BUILD Basic build suggestions for photographer

[Markman]

Greetings,

After a couple years of thinking about it I've finally decided that I need a NAS to manage my photography as well as music files. It will be a pretty basic setup, especially at the beginning. I only need about 2TB of storage right now but that will increase each year as I process more images and add music. It will be primarily editing/backing-up images on my main desktop. I may want to connect my laptop from a different location in the house. I will also stream music to my Squeezebox but beyond that I don't plan on streaming a bunch of content to multiple devices. I have a budget of $500-$700 max and want to build something that will get me going and allow for expansion over the next few years.

I'm a definite noob when it comes to this but I have built a couple of desktops so I'm not afraid of the process. There are so many options out there so I was hoping to get a few suggestions on some components that might be a good start. Any help sincerely appreciated!

 

[gpsguy]

Here's a good read: So you want some hardware suggestions

How do you envision your photo workflow? Will all the images reside on your desktop and then backed up on the server? And, will the editing be done from the copy on your desktop or the server. Are you primarily editing RAW files or JPG's?

 

[Markman]

Here's a good read: So you want some hardware suggestions

How do you envision your photo workflow? Will all the images reside on your desktop and then backed up on the server? And, will the editing be done from the copy on your desktop or the server. Are you primarily editing RAW files or JPG's?

I currently have the Lightroom catalog and images (mostly RAW) on my internal HD, which is a 2TB (seperate from the HD with program files. My current workflow is upload/scan image files to internal HD, edit an Lightroom/Photoshop, export to various sites (Flickr, G+, 500px) and keep everything on the internal HD. I'm currently backing up to the cloud using CrashPlan plus an external USB drive. I'm not a huge volume shooter so I have enough room on that drive to probably cover me for a while. But I've started scanning my film negatives (medium format and 35mm) which end up as Tif and are 2-3x bigger than my digital RAW files. So, for the short term I'm using the internal but I could see moving to the NAS w/in the next 18-24 months.

I have about 150gb of FLAC music files on another USB drive that I stream to my audio system. I'd like to keep those files on the NAS for better control/streaming while initially backing up my image files to the NAS. As my internal HD fills up I envision only keeping the most recent image files on it and sending the rest to the NAS.

 

[ZFS Noob]

Welcome to the club. I'm using a netgear appliance for the same purpose that I've had lying around for a while, but stories about malware that encrypts all network files have me wishing for snapshotting ability...

FreeNAS will work pretty well. I'm going to move my workflow to importing to the network drive, then creating smart previews locally.

I will suggest that you also look at another option (heresy!). I just installed a Synology device for my dad and it's pretty full-functional on his network. The big perk: it backs up to Amazon Glacier with a free plugin, so it costs $0.01 per GB per month to have your data stored securely off-site. This is a big plus with extensive photo libraries, and there's no really easy way to do the same thing with FreeNAS that I've found so far. As far as I'm aware the Synology devices can start with a partially filled drive bay, and as you add more drives in the future you can simply expand the array. Simple and doesn't require wrapping your head around something complex and completely new like FreeNAS.

 

[Markman]

Welcome to the club. I'm using a netgear appliance for the same purpose that I've had lying around for a while, but stories about malware that encrypts all network files have me wishing for snapshotting ability...

FreeNAS will work pretty well. I'm going to move my workflow to importing to the network drive, then creating smart previews locally.

I will suggest that you also look at another option (heresy!). I just installed a Synology device for my dad and it's pretty full-functional on his network. The big perk: it backs up to Amazon Glacier with a free plugin, so it costs $0.01 per GB per month to have your data stored securely off-site. This is a big plus with extensive photo libraries, and there's no really easy way to do the same thing with FreeNAS that I've found so far. As far as I'm aware the Synology devices can start with a partially filled drive bay, and as you add more drives in the future you can simply expand the array. Simple and doesn't require wrapping your head around something complex and completely new like FreeNAS.

Thanks for the feedback! I have looked at the Synology devices and they seem to be a well-made product. My guess is that I could start out with a 2x2TB set-up and go from there. I will look at their 4-drive box and see what the options are for starting with 2 drives in the box.

In the meantime, I'm still interested in seeing what can be built with FreeNAS. I'll compare the cost/options and go from there.

 

[ZFS Noob]

Well, I just found this (http://fastglacier.com/) referenced on the FM forums, and it's currently backing up using my computer as the trigger, so there are workarounds.

FreeNAS will work well. Just make sure you understand what you're doing before you buy/act. :)