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File storage options (alien.top)

submitted 1 year ago by 14-57@alien.top to c/photography@viewfinder.pro

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Hi All!

As the title says, I am on the search now for a file storage system. Currently I have all of my photos and associated files backing up to cloud storage which works well. But I do worry if I reach a day where a provider decides to stop cloud storage (highly unlikely) or I decide to move to another method and I am downloading tb worth of data and moving it.

Currently thinking of switching to a (noob friendly) NAS where my onedrive will backup on to it once a month or so.

I am also really clueless on servers, this has been a thought over the weekend while storing more images.

Am I crazy or does this sound like a good option?

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[–] flabmeister@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I wouldn’t say it’s “highly unlikely” that some companies stop storage. Companies do go out of business.

I currently have the following.

Home:

Synology NAS - JPEGs

OWC Thunderbay DAS - Everything

Offsite:

Backblaze complete backup

[–] 14-57@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks for the reapinse! Which NAS model do you have and size?

[–] flabmeister@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

I have the Synology DS218J with 2 x 4TB WD Red drives in a RAID 1+0 config giving me 4TB of mirrored storage.

I then have an OWC Thunderbay 8 currently with 6 x 8TB Toshiba Enterprise drives again set up as RAID 1+0 giving me 24TB of mirrored storage.

[–] Precarious314159@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I wouldn’t say it’s “highly unlikely” that some companies stop storage. Companies do go out of business.

But wouldn't the major ones give a notification that they were going to end and give people a chance to migrate? Like I can't imagine backblaze just vanishes one day, taking everything with'em.

[–] flabmeister@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

Sorry yes I have no doubt you’d get sufficient warning

[–] JayEll1969@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

Belt and braces approach is best.

I use a Terramaster F5-422 which is a 5 bay NAS. One bay has an SSD to act as a cache and improve access speeds and the other 4 have 8TB drives set up as a TRAID array. TRAID is like a raid 5 but allows drives of different capacities to be used. I connect this to my PC and Labtop via a 10GB network so I can edit straight off it at a decent speed. I export different directories to my PC for different usage (Photos, Video, Movies, etc) so that each has it's own drive associated with it on my PC and Laptop.

I can back the whole NAS or (more useful) specific directories to the cloud.

I also have a 10tb external HD connected to my main PC just in case.

[–] DiesFuechschen@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

My advice: Get a Synology, they are a bit more expensive but as "idiot-proof" as a NAS can be. Mine continuously synchronizes with my OneDrive so I always have an up to date copy available. Additionally, I have a third, versioned backup on a friend's NAS (and he has a backup on mine) in case I get crypto-locked and my files get encrypted.

[–] MrBobaFett@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

I start with files stored locally and synced to OneDrive for backup. Once I am done with heavy editing work on files, and/or don't need high availability I migrate them to my NAS which is backed up locally to an external drive and backed-up to the cloud.

I use and highly recommend Synology for NAS devices.