NAS storage for LR media

[renouj21]

Hello good folks,
I'm currently running a fairly old Mac, and looking to get a new iMac. However, if I did this I'd have to store my LR files (ie all my RAW images) externally on a NAS drive, rather than as I do currently on a second hard drive inside my computer. Can anyone tell me if this is a bad idea? And secondly, any recommendations for a 4 bay NAS that would do this job well?
Thank you so much,
J

 

[mediazoomhd]

Tried this myself with the Netgear NAS attached to my airport extreme and using my macbook pro. It will work but unbearably too slow for my needs. I now store my photos on an external firewire 800 drives. You Can use the NAS for backup however. hope this helps.

 

[amazz]

Doesn't the imac have room for a second drive? Just use that bay with your current hdd if it will fit or copy your images to a new larger internal hdd (7200rpm), would be much faster than an external of any flavor.

Art

 

[renouj21]

Hi, thanks for this.
Unfortunately the iMac doesn't have a second hard drive (well, it does if you want to spend £600+ on a 256GB SSD, but I don't). So my options are to get mac Pro, which I can stuff full of 4 hard drives (one for the OS, one for media, and the other 2 for backups), or get an iMac and run a separate FW drive with my media on it (and then a NAS for backup). The question is, will the FW option be significantly slower (ie will I notice it) than the internal hard drive?
Thanks again for the replies.
J

 

[clee01l]

renouj21, Welcome to the forum. I store most of my master image files on a NAS. I find the access across a 100mbit network more than tolerable. When I used a Laptop exclusively, It was a gigabit ethernet connection. and I could not tell the difference between accessing files on the local drive or the network, I'm sure that must have been some lag, I just could not detect it. I said store "most of my master image files on a NAS". What that means is that I keep my most recent (and most active) image files on the local drive. Every month, using LR, I move the oldest master image files to the NAS. The only things I keep on the local drive are the catalog (which can't be accessed if on the NAS), the Preview Cache and the ACR cache) The Cache files are available for quick access of the most recently use images and would probably best be kept local for performance any way.

LR takes up less than 20GB locally and I have ~ 200GB stored on the NAS.

 

[edgley]

I doubt there will be much of a notice between the FW800 drive and the internal drive.
FW800 are amazing fast; just tested mine and got a speed of 65MB/s write and 80MB/s read.
From memory, my MBP, which is in essence an iMac, only gives speeds in the 20-30 MB/s range.

 

[renouj21]

That introduces another option: forget the NAS and get a FW drive to store my media on (and perhaps use a NAS only for backup). Trouble is, the iMac only has one FW800 port, so I'll have to run the drive off a hub, and that might slow things down further.
Tricky.

 

[kbfoot]

Last I checked, there are no FW800 hubs...only FW400 hubs. However, all FW800 hdds seem to have FW800 in and out ports, so you can daisy chain the hdds.