New lenses and cameras are always fun to purchase, but equally important is finding a way to store those photos you’re making with those cameras and lenses. Here’s why you should consider network attached storage before you spend that money on another lens.
I get it — cameras are sexy and hard drives are not, but network attached storage is much more than just a simple hard drive to store your photos on. I started using a NAS unit that uses Synology’s DSM (Disk Station Manager) a couple of years ago and it was life-changing. Instead of shuffling around external hard disks and waiting forever to make backups of backups, I had a much more reliable option that gave me a lot more flexibility to store and retrieve my photos.
Reason 1: Flexibility
With standard external hard drives, I’m limited to what I can physically plug into my computer at all times. The beauty of a network attached storage unit, such as Synology’s DS718+ or DS1618+ is the network part. Instead of plugging directly into a computer, which would need to be powered on to access files, I’m plugged into my router with a Cat 6 cable. I can then access the NAS unit directly on my home network by plugging into the same router or connecting to my wireless network. I can even access my files remotely though the DSM interface. I can’t count the number of times I’ve needed to grab an old file on the road and a NAS unit with Synology’s DSM lets me do that with ease. I’m also able to use any computer or laptop in the house without having to physically plug in or unplug drives.
When I’m transferring a massive amount of files, I can plug things directly into the NAS, set up the transfer through the DSM web interface, and walk away without worrying about my computer losing power or going to sleep and interrupting the transfer. It requires much less thought and effort.
Reason 2: Expandability
Before switching to a 2-bay NAS Unit, I would buy increasingly larger hard drives until I was hitting the limit of what’s possible in a standard external drive (which was about 10 TB when I switched over). That’s a lot of data to carry around on one platter, but more than this, it took forever to back up that drive, even with a fast USB 3.1 connection. I also finally hit a point where I hit the limit and couldn’t even fit everything on one drive anymore.
The DS718+ out of the box supports 2 hard drives (but with the DX517 expansion unit, it can go to 7) and the DS1618+ supports 6 out of the box. Depending on your needs, you can configure for maximum storage (in my case, I have 2 12TB Seagate Iron Wolf drives set up to give me 24TB) or for redundancy in case one drive fails. While this redundancy shouldn’t necessarily be considered a backup, Synology’s DSM makes it easy to seamlessly sync to another NAS Unit offsite or the cloud using Hyper Backup to offer a true backup solution.
All in all, it’s much easier than having multiple hard drives and having to separate which files are on what, and then backing that all up to another set of hard drives.
Trading in a pile of hard drives and flash drives for a NAS unit made life a lot more organized.
Reason 3: Hard Drives Will Fail
When you put all your eggs in one basket, you are destined to lose or break that basket. Using a NAS gives important peace of mind for photographers always worried about calamity striking their photos. A common saying among IT professionals is that there are two types of people: Those who have had a hard drive failure and those who will have a hard drive failure.
Even if a NAS is the main unit or secondary unit in a backup system that includes hard drives, it’s a valuable upgrade.
Giveaway
If you’re looking to get your hands on a unit yourself, Fstoppers is giving away a Synology DS718+ with two 14TB Seagate drives. Just leave a comment about something you wouldn't want to lose in a hard drive crash, and you will automatically be entered in the draw.
This giveaway is open those with a US address. Winners will be selected in one week.
Client pictures are extremely important and those relationships are valuable but I'd hate to lose family pictures of loved ones who've passed.
Client pictures are extremely important and those relationships are valuable but I'd hate to lose family pictures such as my child's first steps or of loved ones who've passed.
Already have a multi level backup plan but nas would be an upgrade
Storing images safely is a must. Backups are essential. Clients pay a renewable fee for safe storage of their archives.
I don’t want to lose photos and videos of my mom who passed away.
I have gone through the pain of losing images before and it really stinks. I lost everything many years ago and that helped me develop my current backup plan. However, after many years of creating images and videos, my backup process has become far more labor and hardware intensive. I would love to introduce one of these NAS units to help simplify my backup process.
I would not want to lose my family photos/memories as well as my trip/ art photos from an ever-increasing lightroom database.
I wouldn't want to loose my photos of my son or daughters weddings.
I really would hate to lose photos. A NAS would be so much better than the 6 external hard drives I have now.
I'd hate to lose photos of my first date with my wife, my little boy being born, and my family who live on the other side of the planet.
I wouldn't want to lose my family and client photos - I lost a few thousand photos once and spent days trying to recover them. Now, I make sure my photos are always in 3 places at once.
Although I am fairly diligent in backing up photos from various trips, I am much more lax about the candid snaps of friends and family. On reflection, those are probably the photos that I would miss the most if something were to go wrong!
all my pictures from Vietnam vacation
Quality hardware for the professionals who keep their customers
I wouldn't want to lose any photo/video, but if I have to pick one thing it'd be my family photos.
About 8 TB of data honestly XD
Client photos, even from years past, would be detrimental to loose
Family photos from many years ago
I don't want to lose my family photos from 2008 tilt today
Photos, videos, applications, etc. All bad to loose.
And everyone should follow the 3-2-1 backup policy. 3 backups, 2 local on different media, and 1 offsite.
photos and videos taken from the last 10 years
Aside from over 24K personal photos and videos, our family business (cinematography and photography) relies on reliable ways to backup all of our digital media. We can never have enough storage and would love to add another Synology device!
I wouldn't want to lose the photos I've taken or the future shots I'll get either. Thanks, for the opportunity to win!
I save all of my work from since I started up until now. And being one who works with composites. I always want the best quality images to work with, thus ending up with multiple huge files that I really wouldn't want to delete after I had put much effort in them. A reliable storage will be really important as it will also help me keep track of my progress and at the same time, have the option to go back to a previous project if needed.
Losing any kind of data is bad. Especially when you suddenly need that particular photo in your hard drive the next day after it crashed.
I really wouldn't want to lose the photos of my kids when they were born.
Where do I begin, personal as well as customer photos and videos.
I've had a hard drive crash on me in the past and I lost all of the data with no recovery options. Spend a lot of money on backup devices now and it's time to upgrade to an NAS system
Decades of photos and my music library would do nicely on a NAS with media server.
don't wanna lose a single photo or video
As a photographer and video producer for a number of clients, my shoots and deliverables are scattered among literally hundreds of naked hard drives that are filling three cabinet drawers. I have to load each one into a dock to access files. Having all photos in one virtual accessible place would make my life so much easier not to mention being able to finally manage them as one collection. If anything, I need a NAS right now.
My archive of every image I've taken from 2010 till now!
Can’t trust a “free” clouds service that give you free space and then when your max out they charge you leg and arms.
My family photos and videos, without a doubt.
I have 20 Years of Video and Photo with Family and Kids, which are very precious . Cannot afford to have HD failure.
I wouldn't want to lose years of photos of my daughter. Neither of hundreds of photo shoots!
Speaking from personal experience and losing a catalog containing 4 years of editing, I really would hate to have that happen again. I'm thankful I did have the images backed up however losing the post-work definitely brought tears to my eyes. I also would hate to lose my personal images as well.
I would love to have a NAS system but have not had the money to invest in one as yet.
Losing photos or videos is a tragedy but most importantly losing a client who will tell other potential clients that you failed is devastating. I would never want that to happen to me.
It would be inconceivable what would happen if I lost client images. I think my head would explode if I lost my composite images!!
I wouldn’t like to lose family photos!
I wouldn't want to lose my first digital photos I ever took in high school in 2001. If only I knew then what I know now about backups and retention.
My wife would definitely end me if I lost our honeymoon photos :P. All the stuff I sell is backed up through my website though haha
this is exactly what i was going to go for as the next step for storage. i need to back up my photos. Dont want to loose client, kids, and family.
All those photos...
I would not want to lose my family photos or any work for my clients.
I film videos for companys and such part time next to my studys and work. And would love to ditch all my drives that are also small, old and small :)
I wouldn't want to lose the photos of my kids. We've gone entirely digital and losing so many memories would be heartbreaking!!
No fair US addresses only. Like all photographers, I don't want to lose any of my photos and videos.
It would really take a load off my mind if I could have something that I would not have to worry about. I've lost a lot of files in the past from hardware failure. I can't get them back, but not to lose anymore would be priceless. Thanks Fstoppers for the opportunity to win such a great prize!
I would hate to lose any of the photos of my family. Everything else is just fluff, but I would hate to lose the fluff too.