Now then, I am musing about trying to get my computer storage a bit more organised, and away from the multitude of different USB disks of varying size and content. One way I see of doing this is as follows:

1x SSD in desktop for OS and program duties
1x DAS containing 4x 2TB disks in RAID5 (as this is still future musing, it might be eSATA, Firewire or Thunderbolt)
1x NAS containing 6x 2TB disks in RAID6 as backup, and also media server duties

Does that sound like a reasonably sensible mix between speed, data security, and future-proofing?

Wow, when does your plan to take over the world start?

Serious, WTF are you doing that needs that much storage? I’ve a pretty big media collection but am not even half way into my 1TB NAS (mirrored).
If this is for ‘work’ then you should also have some sort of media backup system, some of which should be stored off-site.

Have to admit DAS is a new acronym on me.. Direct attached storage?

I currently have about 4TB of photos (well, 2TB, and 2TB duplicates on external disks), and with a camera that generates another 30MB with every click, I’m looking at future-proofing a little!

My initial plan was just the RAID6 NAS, as I reckoned that level of redundancy *should* prevent any horrors. But, lightroom et al won’t take a library off a network share. Irritating, as I have a gigabit router, so access should be plenty fast enough.

And yes, DAS does stand for direct attached storage. I guess my reasoning for this route is that I could just plug it in to a laptop without having to ferry gigabytes over the network if I have been away and amassed a collection of photos on the laptop….

But, lightroom et al won’t take a library off a network share.

???? Do you mean catalogue ? Lightroom works just fine accessing files with networked drives, in fact we have two qnaps doing just that to several workstations. Gigabyte access speeds are more than sufficient and we process heavy files.

We also use Smartsync pro to mirror the two NAS drives every 15 minutes with a deletion run on the backup being done every two days (just in case someone hits delete at the wrong time).

I prefer to use a cross over / redundancy system over two separate physical NAS units then building the raid for speed as opposed to failure recovery. Nothing worse than a physical problem with a raid card etc preventing the rebuild

Also have found that larger disks seem to slow the read / write speeds. May just be our particular set up but the 2TB drives may be problematic.

Zokes, not bad as a system, but if all of your photos are stored in the same physical location what happens if there is a break in/fire ?

But, lightroom et al won’t take a library off a network share.

Can’t you just map a network drive, that way it won’t even know if it’s a network share?

I’m in a similar position with my photos

Primary Win 7 PC 1TB C, 2TB E and extra 1TB
Old Primary XP PC 500Gb C + 4 X 1TB raid 5 (2.5TB E + 800GB F)
ReadyNas Duo with two 2TB mirrored.
Couple esata external disks

Primary machine regularly gets cloned onto NAS and important files get punted to XP machine plus the other internal and external disks.

In an ideal world I’d want a 5 or 6 bay raid 5 enclosure with 2TB disks and maybe a smaller box for further offsiting.

Trouble is we’re probably talking £1K to do this properly with a decent external enclosure with a good array card and non ‘green’ (i.e slow) disks.

Oh and don’t forget a decent inline UPS. I’d look at 500VA or more to ensure a decent run time if things go pete tong

Lightroom works just fine accessing files with networked drives, in fact we have two qnaps doing just that to several workstations. Gigabyte access speeds are more than sufficient and we process heavy files.

Yes, I meant catalogue – read on their website that your catalogue couldn’t reside on a networked place. However, I may have interpreted this wrong. If so – I’d love to be corrected! I too would have thought gigabit networking should be fast enough!

Zokes, not bad as a system, but if all of your photos are stored in the same physical location what happens if there is a break in/fire ?

At the very worst, all finished ones will be in Flickr. I have also mused about taking them a TB at a time to live in my filing cabinet at work too…

Also, a UPS and surge protector was going to be a must. Adelaid’es electricity supply resembles the third world when it’s too hot/cold/rainy/windy….