Win A Synology DS418 NAS Device

Win A Synology DS418 NAS Device

Are you still buying external hard drives? It's time you consolidated all of your data on a NAS device and today, you can win a Synology DS418 NAS.  

What is a NAS?

Think of "network attached storage" as the ultimate external hard drive. Your data shouldn't be spread out across unnamed internal and external hard drives. Instead, all of your pictures and important files should be housed on a single device. You can then install multiple hard drives into your NAS depending on the amount of storage you need. These hard drives are redundant using RAID to protect your files from a hardware failure locally and, using Synology's software, you can automatically back everything up offsite as well. Lastly, having your data all in one place allows multiple computers to access the same files locally, in your home or office, or remotely via the web. You'll never have to worry about losing a photograph again. 

What can I win?

The Synology DS418 is perfect for individual photographers. It has four hard drive bays which can be filled with 12TB drives. It has a quad-core 1.4GHz processor, 2GB of memory, and dual Ethernet ports on the back that are capable of sending data at over 226 MB/s. Many photographers may choose to use this strictly as an external hard drive, but here at Fstoppers we actually use ours to work from, meaning that we never house any data on our computer's internal drives. Some users may enjoy taking these a step further by using the NAS as a surveillance station, or a 4k multimedia server. 

How do I enter? 

Entering this contest couldn't be easier. Simply comment below or on this Facebook post, and let us know why you could use a NAS device like the DS418. On Friday, November 24th we will choose one random commenter as the winner. 

AND THE WINNER IS...

Congratulations Lucas Fendley! Your comment was randomly chosen as the winner of the DS418. 

Would love to win! I'm a broke artist that is in need of an upgraded storage system. Then I can duplicate last two years of external hard drives into one system to work off of and keep the external HD's as a secondary backup. :)

Synology will be mailing you the unit soon. We hope it will change your workflow for the better. 

Lee Morris's picture

Lee Morris is a professional photographer based in Charleston SC, and is the co-owner of Fstoppers.com

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400 Comments

Can I enter? haha

I've been juggling a JBOD system for years and keep thinking "This'll be the year I get a Drobo," Then I read another horrror story about Drobo. Maybe this will be the year I win a Synology and finally pony up the cash to recover the files on my failed drive... :D

Would love this as a backup system.

Damn would this be helpful. I could finally move on from my ever rotating assortment of USB drives. Plus Friday, November 24th is my birthday!

I'm still in the Dark Ages as far as backup is concerned.

I'm in desperate need of a backup solution. This looks perfect!

We have lots of TB's that we could store on this for our wedding photography business!

It would be great to get alll the individual external hdd off my desk and replace them with this!

please sir, I want some more?

Entering....

I would love it!

I could use a device like this. It would help to organize all my media in a central location just like a file server.

Nothing scares me more than coming home and finding out i lost everything. These pictures are my babies. You can bet I'd max out the space to store them in. Id go the online storage space way, but i live in the middle of nowhere. My internet wishes it was dialup. Remember that? I do.

Having lost over 4tb of archive footage at the beginning of the year, how cool would it be to end the year with the perfect preventative measure to any recurrence

I've been a professional photographer for over 25 years and been shooting digitally for the past 18 years. I'm the team photographer for an NFL team so with the nature of shoots I tend to have lots of images to store. I presently have over 50 external hard drives, so I think its about time I started using a synology DS418for my digital storage needs.

I would like to use it since instead of going to university I decided to start a videography/photography production business. At the moment it's building up at a much bigger rate than I anticipated but the extent of my storage is what I can fit on to 3TB worth of hard drives and google drives attached to 5 different emails :p

Who can't use another stylish black box!! I'll take it. Thx.

recently i did suffer from a power problem what short-circuited my system my trusty pc and all its components fried ...
so i did buy a new pc a cool I7 -7700 with a good gfx card dual screen ... lots of options a few tb drivespace
but i did not manage to get my pictures back 6TB of pictures / roughly 10 years of photos and memory`s (as mine as others) unrecoverable
so if i could win a nas it could be handy to store my important pictures/movies on that NAS

oh! hello there. definitely for backup my newly backed raw files.

I would love to get this system so I could get rid of my hodgepodge of external hard drives!

Having lost thousands of photos due to broken and faulty external drives I would definitely benefit from the DS418. Would save me lots of headaches!

I'm super responsible about backups at the studio, but what I'd really like this for, is to be more responsible with my personal collection at home. Highly recommend Synology NAS, just haven't been able to fund one for home just yet. =)

I manage a very large library every year and have been meaning to get something like this for a while it would simplify my workflow as I still have everything in separate hard drives and have to access the files from 3 different computers! hope I get it! thanks!

Nothing gives you peace of mind like a NAS!

This would be perfect for my storage needs.

This would be an awesome replacement for my 8yr old Drobo. Thanks for the contest!

Already own one synology 1515+ but soon it will be full, so new one would be nice!

I badly need a good and dependable backup solution, I’m always running out of space, This is exactly what I need.

Would use this as a backup for all my photos and dank meme's ;)

In my opinion, I think every creative professional needs to have one. The mediums we use to capture and create art will continue to grow. Speed and redundancy are two vital areas everyone needs to consider. Recently, I've been looking at doing a custom PC build similar to what Travis Harris wrote about in regards to workflow. The back up and archiving of files can be a lifesaver while not having to store everything on the main PC drives.

DS418 a perfect way to update my backup system

Honestly, I'd just love to have it as a centralized media streaming system for my house. Plex FTW!

an excellent tool for backing up data quickly and securely in another room in the office in the event of a break-in or incident.
if i don't win it, it's next investment to replacing a local storage macmini server ;-)

Would love to win! I'm a broke artist that is in need of an upgraded storage system. Then I can duplicate last two years of external hard drives into one system to work off of and keep the external HD's as a secondary backup. :)

I'm tired of hauling around multiple external drives. This would help greatly.

to streamline my backup process

That would be so nice to have instead of having all my pictures stored on multiple drives on multiple computers. Would definitely make life easier and less worrisome.

I would use it at my studio and finally ditch the external usb drives of which I have far too many.

Nice device. I would be great to replace my multiple hard drive "solution."

So tired of have a zillion hard drives lying around - would love to win this!!

Have been looking for a storage solution after having a portable hard drive crash. Would love to have a redundant storage setup.

Having to NOT delete photos would be amazing, also having a dependable backup of all my hard work would be amazing. Currently buying single hard drives and praying one doesn't go bad.

While initially it met my needs, my 8 TB Terastation has run out of gas (disk space) and it is too slow for the large backup jobs I now have. It's served me well for many years, but I suspect it is well beyond mean time to failure and should no longer be relied upon as a critical backup device. Synology has a good reputation for use by photographers and would meet my needs very well.

Thanks for providing this contest and for those of us who celebrate it, have a great Thanksgiving wherever you are.

My IMac is about full up, need to get these pics off the local and on a networked storage that can back up to the cloud.

I didn't even know such a thing exists. This would be so helpful. Since i work in India and middle east and on multiple computers, i can essentially work off of a storage housed at my home base without worrying about losing my work or finding it on various machines because i dont know where a particular file is stored.

There are instances where are i had to rework on files as i didnt have access to those systems at that particular time.

I'm looking for a system to host my photos and my digitized vinyl collection.

I have used an older nas for several years and can appreciate the security, as I have had two hd failures where I would have lost everything had I not been set up inraid. I could use this as my old device is gettimg ling in the teeth, and has limited support. I could really use a new device for my drives.

My 5 bay box is nearly full.

Replacing my suit of external harddrives and backups would be a dream :))

I have a Drobo FS and as a NAS it actually makes my workflow slower! Stuck on external hard drives for now. If I win, I'll post a side by side demo of the performance differences...

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