NAS Storage (mostly for RAW files and exported JPG's)

Hello,

I want to start a thread seeking input on NAS storage. My workflow is to import RAW files from my Nikon D7200 to my Windows 10 Pro PC... Directly to a local folder on M2 SSD storage (Samsung SSD Pro 512 GB). I do all my culling and editing here (LR6 classic), as well as exporting to JPG.

I then move all the keeper RAW+JPG files to my existing NAS device which is ancient, and filled to capacity (Seagate BlackArmor 220 1.5 TB connected to my network at 100Mbps)

I want to replace my NAS, and I'm curious what others use and like/hate about them. My NAS is for storage. I don't use it for really anything else. In addition to the RAW/JPG files, I have about 200 MPG's I store for very occasional streaming via Plex which runs on a dedicated Windows server. I also use it to store re-directed profiles/home directories of my Windows domain (think 3-user HOME network and not active small business). So again, my NAS is purely for storage.

I'm thinking of either a WD My Cloud EX2 or a My Cloud Mirror device. Looking to maximize my cost per GB while stilling having something that performs well in a Gigabit switched home network. I'm currently leaning towards the 20TB WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra Network Attached Storage device which is roughly $1060.

Suggestions/recommendations?

Thanks,

//Brew

I'm not a huge fan of the WD NAS devices.

If it were me, I'd build my own NAS and use FreeNAS, or get something by either synology or QNAP and then add my own drives to it. You'll get a better interface, more features and be happier with it in the long run.

If you want to see what a DIY nas would cost, I can put one together for you just to see, but i think you should be able to come in for less cost or about the same for a much more functional system.

Thanks for the response. I'm an IT guy so I know what freenas is but never bothered to build one. What kind of basic setup would you suggest? I really don't see exceeding 10tb for years to come so that's my Max usable for this build..and would even consider 6tb plenty if it comes down to cost.

PS. I've had my 1.5tb blackarmor system for about 4 years and although slow, it's reliable

//Brew

It'll be a bit overkill, but one cheaper route to go would be to get one of these:


and then grab 3 of something like this (you can get 4 if you need some extra redundancy):


and then either the cheapest SSD you can find or a decent flash drive to install freenas on.

Brings you to a total of about 460 all in. you could always grab larger HDDS if you wanted to, but this would give you your 6TB of space minimum.

Synology for me, but all that advice is good. Not that costly over and above the disk costs.

Budget for a means of backing it up of course. Synology has nice built in back up routines.

It's a piece of cake to set up a small linux VM on the freenas box and run the client for Crashplan for Business off of that, or you can run it off your desktop or something else that is always on. Just map the drive as a network drive and it works. That's what I do.

With the extra horsepower you'd get out of the dell system, you could also run a Plex server or something too very easily if you wanted to.