Storage for Photographer

[ESPI]

I am looking for some advice about getting a NAS.

My wife is a photographer and needs a place to store her photos. I would also like to maybe store some of my junk (Media and other goodies) to share later.

Seeing as she is not super tech savy I wanted a place for her to store her raw and then edited images for access later. I was looking into getting a NAS that was in RAID 1 config as a backup, but my understanding is that is more to reduce downtime and not to be used as backup. It would be connected to a linksys E4200.

Here are my must haves

-at least 2TB storage Specific for Photos
-back up either a second drive or external that does automatic back up.
-Decent Transfer rate
-FTP capable
-Reliable

Other thoughts

I would like something that I could have seperate storage for my stuff media and what not to share. The sharing is between my home network only.

Absolute max to spend $600

 

[thiggins]

You are correct that you should not count on RAID as backup. RAID is used to create large single storage volumes from multiple smaller hard drives.

I would look at two single-drive BYOD NASes like the QNAP TS112 I just reviewed. These can take up to 3TB drives and can be set to automatically back up one to another.

If you want to back up to an attached drive, make sure you get a NAS with eSATA or USB 3 ports. Otherwise backup speed will be limited by USB 2 speed. QNAPs have eSATA but not USB 3.

Whatever NAS you get, make sure you put it on a UPS.

 

[ESPI]

Thanks Tim,

I have been doing quite a bit of searching and have a few more questions.

Is it possible to set up a two drive or 4 drive system so that each disk is a seperate volume and one can be used to back the other up. This way if either crashes you can just swap it out.

I would prefer the back up to be internal as external drive seem to be slower and less reliable.

Also I have a question about specs. Is a dual core over kill for even things like streaming HD content.

I don't mind bumping up the budget if I can get everything I want and can upgrade later. I noticed some NAS's only support either 1 or 2 TB drives.

 

[thiggins]

You can do this, but it's not recommended to have your data and its backup on the same device. Although the method you describe is probably the safest one because RAID isn't involved, you still risk having all your data in one physical device.

Dual core CPUs are not needed for HD streaming. Those bit rates are relatively low, say 5 MB/s per stream max. Dual-core just buys you more file transfer speed.

 

[ESPI]

Is it still possible though to have two drives set a different volumes. Like a X-drive for business stuff and a Y-drive for personal then back them up seperatly on either two external eSATA or a second Cheaper NAS.

What is the preference between QNAP and Synology. From my research people like the web interface of the Synology better but the build quality of the QNAP better.

The Unit I had in mind for the Main NAS:

QNAP TS-219P+

The unit for a back up NAS

Synology DS211J

Or two eSATA externals as back ups

 

[thiggins]

Yes, it's possible to run backup the way you describe.

I personally don't care for Synology's "desktop" GUI. Both QNAP and Synology are a toss-up otherwise.