+- ASK NC (https://ask.nascompares.com)
+-- Forum: Q&A (https://ask.nascompares.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=1)
+--- Forum: Before you buy Q&A (https://ask.nascompares.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=2)
+--- Thread: upgrading 2008 Photo editing desktop to laptop, need external storage for large files (/showthread.php?tid=7888)
upgrading 2008 Photo editing desktop to laptop, need external storage for large files - Enquiries - 11-14-2022
Hey guys, Thanks so much for all your informative content. I'm a noob to NAS and have been learning from your videos, especially this past week.
I'm looking at upgrading my circa 2008 home built Q9450, ASUS p5k-e wifi, Win 7 64 desktop PC, with a pretty tight budget at the moment. I'm looking at a Gigabyte AERO 17 XE5 laptop with the black friday sales which I will probably pickup on Wed this week. On my current system I have OS & programs on a 120GB ssd and then my primary photo storage is ~4TB worth on a pair of 3TB drives in Raid 0 (so 6TB), with a daily manual backup (via Synctoy) to an internal 10TB WD Gold drive (first installed ~4-5 yrs ago). My secondary backup is external to another 10TB WD Gold attached via a usb 3 docking station. I've dabbled with Ubuntu for personal use over the last decade so was intrigued by your recent video about other uses for a nas with your talk of virtual machines and ubuntu in Qnap systems.
Since this past Spring I was determined to switch to a MAC system given how powerful and efficient the new MacBook pros are, and with a desire to be working more remotely in the near future. So even though I'm probably going to be buying a Windows 10 laptop this week (outrageous current sale prices, but also recently learned my accounting software of SAGE 50 is Windows only). So anyway, a big part of this is that I'm interested in having a storage system that is compatible with Mac & Windows primarily and Ubuntu maybe as well.
I don't currently need distance or remote access, but by Spring 2023 I intend to be visiting my parents 3000km East in Ontario where I will start a project to duplicate my family's 35mm slide collection and would want remote storage and backups for this. My regular photography work the last 10 years is to produce large prints selling from my own retail gallery (which I actually let go a year ago, & am now working from home and online). I've been photographing stitched panorama images from a 45MP Nikon D850 for the last 5 years as a new project, often incorporating 30 images at a time. Many of these are not yet processed and stitched though due to the age and slow speed of my old desktop. With a new system I expect my current ~4tb worth of data will double fairly quickly. The intent is to produce 4'x8' and larger fine art mural prints. So basically I'll be working with some quite large files in photoshop, especially once adjustment layers are added.
So for the time being I'm perhaps only looking for an external storage solution with decent transfer speeds using the Thunderbolt 4 ports on the laptop. The big conundrum currently is that I'm in a basement suite with only wifi internet access at the moment. I may move in the Spring or maybe within a year and would hope to have direct router access in a new living situation. One caveat to this is that there are a bunch of ethernet and coaxial wiring right outside my door in the furnace room with all loose wiring ends on the blue ethernet cables, one coaxial of which is labelled "office", which would be my landlords office two floors above. We're in a newly built house and I suspect the router was originally in the furnace room with about a dozen ethernet wires and a same number of coaxial routed throughout the house. The router now resides in the office two floors above. I hope to talk with the landlord about the possibility of accessing these ethernet cables in the next day or so, and would hope direct ethernet router access might be possible.
So from watching your videos, and due to my current budget with a coming laptop purchase (~$1500CAD max after the laptop), I was initially looking at the TR-004 to have a 24TB worth of data Raid 5 (4 x 8TB drives) set up as a temporary DAS solution, backing up to my current 10TB drives in the docking station for the time being. In Spring I could upgrade to a NAS with 24TB worth of data as a primary data storage and then use the tr-004 connected to it as a DAS primary backup. Then maybe get another small 2 or4 bay NAS as the secondary remote backup to be kept at a local friends house connected to her router. Then when I'm at my parents digitizing slides, I could be storing them as well as backing everything up remotely between Ontario and BC.
If I'm interpreting all this new NAS knkowledge I've been taking in the last week is correct, the above described layout should be viable I think, assuming I get myself some direct ethernet router access. But maybe I'm misunderstanding some fundamental things about NAS. I'm very much a noob.
My main reservations are with the age of the TR-004 and it's slow transfer speeds and SATA II internal connections. I saw it was to be upgraded with the tr-104c around 2020 but those planned units were cancelled. With it being limited to max 200 Mbps transfer speeds, I'm wondering if it would make sense to just get myself another 10TB HDD in an enclosure for the next few months accepting the slow speeds (I could use a temp working file on internal SSD for editing, then save to external), and then upgrade in the spring to something like the newly released TVS-h674 or 874 (maybe these are overkill for my use case though??) when I have a bigger budget.
I would prefer to start spending on hardware with current technology (ieTVS-h674) and decent upgrade possibilities, given how long I've kept my current hardware going for. Hence the reservations with the TR-004. This is an extreme case though as I likely wouldn't be waiting another ridiculously long 14 years to upgrade my main system. It's silly that I have, but it's just what's currently happened. I have been looking around to upgrade for years now, but the finances and timing just didn't work out. I'd expect to keep this new Windows laptop for maybe 5 years, but would like to compliment it with a 14" Macbook pro next Spring or Summer if upgraded models come out. A few years ago I started using a motorcycle for photography trips and could see myself driving cross country by bike to do the film digitizing in Ontario and the 14" MacBook looks nice for that situation especially.
Thanks so much for your time. I hope this all makes sense, but please let me know if you need any clarification.
Thanks,
Brian
RE: upgrading 2008 Photo editing desktop to laptop, need external storage for large files - ed - 11-18-2022
Yes, I agree, that getting additional WD Gold or another type of drive would be a sensible thing to do. You can later use these drives inside your NAS. Either use a docking station or a simple adapter like this https://amzn.to/3hRc3RR
Qnap 74 series is indeed the latest release. It supports 10Gbit speeds. But if you do need more performance you can consider their 72XT or even 88 series NAS that works with Thunderbolt.
These models also support GPU card upgrades if you ever need this.
TR-004 is slow and not very safe.
Multiple NAS systems will back things up in the background without human interference.
I hope this helps.