Curious as to what everyone out their uses for mass storage with RAID. I am starting to get alot more work with sports photography and finding that I need alot more storage for all my photos. I want something that I can start small and be able to expand and something that can provide RAID or hybrid RAID. I have been looking at the Synology DiskStation DS1511+. It is on the pricey side, but from all the reviews I have seen says this is the best NAS on the market for the SOHO users.

Anyone have any experience with this model or have any othe suggestions?

here is a link to amazon for the device in question:
http://www.amazon.com/Synology-DiskS...8863082&sr=1-5

any advice is greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

I'm using Buffalo TeraStations (2) and running RAID5 on them. I've been happy with the units. You can sometimes find them used for sale for a very reasonable cost.

Chris-
First question is - do you need network attached storage or would you be better off with directly attached storage (ie DROBO)? Also, are you using a Mac or PC? I've recently started to explore this area and its options. I'm in the market for a Mac and, with the new thunderbolt I/O, have put things on hold as this should allow for esata/ssd-speed attached storage options.
Also, what form of RAID are you looking for? Speed or failsafe for a failed drive? Don't forget that RAID will not replace a solid backup solution.
Hope that helps.
As for Synology, a friend has his DS107 at my house as off-site storage. Recently went through a ridiculous amount of trouble shooting with it and will likely stay away from Synology options for the foreseeable future.
E

I had a Drobo and it was quirky, to say the least.

I replaced it with this - http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-.../RAID/Desktop/ in RAID 5 - connected to my MacPRo OS X, via an eSata connector. Perfect!

I moved this to the Digital Darkroom Gear where you'll find similar discussions.

Carry on.

I've had a Drobo v2 for 2+ years now and no problems. It's connected to our Mac mini (our home media server) via FW800, and once in a while I connect it directly to my MBP to update my Aperture vault. If you're looking for easy-to-expand storage, in my opinion, the Drobo is a great option.

Originally Posted by aquaticvideographer If you're looking for easy-to-expand storage, in my opinion, the Drobo is a great option.

No doubt Drobo will offer a Thunderbolt interface shortly which will enhance performance for computers similarly equipped.

i've never used synology products, but they get good reviews and have tested as being very fast at smallnetbuilder.com

it bears repeating that raid is not a replacement for good backups. if you are going to create a multi terrabyte raid, give some thought to how (if?) you are going to back that data up. backing up 16TB to external drives and moving them offsite can get cumbersome.

How many photos do you have that you need that much storage! What you linked to is good if your storing a massive amount of files that you want accessible on a network. Note that the speed will be limited to the speed of your network. Using raid on a NAS is used to prevent loosing files when one of the disk dies, not really suited for speed of using lightroom.

Your going to save a ton of money, and get WAY better performance if you were to buy 4 (or more) 3TB drives to install INTO your computer (or to it with e-sata). Four of the new 3TB drives will cost around $800, will give you a crazy 12TB of storage and will be waaaaaaaay faster then a NAS. Four 2TB drives will only cost you half at $400, and will still give you a large 8TB.

What you linked to only makes sense if your serving files to many different computers on a network (thats what its made for)

I bought a Netgear readyNAS NV+ a year ago and absolutely LOVE IT. The NV+ was a little slow with 256mb memory but I have upgraded it to a gig since then and it is as fast as my network.
readyNAS has XRAID technology which is pretty cool. I started out with two 1 tb drives now I have four 1TB drive. This is ~2.75 TB total in XRAID. On drive goes down, I pull it out and put another in and it rebuilds to full redundancy.

Netgear has a lot of ReadyNAS drive array boxes of different flavors from home use to business. The NV+ is a home use model but with the memory upgrade it's compariable to the entry level business level.

ReadyNAS software is really easy to use, it is add-in based, most addins are free but some you have to pay for.

ReadyNAs add-ins here are a few for a complet list go here

ReadyNAS remote- Free- access your drive anywhere with internet connections. This works well for smaller jpegs but too slow for RAW in my area b/c my internet connections is slow. People with Optical fiber networks this will be a different story

ReadyNAS PHOTO - Free -Host your photos to share with friends and the internet. I personally do not use this b/c Smugmug does this.

ReadyDLNA - Allows you to stream movies to your TV's, and game consoles

HOST your WEBSITE - Free - you can allocate a portion of space for a web server. I don't use this for puvlic sites b/c the connection is slow due to my Cable connection speed, but I use for testing locally.

The problem with only storage at one place is that if your house/busines/World Trade Center experiences a catastrophy that destroys your NAS your SOL. Until now see below.

And now what we've all been waiting for

Ready Replicate- Check out the video in the link but what it does is you can have another ReadyNAS at a different location, and both NAS boxes will maintain redundancy. Someone breaks in your home or busines and swipes your NAS. No worries, get another ReadyNAS connect to the net and it rebuilds itself.

http://youtu.be/XuLLXom_h6c

Originally Posted by racer How many photos do you have that you need that much storage! What you linked to is good if your storing a massive amount of files that you want accessible on a network. Note that the speed will be limited to the speed of your network. Using raid on a NAS is used to prevent loosing files when one of the disk dies, not really suited for speed of using lightroom. Your going to save a ton of money, and get WAY better performance if you were to buy 4 (or more) 3TB drives to install INTO your computer (or to it with e-sata). Four of the new 3TB drives will cost around $800, will give you a crazy 12TB of storage and will be waaaaaaaay faster then a NAS. Four 2TB drives will only cost you half at $400, and will still give you a large 8TB. What you linked to only makes sense if your serving files to many different computers on a network (thats what its made for)

Now what?

You're right about connection speed being too slow for processing or what IT data dudes call "reducing data". Reducing data doesn't mean making things smaller it just means processing data where the data makes more sense or adds more value.

What a NAS does is give you long time storage and security, and besides connection speeds will only get faster in the future.

Plus it is a lot cheaper than buying it online! Monthly services fees eat up the $.

For what it's worth this is brief summary of my workflow. I mostly shoot RAW so files are big

From memory stick import with LR, in import I make a 2nd copy of the data to a 500GB USB drive I've velcro'd to the back of my laptop. This way when my internal drives fails I have the data.
I create a catalogue based on the shoot.
Process the data, export to JPEG for further print/CD's/products etc.
I then Archive the whole catalogue to my NAS.

Once the photos are on my NAS I reformat the memory stick.

I have my NAS setup to do a lot of different things besides archive photos. If enough people are interested I'll write about it.

Originally Posted by PupWeb Now what? You're right about connection speed being too slow for processing or what IT data dudes call "reducing data". Reducing data doesn't mean making things smaller it just means processing data where the data makes more sense or adds more value. What a NAS does is give you long time storage and security, and besides connection speeds will only get faster in the future. Plus it is a lot cheaper than buying it online! Monthly services fees eat up the $. For what it's worth this is brief summary of my workflow. I mostly shoot RAW so files are big From memory stick import with LR, in import I make a 2nd copy of the data to a 500GB USB drive I've velcro'd to the back of my laptop. This way when my internal drives fails I have the data. I create a catalogue based on the shoot. Process the data, export to JPEG for further print/CD's/products etc. I then Archive the whole catalogue to my NAS. Once the photos are on my NAS I reformat the memory stick. I have my NAS setup to do a lot of different things besides archive photos. If enough people are interested I'll write about it.

I dont think you made it clear to me what you are disagreeing with me about?
Anyway, network storage is great for many things, but the idea I got from the OP post was that he just needs more space to store photos, and wants something expandable. If thats all they are looking for, and are using a desktop, then simply installing more hard drives into there computer is the more sensible approach to take, instead of spending a grand on just nas box, not even including the hard drives. Not only that, but using three hard drives in raid 5 installed into the computer is obviously faster working with your images then using a NAS.

A lot of the time I get the idea that many photographers with unlimited money feel the need to get what they think is the biggest and baddest, and spend tons of money on these expensive NAS setups, not really understanding what they are getting. In some cases, a hundred dollar hard drive would have been way faster and have met there space requirements. It would be nice to own a expensive NAS, but it dosnt make sense unless you need to share or backup files on a network.

WOW! Awesome duscussion guys!

LOL, Racer, I dont have money to just throw away, so you can throw that one out. But I would like to make sure if I am going spend the money now, that I get something that is expandable. I dont want to buy something now just to have to throw it away in a year and buy something new.

Currently I bought 2 1TB hard drives (8 months ago), thinking that would last me a while, they are running in a mirror in my current desktop. I was thinking about buying 2 more 2TB drives, but I just dont have the space in my PC to do this.

So that brings me to an external device that I can use that will be fast, have RAID and will provide plenty of space in the future.

The buffalo's are nice, but I have had 2 buddies that each owned one, and within the first 6 months, they both crashed. The drobo is nice, but proprietry and by most reviews is slow, no esata sucks. The Synology has the best reviews, it's expandable and fast. I have a network at the house and with link aggregation, I will be good with speed.

One thing I must say, is I really, really need to change my workflow. The space I am eating up is ridiculous. I copy my files off through (CS 5 Bridge) one copy goes to a backup directory and the other goes to a "processed" directory. I also do the renaming and add metadata information using bridge during the copying.

From here, I dont touch the backup, this is my backup of all photos. IN the processed directory I go through and edit the good ones and toss the old ones. The edited get exported as jpg and go in a event directory called "finished".

So it's the backup that is eating up my space. When i almost fill up 2 16gb cards per event, it eats away at space. I just have a hard time deleting photos! lol

But that doesnt keep me from needing something that is redundant for the house, with RAID. Also, yes I know this is not a complete backup solution and it's not my sole purpose of backup, but it is one of the things I can control to help prevent data loss at the house.

But even with having an external drive, the drives are in RAID configuration, but what happens when the OS (whether it's the buffalo, drobo, Netgear or Synology) on the external box dies?

I don't know, so many things to think about!

Edit post above, looks like the new Drobo S has Esata!

Originally Posted by racer I dont think you made it clear to me what you are disagreeing with me about? Anyway, network storage is great for many things, but the idea I got from the OP post was that he just needs more space to store photos...............................

I agree with you as far as having fast accessible space to work up your photos. When CFphotography was talking about mass storage I assume CF was asking about long term backup.

There are many different types of photographers here from newbies wanting to take better photos of there kids to professionals that if they don't sell their pics they don't eat. Either way you don't want to loose your photos be it precious digital memories or valuable assets. The good news is these assets are digital and can be replicated. Redundancy is the key & a single hard drive will not give you this. NAS disk arrays will and the software allows all the disk to disk redundancy to be done in the background. Disk arrays are better than any other means of backup currently.
With Ready replicate and 3 or more NAS you have your own cloud. This can be expensive but it may be worth it? How much are your photos and videos worth?
These are only going to get cheaper as people learn of there usefulness.

The thing I want to let people know about is that now NAS disk arrays are getting affordable. I only have 1 ReadyNAS NV+ and it cost me let's see:
ReadyNAS NV+ $299
4 x 1TB Drives at $59.99 = 239.99 (You can add one at a time as you need space to save $)
1GB internal memory upgrade $69.99
Total = 607.99

Smugvault would cost me ~ $40/month. The way Amazon has it priced they nickel and dime you to death. In 15 months of smugvault fees I would justify having buying a NAS.

I use my NAS to store other things. Like DVD backups to stream to DLNA supported devices in my home (laptops, netbooks, TV), a file server - my wife can bring up presentations and contracts from her smartphone.

there are more and more uses for this technology coming out daily. You may not have to buy another readyNAS to get your data in a cloud. Just partner with friends, family or other pro photographers in other states and countries and share space on each other drives.

Originally Posted by CFPhotography ... So that brings me to an external device that I can use that will be fast, have RAID and will provide plenty of space in the future. ... The drobo is nice, but proprietry and by most reviews is slow, no esata sucks. ... Also, yes I know this is not a complete backup solution and it's not my sole purpose of backup, but it is one of the things I can control to help prevent data loss at the house. But even with having an external drive, the drives are in RAID configuration, but what happens when the OS (whether it's the buffalo, drobo, Netgear or Synology) on the external box dies?

To clarify some stuff:

1.) Drobo is infinitely expandable, so it meets your needs there. You run out of space, you pop in a larger hard drive, you instantly have more space. That's it.

2.) Although Drobo S is faster than Drobo v2, and it comes with eSATA, from what I've heard, it's not the fastest solution available. So if ultimate speed is your goal, you might not be satisfied with it. I think it's plenty fast for most people but it's never going to be as fast as a "conventional" RAID that is tuned for speed and has a fast interface.

3.) Drobo is not traditional RAID technology. As has been mentioned, they use a proprietary technology called BeyondRAID.

4.) Whether proprietary is good or bad is a matter of opinion. In my experience, my Drobo has been rock solid and has easily survived the death of a hard drive in its array. The Mac I use has a proprietary OS and it too has been highly reliable. Windows is also a proprietary OS, and most of the world uses it. Everywhere you turn there are proprietary products; the issue of whether a technology is proprietary in my opinion is not directly related to its reliability or usability.

5.) The "OS" on the Drobo isn't user accessible. The Drobo manages all of the storage in its array, but presents the available storage to the OS on your computer as if it were one or more external hard drives. If a drive in the Drobo fails, nothing that your computer sees changes. The Drobo continues to be available to your computer as an external hard drive, and your data is fully available while the Drobo recovers from the failure. If the Drobo itself were to die, it would look the same as if you had an external hard drive that died.

6.) If any of the solutions mentioned contain the only copy of your data, your data is not backed up. It might be stored in a fault-tolerant or expandable way (as with Drobo), but a backup is by definition a redundant, separate copy of your data stored on another device. A lot of people think that if data is not stored in three places, one of which is off-site, then it's not truly backed up. If the only copy of your data is on a device that fails, no matter if it is proprietary or not, you should plan on it being gone forever. Thinking that you *might* be able to get it back usually turns out to be wishful thinking. Planning on it being recoverable is bad planning no matter what solution you are using.

I'm saying all this because I think there is a lot of misunderstanding out there about Drobo and other RAID solutions when used as backups. I and a lot of other people have had great experiences with Drobo, proprietary or not. But like I said, it's not the fastest thing going and by itself it isn't a complete backup solution.

So take that for what it's worth.

Originally Posted by PupWeb I agree with you as far as having fast accessible space to work up your photos. When CFphotography was talking about mass storage I assume CF was asking about long term backup.

Sure, I am not a pro, and I dont demand a large space for photos.
I wasn't and am not disputing the need for NAS, if you actually do need it. If you dont need the NAS for network purpose, there is most likely a faster solutions. Using NAS to store your photos and be the only source of your photos is not only slow, but not to safe. Even when using raid 5, its still sensible to use a backup solution, if you "value" your photos. Justifying a NAS as a replacement for online storage, only works if you also have the files backed up someplace else.

Originally Posted by CFPhotography OL, Racer, I dont have money to just throw away, so you can throw that one out. But I would like to make sure if I am going spend the money now, that I get something that is expandable. I dont want to buy something now just to have to throw it away in a year and buy something new. Currently I bought 2 1TB hard drives (8 months ago), thinking that would last me a while, they are running in a mirror in my current desktop. I was thinking about buying 2 more 2TB drives, but I just dont have the space in my PC to do this. So that brings me to an external device that I can use that will be fast, have RAID and will provide plenty of space in the future.

What I would do, is buy a new computer case, switch everything over, or have your local computer shop do it. Install the hard drive space you need to store your photos into your computer, and use raid 5. Then use whatever backup solution you see fit, just make sure you have a copy saved at a second location that is not inside your computer for your backup.

I use the full tower Antec 1200 computer case, that has room for 9 hard drives, plus room for a couple SSD drives, and a rear e-sata port, and only cost $170. I use two drives for the OS, and three 1TB drives for storage.

Also beware that your going to need matching hard drives inorder to use raid, so the idea of future expandability might go out the window if a year down the road you cant find a matching hard drive, and you instead have to replace them all and start from new (and possibly lose the files in the process).

Obvious there are many different options and configurations you could use, but that is what I would do

I have been using a Lacie 2BigQuadra. It is a nice self contained raid unit. 2 swappable drives. I am needing to upgrade to more space. I might go with a 4BigQuadra to get some more drive space. It is fast and quite. I am using eSATA. But it has USB2 and Firewire 400 & 800.

Aquatic-"A lot of people think that if data is not stored in three places, one of which is off-site, then it's not truly backed up"

Yes!

Racer-"Justifying a NAS as a replacement for online storage, only works if you also have the files backed up someplace else."

Yes - too bad Smugvault is so pricey.
I am excited about Google docs User Managed Storage they just released this month. A lot cheaper, probably the cheapest around. Once your data is in the cloud it's safe or is it?
Google has 200GB for $50/year that's right 200GB/365days. They said data transfer rates are included unless it's not excessive so I don't think they are going to nickel and dime you.
click here to see pricing

Originally Posted by PupWeb Yes - too bad Smugvault is so pricey.

I cant afford online storage ($150+ per month for smugvault would be outlandish), so I just backup all my files, and save all my processed jpegs on my smugmug. If my house were to burn down, my photos would be the least of my worries, but at least I will still have the jpeg copies.