you buy a second NAS and set it up at a relative or friends house, does either location need special Internet connectivity (e.g. higher bandwidth, static IP, etc.)? Second, am I likely to run into problems if my backup partner is fairly tech illiterate?
Good video! Just note that Synology doesn't allow you to use the BTRFS file system on their cheaper models, making it unsuitable for the use of anyone who doesn't like bit rot. Pretty ridiculous considering that they didn't develop it and don't pay for it.
I would love to see a video on your photography process from shoot to print. Manly on the upload, sifting, storing. I do not have a NAS but have heard programs like lightroom do not allow direct processing off a NAS. This why I am curious on how you workload process.
I store my raws on the NAS and my catalog + previews on the local drive.
But do you edit off of the NAS? If yes what kind of wifi do you need to use to get a good (120MByte ps) read and write speed? Or must you use LAN? Or do you edit off of SSD (internal or external) and then move the file to NAS? But then if you are using capture one or Lightroom then it’s difficult to locate the files off of wifi as the catalog is referring to the SSD. I really think that NAS is the answer but the WiFi speed always brings me back to external hard drives!
Thanks Tony and crew. This is very insightful.
Thank you for the reminder. Do you have a recommendation for hard drives to work with synology?
I’ve been looking for this type of solution. Thanks!
Hi, Tony, thank you for this. Quick question - Am I correct in assuming that you can mix SSD with HDD? I can see both answers possible, and did not find that answer on the shopping site.
Yes, but it's probably more cost-effective to use SSDs as cache and HDDs for storage.
Thanks for posting! I was thinking about replacing my old NAS.
Loved the video. With such big files such as video how is the upload time to the NAS over wifi. I would imagine it would take quite some time to upload a bunch of raw photos or a drone video. How has your experience been? Are you able to upload while on location if you wanted or are you waiting til you get back to your home or office. Thank you for the video.
We're running WiFi6 and 10 GbE, so WiFi throughput is typically a little under 1 Gbps, and wired throughput is 3-5 Gbps. When we were in NYC for the a9 III launch, I transferred the video from my Omso Pocket 3 to my phone, and then uploaded from my phone directly to the NAS. It was limited by the speed of my wifi/cellular connection, but it's a very functional workflow. I sync current projects to Google Drive so I can also just upload to the sync'd folder, which is nice if my home Internet is down, for example.
What about the speed? Do you use this as a working drive?
I should go into this more but I have a 10GbE network and get 3-5 Gbps to the NAS, so I can work from it, but my current projects are on my laptop drive. I pull older content from the NAS in real-time. My Lightroom catalog and previews are local, but my raws live on the NAS.
@@TonyAndChelsea Please do. I would like to know more about workflow. E.g., using a MacBook Pro, possibly an external drive for traveling and the NAS. Right now I have one LR catalogue with photos on the M1 MacBook Pro, and several external drives. It has become a nightmare to manage. No one seems to have a good workflow for this. Thanks.
I have been working on getting one, thank you for the input. Ummmm did you edit differently? The colors really seem to pop in this video.
I wonder if you are using any proper version handling system, like the ones used for SW handling (e.g. Subversion) but maybe more adapted to photography/video. I have not found any such solutions but I may be looking in the wrong places. What I would like to have ithrough this is version history, for example if I or any of my tools accidently deletes a file then I can go back in history and find the original. Currently I do this manually but it is a bit cumbersome.
If you are on a budget, or don't mind a DIY solution, then build your own NAS. For maximum savings, turn an old PC build into a NAS. My setup is a older core I 6700k build running trueNAS. Using 6 SATA drives using the SATA ports on the motherboard and 2 m. 2 drives, 1 256GB for the Is, and a 1TB for metadata caching, then an HBA card for another 8 ports.
when I need to expand further, I will purchase used server disk shelf, and add another HBA with an external connection to it. With the current system, I can easily expand it to an additional 64 hard drives before I need to consider a new CPU and motherboard for more PCIe lanes)
With many DIY NAS solutions, you can customize how many drive failures the array can handle. If you want, you can do 4 drive redundancy. NAS solutions like synology are primarily focused on ease of use, where they have one of the easiest and fastest setup process, but they convenience comes at a high price premium, as you are essentially entry level gaming PC pricing for what is essentially netbook (when you consider the low power CPU and very little RAM) with lots of SATA ports.
Forgot to add, I also backup my smartphone to my NAS using the FolderSync app (best Android backup all I sound so far), where whenever I am on my home network and the phone is charging, it will sync any new user data over to the NAS.
This morning I was copying old external hard drives to newer larger WD hard drives and found out that I have 4 drives that are bad and not reading. I think I'm going to have to mail 3 drives out for recovery because I can't recover them using recovery software on my computer. I have images that I need on all. I've been thinking about using a NAS for years but never pulled the trigger. It's a pretty big investment. Now I'm seeing that it's an investment I should have made a long time ago. (face palm) Question. If I buy the Synology DiskStation DS1823xs+ 8-Bay can I fill it with 8 Seagate IronWolf Pro 20TB SATA III 3.5" Internal NAS Hard Drive, 7200 RPM? Is that compatible? Also, is there any other hardware I need to buy to make that setup work? Thanks for making this video and for your time in answering my question.
Can you make a tutorial on how to set this up for a hobbyist like me?
Yeah can do
SO when you added that 20TB drive did that increase your storage space? Also what are you using for a RAID level?
This topic on saving photos and videos from being lost made me think about the photographs that have been lost when people die. Not just average person taking photos but also semi professional and professional photographers. I think since the 1950’s children don’t keep the photos of past generations. A lot of our culture history vanishes especially about family lives. I have slides of a family that were left where I was living without information to find the family members. All the photos I have will be trashed when I die as I have no children. My brother’s children have no interest about our family history and don’t keep anything.
:(
I am trying to archive family photos digitally to make it as easy as possible for future generations. Perhaps this is wasted effort (nobody wants grandma’s china) but I am working for that future family genealogist who may find joy in it. In the meantime I am enjoying the memories.
@@rebeccamoore4177 it is certainly worth doing for your family or relatives that would be interested their past heritage, and what life looked like during those years.
Is NAS just a super backup? I have all my photos on my computer. Less than 2Tb right now. Does a NAS replace my hard drive or just back it up? Do my photos stay on my computer or do they all go to the NAS. Does lightroom then import to the NAS?
You'll always have a local hard drive in your computer, and that's where you should store whatever you're currently working on. For me, I keep my Lightroom catalog and previews on my local computer, but all the raw files are stored on the NAS.
Of course, if you use your NAS as primary storage, you need a separate backup for it. I use a second NAS at a family members house and it backs up across the Internet.
Do you work off the NAS or just use as BACKUP up strictly? Seems like the read/write speeds would be too slow for some of my higher 6k edits which need much faster editing speeds. What kind of speed increase can you expect using a NVME vs a 3.5 drive in a NAS?
For videos, my current project is loaded on my local drive and I access the NAS as needed when pulling older footage. For photos, my Lightroom Catalog & Previews are on the local drive while my raw files are on the NAS. It's not somuch a throughput issue as a latency issue.
Re: speed, I use a mirrored SSD cache and 10 GbE, and I usually get about 3500-5000 Mbps throughput. And m.2 NVME could definitely outperform that but my fairly old NAS supports either m.2 or 10 GbE, not both at the same time.
Do you and Chelsea use the Synology Bee? It appears to be a high-quality USB thumb drive. I’m just wondering whether the 4 TB model is worth the $250 price. Thanks!
Is this Synology with 8 drives noisey? Is the connection to your computer fast enough to be able to edit video stored on the Synology or is it slow so it is only useful as backup storage?
Could you describe your workflow? Do you edit from your Nas or do you edit locally stored files? Is it able to edit video from it etc?
Or make a video taking about that workflow
I keep my current video projects stored on my local drive and offload them to the NAS as soon as the project is published. For stills, I keep my Lightroom Classic catalog & previews on my local drive and store all my raws on the NAS.
I have the 5 bay Synology NAS! I love it! Do you find it super slow to pull files back off the NAS ?
So the performance can vary, but typically I get 2500-5000 Mbps.
The biggest bottleneck is drive performance; big magnetic drives are usually fairly slow. You can largely alleviate that by adding an SSD cache (using 1 or 2 drive bays) or some models support m.2 nvme high-speed storage for cache.
If you can upgrade the RAM in your Nas, do so. I got a big performance boost from that.
The network can also be slow. Wired is always faster than wireless, especially considering latency. With wired, 10 Gbe (which might require upgrading both the Nas and the client) is fast enough to shift the bottleneck elsewhere in my experience.
Hope that helps!
I was wondering if you can use ssd hard drives and is there a benefit to using the other drives