Camera Labs

Hi:

Currently my wife stores photos on her PC and I store photos on my PC. She like to categorize all of them so it's easier to find them and she routinely needs to get on my PC over the network to copy the new ones.

I was thinking about getting a NAS from D-Link or Netgear and throwing in a couple of 500Gig drives so I could use Raid 1.

My goal is to put all of our photos on the NAS (current and new ones) so that we have a central storage area and then my wife can categorize them all, and then delete all of the photos from our personal computers.

Do you think this is the way to go?

I don't think super speed is an issue, it's not like we sit for hours looking at photos. I'm more interested in a solution that will let me store the photos and give me some peace of mind if a drive goes out.

Thanks,

Mitch

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Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3 (Lumix DMC-TZ7)

Hi Mitch,

I was about to say "Good idea" until you wrote "and then delete all of the photos from our personal computers". I use NAS primarily as somewhere to back up files that are on my computers so that if one fails I still have the data. There's no reason not to turn this around and use your computer(s) to back up the NAS but every reason not to put all your eggs in one basket, unless you also have a back up strategy you haven't mentioned. You might gather that I don't consider RAID 1 to be a redundant data store. Sure, it protects against individual disk failure but it doesn't protect against a voltage spike caused by a failure in the unit's power supply.

Bob.

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How about doing that and have a external HD some where else in the house just in case there is a fire or something, and keep that up to date?

just a though...

but i m with Bob on this one, using the NAS as main and pc as back up or something else as back up.

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Hi Bob and Alex,

I was kind of looking at the NAS as my working and backup solution...I guess that's a bad idea.

I have some Acronis Drive Imaging software, I wonder if I could use that to do a daily image of the NAS to my external USB Drive (probably overwrite the previous image to conserve space).

What do you think about that?

Mitch

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Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3 (Lumix DMC-TZ7)

If you a serious about NAS storage some of them can backup to each other. So you buy 2 units (different locations around the house) and they each backup to the other one.


Check out some reviews here http://www.pcpro.co.uk/labs/100123/maxt ... ge-ii.html

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You might want to think about getting two stations if you want it to act as your primary data station.

I am actually going to be picking up two Buffalo 750 GB LinkStation Pro's in the near future, one to act as primary data station and the other placed else where in the house to act as a back to the first one.

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nas is a perfectly safe solution imo especially if your using raid 1.

I think the idea that a power surge would knock out both drives is very unlikely it depends on where you live i guess.

If you use a decent surge proctector then you should be ok and if it does jump chances are if your using external drives it'll just be the ac adapter that blows and the drives themselves will still be fine.

Even if both drives do break down then you'll probably be able to recover the data through a specialist.

I would feel perfectly safe with a nas as my only form of storage and im sure the MTF (mean time between failures) would be much higher for them than a laptop drive anyway