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.
Christmas present for a dear friend.
What an awesome giveaway! Who doesn't need more photo storage?!
I need a new NAS to replace the DLINK NAS that I have been using at home for about ten years. I lost the password, so I cannot adjust the settings or upgrade to larger drive sizes, which are sorely needed. Additionally, it has begun changing IP addresses all by itself (admittedly, this may be the fault of the even older router) which makes my wife call tech support (me) and demand that I fix it. I'd love to fix it with a static IP address, but (again) I lost the password years ago.
Would be great to have it!!!!!
3 months ago I decided to sell my Canon gear ( 14.000€ ) to make the switch to Sony. Some dude came by and "payed" for the gear with a well known bank application. What I didn't knew was that he developed a 1on1 replica of this application that didn't do anything in the background. It only looked as he payed me... And for some reason it isn't covered by insurance companies in Belgium.
Now one of the items I wanted to invest in besides my sony gear - since my old NAS is from 2007 - was a new NAS.
So it would be great to have this new bad boy on my desk.
I have three external hard drives all being used for different things. This would make my life so much easier!
I've been eyeing this Synology unit to replace my JBOD unit for a LONG time! I hope I get it!
I could certainly make use of this awesome storage as I currently have a jumble of various smaller external drives plugged into my computer and having a single device would make locating and working on my photos and videos (and archiving them) much easier and more organized!
I've had two drives crash on me
Can always use some more backup!
Well, this thing would possibly make sure I would not loose one year of photography like I did in 2013...
My wife and I just started a photo & video business, but haven't been able to afford an efficient storage solution. We are currently backing everything up on a couple of hard drives. This would greatly increase our efficiency, the safety of what we capture, and help us invest in other necessary gear, propelling our business forward.
I just migrated from a Mac to a PC and had to deal with transferring my photos from one external hard drive to another because the first wasn't formatted correctly for the new comp, and then moving other files directly from the Mac to the drive, then stopping to free up space on the external drive... it would be nice to never have to deal with that again.
I need a new nas BADLY! Old one broke and I list 3tb worth of data!
If I win I will start believing again in Santa Claus.
Would be fantastic to replace my pile of external HDDs...
I'm very close starting my own business, which has taken over a year of scrimping and saving so far. I recently upgraded my camera body and studio lights. I still need a few bits, most notably a small home server to replace my random hard drives. This would work so perfectly!
This would be awesome for my photo and video backups. Winning it would be particularly great, since the winner is going to be picked on my birthday!
I'm actually thinking about getting into this raid system. Now I just have external hard drives and randomly copied my stuff cross them. It's a mess, so planning to get organized it at some point, when I'm ready to invest my piece of mind.
I would love to win this because I’m a pretty nice guy.
I need to have a stable, reliable and simple backup setup and this seems like it would be perfect for me!
If you don't post outside the US or Canada then I'm just here for the free food.
This is a must-have for anyone, especially a photographer! it does more than just "store". It can handle other services like DNS, DHCP, WebHosting, Automated backups, Media Server and more! Heck, it can even be a router!
ENTERING !!!!
It would be cool to win since I am currently juggling multiple USB drives and 50 GB Blu Ray discs.
Backup
I would make a new huge catalog and finally tidy up all the mess.
I've had the experience building my own NAS, from old parts, it feels like Frankenstein :-) I use it for Media Storage, automatic downloading of shows, stream content to devices. Would love to win this as an upgrade to existing NAS
Entry criteria met
Yes please! Pick me! Pick me! I've been looking at building a new PC for editing and having a sweet Synology NAS would just make the whole thing complete.
I think this would be the perfect "go between" with my Surface Pro and my Desktop without having to send myself files to switch workstations
This is on my wish list but just can't afford it just yet
I'm always running out of disk space would be great to have a networked solution!
I'd like to have one so I can move to all of my single USB drives to secondary storage duty.
I gotta start showing some respect towards my images and start backing up properly. Fingers crossed
Pretty sweet giveaway! Mike Kelly would say that I'm the Bently or Rolls Royce of comments to choose from... or that im just wonky. WITH ALL OF THAT SAID - PICK MEEEE
I've got 6 hard drives in my computer, I just run out of room. and I've got just 1TB free, which will last about 4 months... PLEASE HELP
Hope this finds you well. This would greatly simplify the stacks of external drives cluttering up my workspace. Thanks!
I've been wanting one of these for a while to consolidate various USB drives and an old WD My Book Live which is at 99% capacity.
I'd like one so I can finally get rid of a 7 or 8 of the external hard drives I have haha.
It would be great to finally get rid of my stack of externals!
Would drive my own cloud... :)
The old Proliant Microserver is on it's last legs, this would be an awesome replacement!
My business is outgrowing my current RAID setup (a basic two-disc) so this would allow me to expand without tapping into my incredibly tight budget.
A back up for my back up. Nothing beats redundancy.
I have a good centralised repository but this would complete my 3-2-1 backup system veeery nicely.
I'm looking for a backup solution for some time now, this looks just perfect..
Synology is a one of the most reputable NAS solutions. I use 213+ model.
Ideally, I would like to back-up my 5000 plus RAW files to the cloud but that would take forever and a day. This would be ideal!
I love synology, my old DS108 need a proud replacement, please :-)