| Sign in: |
| Members log in here with your user name and password to access the your admin page and other special features. |
|
|
|
|
|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
My new NAS file server setup
Cliff DesPeaux, Photographer
 |
Seattle | WA | USA | Posted: 9:48 PM on 06.01.11 |
->> After endless days/months/years spent trying to find the best solution to archive my images, I finally set up something I like and thought I'd share it.
I decided to go with the Netgear ReadyNAS NV+, which is a 4-bay device that runs on your wired local network: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000VA3TXY
They come diskless, so I bought 4 of these Seagate drives to go with it: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004CCS266
Here's a pic of it during setup: http://www.flickr.com/photos/despeaux/5788696356/in/photostream/
With current prices, it's $613.39 + tax, which gives you 6 TB of space (if you use it in RAID 5 mode). Even on a full-speed gigabit ethernet connection, files still take a while to copy to it, but you shouldn't be using a network-attached storage device for production anyway.
Basically, it has allowed me to consolidate approximately 10 separate external hard drives into one fairly inexpensive unit, and in the first full month that I've had it, it's worked great. An added bonus: since it's already plugged into your network, it's easy to access everything on it from anywhere in the world as long as you have an Internet connection.
Netgear also sells a 6-bay, faster version of the ReadyNAS: http://www.amazon.com/ReadyNAS-diskless-Attached-generation-RNDU6000/dp/B00.../
One more benefit to this NAS: as hard drives get bigger and cheaper, you can swap them out (one at a time, letting the RAID rebuild itself between replacement drives). In a couple years when 4 TB drives drop below $100, I'll be able to double my storage for just $400. |
|
Jason Burfield, Photographer
 |
New York | NY | USA | Posted: 10:05 PM on 06.01.11 |
->> One other nice thing about the ReadyNAS devices (I also have one at home) is that you can have it rsync to an offsite server.
This is a very easy and inexpensive way to keep an offsite copy of everything on your device.
Set it up to rsync twice daily or maybe just once per day and you have pretty decent redundancy for your files.
The first sync will be a bit brutal and lengthy, but after that it will be much better.
On a side note: if folks are looking at NAS devices, do some research. I originally used a Buffalo Technology system. It was fine for a year or two but then decided to massively corrupt both disks. Due to the way Buffalo sets up their systems it was almost a complete loss.
It took me days of work to get my data from the disks. It was not a pleasant experience.
Buffalo stores the OS for the system on the same drives you use for storage, so if there is corruption on a drive the OS is generally hosed as well.
Netgear stores the OS on flash media, NOT on the actual data drives. If something happens to one or the other, it does not wreak havoc on both.
-- Jason |
|
Cliff DesPeaux, Photographer
|
Seattle | WA | USA | Posted: 10:27 PM on 06.01.11 |
->> Thanks for the more in-depth info Jason... that's good to know about how the Netgear stores OS on flash.
I wish I could rsync it offsite, but I guarantee you Comcast would get mad at me. |
|
Kirby Yau, Photographer, Assistant
|
San Diego | CA | USA | Posted: 11:01 PM on 06.01.11 |
->> Thanks for sharing Cliff, it's a great write up.
Mac users this may not be the best solution. OS X will connect to the NAS via Samba or SMB. This will severely limit how you name your files. |
|
Jason Burfield, Photographer
|
New York | NY | USA | Posted: 11:43 PM on 06.01.11 |
->> Kirby, it also does AFP as well as NFS and a number of other protocols as well.
One other interesting bit about the ReadyNAS is that you can actually use it as a volume for Time Machine backups from a mac. That is a nice feature.
-- Jason |
|
Cliff DesPeaux, Photographer
|
Seattle | WA | USA | Posted: 12:13 AM on 06.02.11 |
->> Yeah, I use AFP to connect via ethernet for my iMac, and over the Airport network for my MacBook.
BTW, you should check out this great app CDFinder: http://www.cdfinder.de/ -- I ingest everything with Photo Mechanic, then when done with production I put it onto the NAS, which I have cataloged with CDFinder. Because the app keeps its own database (which you need to manually update -- I do it once a week or so), it will search through a library of hundreds of thousands of photos in seconds. |
|
Kevin M. Cox, Photographer, Assistant
 |
Galveston & Houston | TX | US | Posted: 2:32 AM on 06.02.11 |
->> I'm also using two ReadyNAS (an original 600 and an NV+) here at the house for photo storage and have been generally happy with them.
One thing to consider is that support of the older Sparc powered units like the NV+ is getting a little slow. Snow Leopard support took a while and who knows if they'll add in the needed support for OS X 10.7 Lion due out this summer.
The newer Intel powered units on the other hand are much faster and get firmware updates issued much more frequently. |
|
Return to --> Message Board Main Index
|