NAS Recommendations for Professional Photographers

[DocGreen]

I get frequent calls from area photographers asking about data recovery... one of them tonight, actually. One thing I'm noticing about these photographers is that they're all using external HDD's to store their work. A lot of them are using enclosures like the WD My Books with standard 3.5" drives, while others are using the little 2.5" portables.

The problem that I think a lot of them don't understand is that they're putting themselves and their business at significant risk by not having any redundancy. They're 1 drive failure away from spending thousands on data recovery, not to mention the potential for lost work. I would like to give them some recommendations for a proper NAS solution that would suit their needs, but I'm not entirely sure what to recommend. I like the Synology NAS', but I read in some of the reviews that they're extremely slow when backing up pictures because they want to create thumbnails for each image... that wouldn't work well for photographers at all, as they could easily be storing hundreds of very Hi-Res images over the course of a day.

Does anyone have any insight on this? Are there any Synology buffs that know about this issue and know of a fix, or maybe someone knows of a solution that would be better for photography? Keep in mind that any solution would have to be Mac-compatible, as the majority of them are Mac users.

Thanks for the input!

 

[SAG]

I can not speak for Synology products as I have not used them.
What I can say is from my experience only.

Whenever possible I push QNAP. I've been working with their products for many years and have only had 1 issue that I can recall. (That means only 1 issue that was bad enough to make me remember, though all worked out well in the end).

The last one I set up was a TS419 with 4x3TB disks in a RAID6. The device itself was about $500.

My wife's friend has a Ts219 with 2x2TB disks in a RAID1 backing up all of their family stuff and it has been solid.

Now, not to say I've never setup and/or used the little D-Link things, I have had in the past a hacked DNS323 as my BackupPC server for my home. Now, of course, I have a 16 disk OpenMediaVault setup as my datastore since my office is now in my home and it does all the Apple TimeMachine backups and hosts my VMs.

Truth-be-told (IMHO), anything with redundancy is better than nothing.

 

[DanF]

I personally use Buffalo. However, I can only talk about Buffalo as this is what I personally use, and is a basic RAID1 setup. I have never setup a NAS for any of my clients, since I target home users.

No problems in around 4 years of non stop running.

 

[uprighttech]

I like the Synology NAS', but I read in some of the reviews that they're extremely slow when backing up pictures because they want to create thumbnails for each image... that wouldn't work well for photographers at all, as they could easily be storing hundreds of very Hi-Res images over the course of a day.

This functionality is optional on the Synology products. It can be turned on and off.

 

[drpcfix]

We use synology religiously - they are amazing. I have had support ssh in to a dead box and rebuilt the array for us, and have about 8 in production on-site with clients for 2 years now.

I have a 4 bay in our office and my house!

I use the 4011j personally, the 412+ is the high speed one if you need the boost.

The 411j will go 35MB/s easy (megabytes, not megabit)

 

[uprighttech]

We just put in a 713+, which is awesome if your client has the budget. It supports link aggregation which is helpful if you're moving large amount of big files like pictures or video. Of course, you need a switch that supports link aggregation (LACP/802.3ad) as well.

 

[DocGreen]

This functionality is optional on the Synology products. It can be turned on and off.

Thanks for this! That definitely makes me feel better about the Synology boxes.

We just put in a 713+, which is awesome if your client has the budget. It supports link aggregation which is helpful if you're moving large amount of big files like pictures or video. Of course, you need a switch that supports link aggregation (LACP/802.3ad) as well.

With the link aggregation... wouldn't you need to be transferring from a host that also supports link aggregation to see the benefit of this? I honestly don't see most of these photographers having that capability... although I'd be happy to implement it for them! LOL

Truth-be-told (IMHO), anything with redundancy is better than nothing.

My thoughts exactly!


So my girlfriend had the opportunity to talk with a number of photographers at an event today. From what I understand, what most of them do is use the WD My Book 1TB drives, store on them until they're full, then put the full drives on a shelf and break out a new one. Their archives are essentially a shelf full of old 1TB My Books.

Now... if they were to switch to a proper NAS, how would they handle archives? With a RAID setup, they couldn't just pull out the full drives and store them... if they ever needed to access them they'd have to rebuild the RAID to get the data, right? So where do they go from there? Just keep increasing storage capacity until they're sitting on a NAS the size of a closet? Transfer yearly archives from the NAS to single drives for storage? I'm thinking a bit more research into their needs might be in order... how much data are they actually storing, and for how long?


On a related note, the head of the area photog group expressed an interest in having me give a presentation at one of their monthly meetings on the topic of data storage and backup. Hopefully by that time I've got all this ironed out and can present them with some definitive information and preferably some nice tidy pre-packaged options to sell them on.

 

[tankman1989]

We just put in a 713+, which is awesome if your client has the budget. It supports link aggregation which is helpful if you're moving large amount of big files like pictures or video. Of course, you need a switch that supports link aggregation (LACP/802.3ad) as well.

I just checked out the 713 and it looks pretty nice. I just have a tough time justifying the cost when any linux server does all of the above and more, for about 1/2 the price. The only major difference is that it isn't plug and play and size comes into the factor. A nice hot-swappable 5 bay module makes them expandable where the 713 is fixed to the 2 bays.

I'm not trying to say anything bad against the 713 as it definitely has it's place for those who want an out of the box plug and play - top of the line option. The one downside to this unit seems to be that it is only SATA II (can't verify that but it's max transfer speed is 203MB/sec which is just above SATA I speeds & wouldn't fully utilized the aggregated dual LAN connection) and can't utilize the USB 3 connections it has in any way - writing to or from the NAS or transferring it over the network.

 

[JustInspired]

By all means use a NAS (I too like Synology) for storage/backup but instead of a shelf full of My Books wouldn't Amazon Glacier be a better archival option?

 

[Disposable_Me]

By all means use a NAS (I too like Synology) for storage/backup but instead of a shelf full of My Books wouldn't Amazon Glacier be a better archival option?

Lol, glacier is long term storage. You'll have horrible speeds but you're guaranteed it'll exist somewhere no matter what. So backup = yes, storage = no.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Doc...the slowness with jpegs that you heard about was if you were using the Photo Station component of one of the Media Center features of the Synologies.

If your clients are using the Synology for backup...this is a non-issue..as they woudn't be using the Photo Station component.

They've had a new version out since then....dunno if that photo index performance was addressed in the new version or not.

I'd get a 4 bay model minimum for photographers....give you good options for growth in storage needs. Fill them with good HDDs like WD Reds or WD RE4 series...and down the road if they need more storage you can start replacing drives with larger ones, or some models have easy expansion.

 

[nlinecomputers]

All this talk about NAS and no one is addressing what happens if the NAS unit dies? Lightning, Fire, or a spilled cup of coffee and it's game over.

 

[Martyn]

All this talk about NAS and no one is addressing what happens if the NAS unit dies? Lightning, Fire, or a spilled cup of coffee and it's game over.

The Synology NAS I installed had raid 1 plus 2 external usb hard drives plus offsite backup to Amazon S3

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

All this talk about NAS and no one is addressing what happens if the NAS unit dies? Lightning, Fire, or a spilled cup of coffee and it's game over.

Because that's a different topic than the OP started this thread with.

But we can start another thread which covers some of the NAS backup options. The Synology has several features built right into it. Support for offsite to a RSynch server, or a really cool one..pickup another Synology unit and host it offsite (like home) and marry them...basically have a long distance RAID 1.

 

[nlinecomputers]

Because that's a different topic than the OP started this thread with.

But we can start another thread which covers some of the NAS backup options. The Synology has several features built right into it. Support for offsite to a RSynch server, or a really cool one..pickup another Synology unit and host it offsite (like home) and marry them...basically have a long distance RAID 1.

His topic mentioned data recovery. I just wanted to point out that moving from external hard drive to a NAS while a more robust solution is NOT providing a safe backup of the system. He seems to be stating that switching to a NAS unit is somehow protecting the data. It's not IMO.

 

[drpcfix]

Speaking of the NAS failing - we had one that we did an upgrade on incorrectly, and it wouldn't boot - with 4x 1TB drives in it, with all our shop data and customer backups on it.

We called up Synology support and they talked us through (for free) getting it to the point they could SSH into it, and they rebuilt the array for us and mounted it - with a failed drive in it. They would have just as easily done the same if the device failed and we had a replacement (warranty or otherwise).

Their support is taken pretty seriously from what we saw.

 

[Martyn]

Speaking of the NAS failing - we had one that we did an upgrade on incorrectly, and it wouldn't boot - with 4x 1TB drives in it, with all our shop data and customer backups on it.

We called up Synology support and they talked us through (for free) getting it to the point they could SSH into it, and they rebuilt the array for us and mounted it - with a failed drive in it. They would have just as easily done the same if the device failed and we had a replacement (warranty or otherwise).

Their support is taken pretty seriously from what we saw.

Good point their support was keen to remote into my client's Synology NAS to investigate an issue I was having but I managed to solve it myself.

 

[DocGreen]

His topic mentioned data recovery. I just wanted to point out that moving from external hard drive to a NAS while a more robust solution is NOT providing a safe backup of the system. He seems to be stating that switching to a NAS unit is somehow protecting the data. It's not IMO.

Just to clarify, the NAS isn't for backup... it's for primary storage of active files (or possibly ALL files active and archived). From what I've heard all of the photographers are using cloud backup. I'm told they mostly use BackBlaze. I don't know much about BackBlaze or what they offer, but I hear it's geared toward photographers.

When I compile all my data and make the presentation, I intend for it to be a two-pronged approach. NAS for on-site storage, Cloud backup for off-site. I thought for a brief moment about including a 3rd level of redundancy with take-away portable drives... but since most of the photographers work from home, it's a moot point.

The NAS side of the equation is, IMO, the more important side and the starting point. Once that side of the equation is figured out, the backup side can be explored because any backup solution would need to fully support the NAS.
The reason for getting them switched over to NAS instead of what they're using now is because photographers frequently find themselves needing data recovery... and oftentimes they're stuck sending their failed external drives out to some data recovery service to the tune of several thousand dollars. Now, I don't know about you guys, but I don't have a clean-room in my shop where I dismantle and repair failed drives, so if I want to snatch up my portion of that market, it makes sense to me to switch them over to a system where they can avoid that entire debacle, and I can make a nice bit of money in the process as well as build up a reputation with the photog community.

 

[JustInspired]

Lol, glacier is long term storage. You'll have horrible speeds but you're guaranteed it'll exist somewhere no matter what. So backup = yes, storage = no.

Yes I know what Glacier is.

The OP stated "From what I understand, what most of them do is use the WD My Book 1TB drives, store on them until they're full, then put the full drives on a shelf and break out a new one. Their archives are essentially a shelf full of old 1TB My Books."

I didn't realise archives and active storage were going to live in the same place or I would not have suggested it.

 

[DocGreen]

Yes I know what Glacier is.

The OP stated "From what I understand, what most of them do is use the WD My Book 1TB drives, store on them until they're full, then put the full drives on a shelf and break out a new one. Their archives are essentially a shelf full of old 1TB My Books."

I didn't realise archives and active storage were going to live in the same place or I would not have suggested it.

I honestly don't know if they would or should live in the same place. The way I see it there are two different ways to address the archives.

1. Continuously expand the NAS as space is consumed and just archive the old data in compressed folders on the NAS.

2. Periodically transfer data ready for archive from the NAS to another "archive" storage solution... whatever that may be. (Problem I see with this is, once you move the data from a RAID array to a single-drive you've lost all your redundancy and are then susceptible to hardware failures).