ASK NC

I've been following your YT channel for a few years and always enjoy the insightful and useful reviews and information you provide. So I thought you'd be the perfect person to answer my question.

I have a huge archive of RAW photos, around 40-50TB, it grows year-on-year. I store them on a Synology 8-Bay NAS but I think this might be overkill as I only access images shot in the last year or so on any regular basis. My archive of images & videos pre-2022 remain untouched. It seems a waste of resources to run 8 drives 24/7 to have these files accessible when I might only need to access them once or twice a year.

I have considered getting a smaller, SSD based, NAS to host my more recently shot images from the last year or two and have the rest archived off-line. What would you suggest would be the best way to go with this? I was thinking a Synology extension unit for the old archive which can be switched on and off when needed. But what would you pair this up with?

For your long-term archive needs, considering your massive collection of RAW photos, a cost-effective solution would be to utilize a USB DAS box, which is more economical than an expansion unit. This setup would allow you to transfer data for cold storage, preserving older files that are accessed less frequently. You can explore various options listed on Synology's compatibility page, such as the DS923+ paired with SATA SSDs inside. Additionally, you might consider retaining your current 8-bay NAS for archival purposes and linking it with the new NAS, enabling it to appear as a mapped folder inside the DS923+. This setup provides flexibility and efficiency in managing your extensive image library while optimizing resource usage.