NOTE: I'm not a professional data storage expert. There are many out there and if you have data questions, concerns, issues, etc., you'll definitely want to consult with one. I'm trying to make a difficult and boring concept for many people (RAID) somewhat approachable and interesting -- even at the expense of being overly general about some of the RAID drive concepts, data parity, and other aspects. This is an entire industry -- and you will want to pursue additional tutorials and info on CZcams and elsewhere before you make any serious decision regarding your data or your purchase.
Hey hey hey, as a software engineer and networking guy, RAID drives are NOT a boring subject! The wonderful world of packets, caching, and storage are fun 🤓 but yeah, Synology #1
Chris, your ability to explain and teach the complex stuff in a very fun, entertaining and understandable way is outstanding! You really opened my eyes on NAS and RAID and now I got the point about it. Just need to put it on my wish list for Christmas :-) Thanks a lot!
A BIG Thank You for this series. It’s been a huge help in demystifying this somewhat complicated subject for me. I’m anxiously waiting for your next video on set-up. Thanks again!
Chris, I just watched your members only video. PLEASE don't worry about taking a break! We'll all be here for you no matter what. Take care of yourself, and your family. We'll stick around and when you're ready, we'll be waiting.
Just discovered your channel while setting up my new Synology DS1522+ and after a catastrophic DROBO failure where I've lost 12 years of photos. Why? Because like SHR with Synology DROBO used its own proprietary data storage system and unlike RAID I can't simply use any other NAS solution. I'll set my new one up with RAID 6 after watching your video which I have to say is briliant. Really helps the less than technical/novice users and for that I thank you. I'll now watch more of your videos and will share on social media to many other photographers I know. Probably the best channel I've found. Thank you again.
Hello, I'm just really getting into sports photography, and have found that my storage plan was not well thought out. I am the guy who finds that I have about a dozen 1tb drives sitting around my office, and I'm shooting more photos all the time since I upgraded my camera. I'm glad I found your channel and now a clear downloading and saving plan for my images seems to be coming into view. Thanks for making videos for people like me that have maxed out their computer hard drives and know they need a better plan. This really helps.
This is exactly the easy-in tutorial I've been waiting for!!! I purchased a NAS system but was overwhelmed and afraid of setting it up incorrectly without the ability to change the configuration so it's just been sitting in a box. I have scores of external hard drives that are all full. I need a more centralized data storage system. I now feel much more comfortable approaching the set-up and getting my files organized. The real challenge is whittling down old files to save only what's absolutely necessary - high megapixel photos and 4K vids means I'll have an ever-growing need for terabytes of storage space and a system that can/will be expanded exponentially as long as I continue creating. I look forward to watching the next video in this series!
Chris, I don’t thinkI have seen another video as detailed and concise as this one and certainly not boring. I haven’t made the dive into Synology yet but it looks like I will. I will refer to this video and everything else you post. Many thanks, keep them coming!
Thank you much for this one! Another plug I would put in for Synology is their support staff, which generally I've found really helpful. Not that I've had many problems with my Synology unit, but when I have their support staff has been excellent. I'm looking forward to watching the rest of these.
At last, a clear, helpful description. Helpful? Yes - without doubt. Looking forward to the next in the series. Many thanks.
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Best photography tech channel on youtube, in my opinion. Great explanations on all kind of tech things related to photography. Thanks for all the work you put in to making the videos. 🙏
Thank you so much for this great video! This is exactly was I was looking for. Last summer I had a head crash and damaged service area on an external hard drive (and yes I sadly lost a lot of data.) I am desperately looking now for an alternative and safer storage system and NAS and RAID seem to be a great solution. Your videos are most helpful!
Thanks, Chris. I’m hanging out ‘til you finish this series before getting my NAS - hopefully in the new year. Until then I have separate drives and a cloud backup and use Flickr to store finished images. It’s worked ok for years but now I really need to make the move to a better system. Ta
If you are not a professional and you have a good broadband connection, you may want to leverage the cloud more. I use a local raid 1 but also mirror my pictures to OneDrive using rclone (to make them accessible) and take a backup using Arq sourced from MacOS. I use jpegmini to shrink the size of my jpegs and I do not store RAW files after processing. The cloud will take care of this complexity for you and the data redundancy simply cannot be beat locally. However, if this is your living or you have tens of terabytes of data, a local nas while complicated is the way to go. For years I have been looking for a way to go cloud only but haven't pulled the trigger. I need to get more comfortable with backing up data between cloud vendors. Thanks for this important video, I've had so many hard drives fail over the years and only have my wedding photos because I had a backup loaded to Ofoto!
I’m also anxiously awaiting your video on set up. It would be great to have you share your experience working with Capture One on NAS. Do you work with Raw files directly from the NAS in Capture One? Do you directly connect your computer via FireWire or 10gbe? Thank you for your entertaining and helpful videos!
Thanks for lifting me up from 98% to 2%! Maybe you will do a video about backup as well in the future? Keep up the good work (and please keep the xt-3 specific video's come as well). Greetings from the Netherlands!
Thank you again for another great video! I would like to make a couple comments tho. 1) For RAID 5, you loose the capacity of one whole drive plus a percentage of the other two. 2) All drives in a RAID have to be the exact same size. I believe Synology's SHR allows this but traditional RAID setups don't allow this.
This is not accurate. 1) For RAID 5 you ONLY lose the capacity of one drive, but the parity blocks are spread across all the drives in the array. 2) All drives do not have to be the same size, but you only get the capacity of the smallest drive in the array. e.g. if you configue RAID 0 with a 4TB and 6TB drive you only get 8TB capacity.
Thank you so much for doing these videos. I have been wanting to adopt a system like this for a long time but didn’t fully understand how it works or where to start. I’m looking forward to your next video!
Thank you very much for your excellent videos. The subject of RAID is very technical and you did a great job of breaking it down and making it easier to understand.
This is so helpful. Thank you very much for the detailled information. I am really looking forward the next video since all my stuff is currently sitting on a quite new external HD and I am feeling uncomfortable with that. I want to set up a NAS but not before hearing your advice. Please dont let us wait :)
For many many viewers a 6 bay Synology box with six 10TB Iron wolf drives is going to cost more than all their camera gear. Food for thought... I use a 10TB internal drive in my computer for my images and that one internal drive backs up to a Synology 2 bay unit that holds two 10 TB Iron wolf drives... and yes I use RAID 0. So I use my internal drive to edit from then backup to my Synology NAS which makes two backups (one on each drive) then the Synology box uploads my files to Backblaze B2. So I have three copies of my files plus one off site backup. The synology box also is used as a photo station and for backing up all the other computers in the house. If your a pro and have clients thn by all means invest 3,500.00 in the unit he discussed it's worth it, but if your a hobby dude like me...well my solution is working out just fine.
Hi Chris - Great video like always. (Watched it when it first came out.) ~ Curious as to what happened to updates on your NAS project? (Looks like you "went down the rabbit hole" on this one, there's a lot to it lol/col!)
Any idea when we can expect your next video on how to set up the unit and NAS drives? New to this method and just watched both videos which were very informative and helped make sense of it all.
Chris - you did a great job of explaining RAID for newbies. Thank you. What I am disappointed about is the rough manner in which you were handling those hard drives. That has reduced the life of those drives (in theory). I am glad to hear you explain that RAID is NOT a backup. So true. Synology has lots of options for backing up the system, either through an attached explanation unlit, a separate large USB hard drive, or backing up to a cloud service. Great job. Please handle those drives with a little more care though.
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Hello. I totaly agree with you: mecanical hard drives are very fragile items. Please, be more gentel with them in fron of the camera: you do not want to spread the false idea that they can face rough handling...
I’m so thankful for this video because I too have a drawer full of external drives cradling about 80k (~2tb) photos. Your video made plane the complex world of storage and has motivated me to upgrade to a Synology. However, I am left wondering what system would be best for an amateur photographer? Looking forward to your next video!
Lol great illustrations with the prints. I think it's probably worth defining better what "backup" means. From a software/hardware standpoint, I would consider RAID 1, 5, 6, and 10 all to be great 'backups'. If we (as users) choose to delete a file then want it back later, at least personally, I wouldn't consider that a 'backup' need or use case. That's just bad user choices 😬 To me, 'backup' is for when there's an actual hardware failure, theft, or cloud issue where files are lost beyond our control. In those ways, I'd personally consider those great 'backups'. (But should not be your ONLY backup) Totally agree with you though - RAID 6 if you can afford it, RAID 5 if you can't afford enough drives for R6 (upgrade later). I can't say for certain but I would imagine SHR is actually just RAID under the hood and the "SHR" layer is just configuration-easiness. I wouldn't think Synology would want to reimplement their own new proprietary storage mechanism when RAID has been made so bulletproof after so long and so many versions.
A backup is a copy of data with which you can restore the data in case of data loss. If you delete the data by mistake it is categorised as data loss and RAID doesn't protect you from this. You also said theft - disks in RAID are usually together in the same device, which doesn't protect you against theft. There are also corruptions that can happen for which RAID by itself doesn't help you, but modern RAID based filesystem (like ZFS) do - metadata corruption, bit-rot, corruption during transport,...
Super informative, as always! I am about to invest in a Synology NAS, and you’ve explained why RAID 6 is the best way to go. I’m not a pro, just a passionate amateur, so I don’t have millions of images (but many thousands nonetheless). Which Synology unit would you recommend? A 5-bay unit, a 6-bay unit? And how many drives would you recommend I start with for a RAID 6 setup?
I use Synology's proprietary raid formatting because for me, this single feature sold me on making my raid choice. The reason is that a year ago 8-10 TB drives were the size of choice, today it's 14. In 2 years it will be 20 or even 24 TB. When I run out of space I can modernize an older small drive, others can't do this. Reason I'm glad I went Synology... I am technical but was interested in learning NASes. I read Synology was the Apple of NASes. Well... Let's just say I'm glad I went simple Apple because I had to learn much more than I imagined. Example... I decided to add a security camera... New drive was setup but didn't appear. Took me hours to figure out I had to create a folder on the drive for it to appear in other tools. Okay... But this is the easy to use "Apple" UI...yikes what QNAB must be like.
Good vid. Suggestion: Pls consider doing a piece on "best practice" re file structures and naming conventions for pics/videos. I don't want to be 'constrained' by a NAS vendor-specific Photo App. If I can safely remote access my NAS files from anywhere, then I can see-show-manipulate easily using a 'universal' Photo App like MS Photos or video app like VLC. This 'best practice' vid would benefit everyone.
RAID 1 will not "sync" a faulty disk to a functioning disk. If one drive fails, you simply replace it with a new one and the data is automatically copied to the new disk. You're correct in saying it's not a backup solution. It isn't, only because you still have one point of failure... The raid controller. That being said, raid 1 is a fantastic option if you have two identical disks. Also, you may want to stop shaking your mechanical drives. 🙃
I think the disks experience more "wiggle & bump" from all the transportation from the factory to your doorstep then Chris can induce in the few moments of shaking this unit so I wouldn't worry about it to much. These Seagate HDD's have a shock rating of 250Gs when not powered on. They can be dropped up to a foot without damage, depending on the floor surface.
This was very interesting but I am hobbyist and I just can't afford to go with the RAID 5 or 6 model. I bought myself a synelogy and will use it to store my files and then had a local backup and a cloud backup. It's the most I can afford at this time.
Thanks so much for the insight! It's NOT a boring concept for me! Now my question is, is there any difference between HDD and NVME? If there is not any difference between HDD and NVME, then what do you think of OWC Thunderblade (4 nvme's) or Thunderblade x8 (8 nvme's) running on Thunderbolt 4/USB4? Much appreciated!
Hello Chris, thank you so much for this perfect video 😃 Could you please explain your workflow with such a Synology nas ? 😇 Because I have a Synology Nas attached to my local (gigabit ethernet) network, and it isn't fast enough to edit my pictures on it with Capture One (Capture One seems to update the picture preview or other datas everytime I edit something, and it slows down the process). I have to store and edit the photos on my Macbook before to archive them on the nas. This isn't ideal, this is long and risky. Did i make a mistake? Thank you so much with your soooo useful channel. 🙂
Great job explaining a complicated topic. I actually bought a Synology system 2 months ago and decided to go with SHR-2 and am happy with it so far. I use it to backup all my family's computers to a central network location, as well as store all my photos and videos. I have noticed that my network access to the Synology system needs to be improved. Accessing Synology over WiFi and even a direct Ethernet connection into the Synology system is about 1/2 as fast as a locally attached SSD, , so if you do any future videos on Synology systems, I would be interested in your recommendation for how to improve the network performance. Thanks for your videos.
I just bought a Synology system and have appreciated these videos! But did you ever follow this on up with the setup video?? Yours are better than Synology's so hoping to find it!
Thank you so much. I was just about to get a Synology and I am grateful for all the very valuable information as I am absolutely ignorant of this staff. One of my questions is a Synology with 4 drives can use drives of different capasity....eg. 2 TB, 4TB 10 TB and 4TB....? If yes What is the benefit of that? Thank you very much for your time and efford. Always your videos are so helpfull
Crystal Clear Explanation 👌 Saving This In my Playlist Future Reference. Have u Tried installing 10 Gbe Ethernet For Faster Work Flow Maybe In Future Video
Appreciate the disclaimer but unless you are required to return the expansion bay and 10TB drives, that's a "gift" worth more than US$2000. More power to you and thanks for putting out these helpful and informative videos.
Great vid and good work on trying to make this information not a total snooze fest! Just a correction you gave an example of raid 5 using only 2 disks this is bad info you need at least 3 disks for raid 5 and following your example using 10TB drives instead of 30TB you would get 20TB.
In future videos on the subject, please include some form of disclaimer around hard disk handling - i.e. if you value your data, never handle them like this. Apart from the dropped disk, every time they were picked up and put down introduced a very real risk of damage. The problem with hard disks is that they have a bunch of very fast moving parts and very tight tolerances, it doesn't take much to cause a little bit of damage that will lead to premature failure. Disks should only be picked up by their edges where they have strength, holding multiple disks with force against the top of disks will risk damage, shaking disk will risk damage, banging disks against other objects, such as a desk, will cause damage. While some disks will fail prematurely due to manufacturing defects, most of the failures I've seen have been due to improper handling.
I've really enjoyed the first two videos on this subject but am having trouble finding the third (and others if available.) Can someone help me? Many kind thanks in advance! Best, Terry
Love this video! Question: what's the difference between one of these Synology setups and say an OWC Thunderbay drive setup? Is it the networking part of it?
This is a great video - thank you! Do you know when you might release the next in the series? Looking at buying a NAS in the next couple weeks... (fingers crossed for some Black Friday deals).
An excellent tome for beginner!! Well done! My problem is finding a quality NAS, that I can hand directly off my computer as a work drive, which I'd mirror to a NAS unit on the network. I'm trying to find a good "NAS" type unit that I can hang off my computer via thunderbolt or USB-C, etc....rather than ethernet accessible. I'd like this to be my work drive and need the speed. Any recommendations you might know of? CC
Very helpful. It might have been a bit more clear to track one example of total photo storage, e.g. 4T. Then, how many disks of what size would you use for total storage?? Why, can’t it be backup, except that it’s not offsite? Why can’t a configuration be 4T primary storage and another 4T for backup? Thanks for your help!
Great video as always :D. You do a great job of breaking down a very complex and imo exciting topic. I cant wait to see how you configure your setup over the next few videos. Personally I like to play fast and lose with raid 0 ;). But I have a very comprehensive backup system in place that mirrors my data onto a local server and then to an offsite as well. That said all that is on my personal setup at work things are so backed up you would not believe. Events are shot in triplicate on SD cards, local raid 1 disk, and cloud simultaneously. Then the footage is ingested to a server that is multisite resilient then copies are made from that master for editing. The editing machines are raid 1 and cloud redundant and well you get the point we are very resilient.
NOTE: I'm not a professional data storage expert. There are many out there and if you have data questions, concerns, issues, etc., you'll definitely want to consult with one. I'm trying to make a difficult and boring concept for many people (RAID) somewhat approachable and interesting -- even at the expense of being overly general about some of the RAID drive concepts, data parity, and other aspects. This is an entire industry -- and you will want to pursue additional tutorials and info on CZcams and elsewhere before you make any serious decision regarding your data or your purchase.
Hey hey hey, as a software engineer and networking guy, RAID drives are NOT a boring subject! The wonderful world of packets, caching, and storage are fun 🤓 but yeah, Synology #1
RAID in 2021? seriously, is it still a thing?
I CAN NOT BELIEVE HOW GOOD IS THIS RAID MASTER CLASS. CAN NOT BELIEVE IT. Amazing.
This channel should have million+ subs...
Best explanation ever on RAID. Thank you!
Chris, your ability to explain and teach the complex stuff in a very fun, entertaining and understandable way is outstanding!
You really opened my eyes on NAS and RAID and now I got the point about it.
Just need to put it on my wish list for Christmas :-)
Thanks a lot!
A BIG Thank You for this series. It’s been a huge help in demystifying this somewhat complicated subject for me. I’m anxiously waiting for your next video on set-up.
Thanks again!
Chris, I just watched your members only video. PLEASE don't worry about taking a break! We'll all be here for you no matter what. Take care of yourself, and your family. We'll stick around and when you're ready, we'll be waiting.
Just discovered your channel while setting up my new Synology DS1522+ and after a catastrophic DROBO failure where I've lost 12 years of photos. Why? Because like SHR with Synology DROBO used its own proprietary data storage system and unlike RAID I can't simply use any other NAS solution. I'll set my new one up with RAID 6 after watching your video which I have to say is briliant. Really helps the less than technical/novice users and for that I thank you. I'll now watch more of your videos and will share on social media to many other photographers I know. Probably the best channel I've found. Thank you again.
Hello, I'm just really getting into sports photography, and have found that my storage plan was not well thought out. I am the guy who finds that I have about a dozen 1tb drives sitting around my office, and I'm shooting more photos all the time since I upgraded my camera. I'm glad I found your channel and now a clear downloading and saving plan for my images seems to be coming into view. Thanks for making videos for people like me that have maxed out their computer hard drives and know they need a better plan. This really helps.
Probably one of the best raid videos I have seen on CZcams. Thanks for the video Chris
Wow, thanks!
Brilliant again. Can't wait for part 3.
Far from boring! Fascinating and extremely helpful.
This is exactly the easy-in tutorial I've been waiting for!!! I purchased a NAS system but was overwhelmed and afraid of setting it up incorrectly without the ability to change the configuration so it's just been sitting in a box. I have scores of external hard drives that are all full. I need a more centralized data storage system. I now feel much more comfortable approaching the set-up and getting my files organized. The real challenge is whittling down old files to save only what's absolutely necessary - high megapixel photos and 4K vids means I'll have an ever-growing need for terabytes of storage space and a system that can/will be expanded exponentially as long as I continue creating. I look forward to watching the next video in this series!
Thanks for a great video! You have taken a mind numbing subject for me and definitely made it interesting and easy to understand the basics of it.
Chris, I don’t thinkI have seen another video as detailed and concise as this one and certainly not boring. I haven’t made the dive into Synology yet but it looks like I will. I will refer to this video and everything else you post. Many thanks, keep them coming!
Enjoying this content, thanks! When is the next video on RAID drives coming out??
Thank you much for this one! Another plug I would put in for Synology is their support staff, which generally I've found really helpful. Not that I've had many problems with my Synology unit, but when I have their support staff has been excellent. I'm looking forward to watching the rest of these.
Always appreciate your videos and your entertaining teaching, Chris. This series on storage is timely for me and your insights are so valuable.
Thanks so much. You simplify it for easy understading of RAID. Love this.
At last, a clear, helpful description. Helpful? Yes - without doubt. Looking forward to the next in the series. Many thanks.
Best photography tech channel on youtube, in my opinion. Great explanations on all kind of tech things related to photography. Thanks for all the work you put in to making the videos. 🙏
One of the best overviews of RAID storage. Great job.
the best video about NAS systems I've seen so far
Just awesome, Chris. This was the clearest explanation of this subject I have ever heard. Best, Steve B.
Thank you!
I agree
My mind is blown 🤯 (and in a very good way). You just saved me countless evenings of googling 🙏🏻
Great video man! Helped me a lot! Raid 6!! Let’s go!!
Thanks Chris, this is really helpful. I now know exactly what to do with redoing my NAS systems. Buy a Synology to replace the Drobo, and RAID 6. 😃😜
Thank you Chris for focusing on the topic of storage. It is probably as important as taking the picture.
Thank you so much for this great video! This is exactly was I was looking for. Last summer I had a head crash and damaged service area on an external hard drive (and yes I sadly lost a lot of data.) I am desperately looking now for an alternative and safer storage system and NAS and RAID seem to be a great solution. Your videos are most helpful!
Thanks, Chris. I’m hanging out ‘til you finish this series before getting my NAS - hopefully in the new year. Until then I have separate drives and a cloud backup and use Flickr to store finished images. It’s worked ok for years but now I really need to make the move to a better system. Ta
Congrats, very clear & complete
It's never confusing with whatever you bring up.
Well explained💥 worth watching
If you are not a professional and you have a good broadband connection, you may want to leverage the cloud more. I use a local raid 1 but also mirror my pictures to OneDrive using rclone (to make them accessible) and take a backup using Arq sourced from MacOS. I use jpegmini to shrink the size of my jpegs and I do not store RAW files after processing. The cloud will take care of this complexity for you and the data redundancy simply cannot be beat locally.
However, if this is your living or you have tens of terabytes of data, a local nas while complicated is the way to go.
For years I have been looking for a way to go cloud only but haven't pulled the trigger. I need to get more comfortable with backing up data between cloud vendors. Thanks for this important video, I've had so many hard drives fail over the years and only have my wedding photos because I had a backup loaded to Ofoto!
Thanks, Chris. I FINALLY have an understanding of what RAID is all about!
Tks Chris - from going from knowing nothing to where to start at least. Tks Entertaining & informative.
So helpful, you’re like the Scotty Kilmer of technology!!!
I’m also anxiously awaiting your video on set up. It would be great to have you share your experience working with Capture One on NAS. Do you work with Raw files directly from the NAS in Capture One? Do you directly connect your computer via FireWire or 10gbe? Thank you for your entertaining and helpful videos!
Thanks for lifting me up from 98% to 2%! Maybe you will do a video about backup as well in the future?
Keep up the good work (and please keep the xt-3 specific video's come as well).
Greetings from the Netherlands!
Thank you again for another great video! I would like to make a couple comments tho. 1) For RAID 5, you loose the capacity of one whole drive plus a percentage of the other two. 2) All drives in a RAID have to be the exact same size. I believe Synology's SHR allows this but traditional RAID setups don't allow this.
This is not accurate.
1) For RAID 5 you ONLY lose the capacity of one drive, but the parity blocks are spread across all the drives in the array.
2) All drives do not have to be the same size, but you only get the capacity of the smallest drive in the array. e.g. if you configue RAID 0 with a 4TB and 6TB drive you only get 8TB capacity.
Thank you so much for doing these videos. I have been wanting to adopt a system like this for a long time but didn’t fully understand how it works or where to start. I’m looking forward to your next video!
Good video! Looking forward to the next one in this NAS series.
I love your explaination, really easy to understand 🙂
Thank you very much for your excellent videos. The subject of RAID is very technical and you did a great job of breaking it down and making it easier to understand.
This is so helpful. Thank you very much for the detailled information. I am really looking forward the next video since all my stuff is currently sitting on a quite new external HD and I am feeling uncomfortable with that. I want to set up a NAS but not before hearing your advice. Please dont let us wait :)
Yesss, I waited for this video since many days!! Thank you for all your advices and recommendations 👊🏻
Loved this video, Chris. Thank you making it. Now I fully understand the raid options.
Thank you, you helped me alot!!! when you do part 3 ?
Very informative and to the point. Thank you for making this video! I will definitely be referencing it as I piece together my kit.
Very interesting, very actually for who doing photography.
For many many viewers a 6 bay Synology box with six 10TB Iron wolf drives is going to cost more than all their camera gear. Food for thought... I use a 10TB internal drive in my computer for my images and that one internal drive backs up to a Synology 2 bay unit that holds two 10 TB Iron wolf drives... and yes I use RAID 0. So I use my internal drive to edit from then backup to my Synology NAS which makes two backups (one on each drive) then the Synology box uploads my files to Backblaze B2. So I have three copies of my files plus one off site backup. The synology box also is used as a photo station and for backing up all the other computers in the house. If your a pro and have clients thn by all means invest 3,500.00 in the unit he discussed it's worth it, but if your a hobby dude like me...well my solution is working out just fine.
Thanks for these videos. I just bought a Syneology unit.
Hi Chris - Great video like always. (Watched it when it first came out.) ~ Curious as to what happened to updates on your NAS project? (Looks like you "went down the rabbit hole" on this one, there's a lot to it lol/col!)
RAID Storage for Photographers - How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love RAID.
Brilliant video. Thanks for the concise, entertaining information on what I have for a long time found extremely boring and impenetrable :)
Any idea when we can expect your next video on how to set up the unit and NAS drives? New to this method and just watched both videos which were very informative and helped make sense of it all.
Chris - you did a great job of explaining RAID for newbies. Thank you. What I am disappointed about is the rough manner in which you were handling those hard drives. That has reduced the life of those drives (in theory). I am glad to hear you explain that RAID is NOT a backup. So true. Synology has lots of options for backing up the system, either through an attached explanation unlit, a separate large USB hard drive, or backing up to a cloud service. Great job. Please handle those drives with a little more care though.
Hello. I totaly agree with you: mecanical hard drives are very fragile items. Please, be more gentel with them in fron of the camera: you do not want to spread the false idea that they can face rough handling...
You're a great teacher! Thank you!
I’m so thankful for this video because I too have a drawer full of external drives cradling about 80k (~2tb) photos. Your video made plane the complex world of storage and has motivated me to upgrade to a Synology. However, I am left wondering what system would be best for an amateur photographer? Looking forward to your next video!
Another Master Class 👍👍👍👍
Thank you for making me aware of this subject! Looking forward to see the next episode and to know if you have also tips for backups :)
Awesome, thank you!
GREAT JOB!
you did a great job with this video
4:32 That transition though. 😄👍
Lol great illustrations with the prints.
I think it's probably worth defining better what "backup" means. From a software/hardware standpoint, I would consider RAID 1, 5, 6, and 10 all to be great 'backups'. If we (as users) choose to delete a file then want it back later, at least personally, I wouldn't consider that a 'backup' need or use case. That's just bad user choices 😬 To me, 'backup' is for when there's an actual hardware failure, theft, or cloud issue where files are lost beyond our control. In those ways, I'd personally consider those great 'backups'. (But should not be your ONLY backup) Totally agree with you though - RAID 6 if you can afford it, RAID 5 if you can't afford enough drives for R6 (upgrade later).
I can't say for certain but I would imagine SHR is actually just RAID under the hood and the "SHR" layer is just configuration-easiness. I wouldn't think Synology would want to reimplement their own new proprietary storage mechanism when RAID has been made so bulletproof after so long and so many versions.
A backup is a copy of data with which you can restore the data in case of data loss. If you delete the data by mistake it is categorised as data loss and RAID doesn't protect you from this. You also said theft - disks in RAID are usually together in the same device, which doesn't protect you against theft.
There are also corruptions that can happen for which RAID by itself doesn't help you, but modern RAID based filesystem (like ZFS) do - metadata corruption, bit-rot, corruption during transport,...
Super informative, as always! I am about to invest in a Synology NAS, and you’ve explained why RAID 6 is the best way to go. I’m not a pro, just a passionate amateur, so I don’t have millions of images (but many thousands nonetheless). Which Synology unit would you recommend? A 5-bay unit, a 6-bay unit? And how many drives would you recommend I start with for a RAID 6 setup?
I use Synology's proprietary raid formatting because for me, this single feature sold me on making my raid choice. The reason is that a year ago 8-10 TB drives were the size of choice, today it's 14. In 2 years it will be 20 or even 24 TB. When I run out of space I can modernize an older small drive, others can't do this.
Reason I'm glad I went Synology... I am technical but was interested in learning NASes. I read Synology was the Apple of NASes. Well... Let's just say I'm glad I went simple Apple because I had to learn much more than I imagined. Example... I decided to add a security camera... New drive was setup but didn't appear. Took me hours to figure out I had to create a folder on the drive for it to appear in other tools. Okay... But this is the easy to use "Apple" UI...yikes what QNAB must be like.
Brilliant, so helpful - thank you!
Awesome break down mate!
Really appreciate the time and effort you have put in to this video :)
Legend 🤟🤟
Love from 🇦🇺
Thank you so much!! 🙏🙏🙏
excellent video. is there a follow up to this?
Good vid. Suggestion: Pls consider doing a piece on "best practice" re file structures and naming conventions for pics/videos. I don't want to be 'constrained' by a NAS vendor-specific Photo App. If I can safely remote access my NAS files from anywhere, then I can see-show-manipulate easily using a 'universal' Photo App like MS Photos or video app like VLC. This 'best practice' vid would benefit everyone.
Excellent! Thanks a lot for your videos!
Excellent video and honest advice 👌
RAID 1 will not "sync" a faulty disk to a functioning disk. If one drive fails, you simply replace it with a new one and the data is automatically copied to the new disk.
You're correct in saying it's not a backup solution. It isn't, only because you still have one point of failure... The raid controller. That being said, raid 1 is a fantastic option if you have two identical disks.
Also, you may want to stop shaking your mechanical drives. 🙃
I think the disks experience more "wiggle & bump" from all the transportation from the factory to your doorstep then Chris can induce in the few moments of shaking this unit so I wouldn't worry about it to much. These Seagate HDD's have a shock rating of 250Gs when not powered on. They can be dropped up to a foot without damage, depending on the floor surface.
Thank you sooooo much 😭😭😭😭😭🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼
Love this. Is there any update on the NAS drives video? Thanks
This was very interesting but I am hobbyist and I just can't afford to go with the RAID 5 or 6 model. I bought myself a synelogy and will use it to store my files and then had a local backup and a cloud backup. It's the most I can afford at this time.
Hi! Did you ever end up producing a video that covers setup, drives and models? I can't seem to locate one in your profile. Would love to hear more!
Good info!
Thanks so much for the insight! It's NOT a boring concept for me! Now my question is, is there any difference between HDD and NVME? If there is not any difference between HDD and NVME, then what do you think of OWC Thunderblade (4 nvme's) or Thunderblade x8 (8 nvme's) running on Thunderbolt 4/USB4? Much appreciated!
Hello Chris, thank you so much for this perfect video 😃 Could you please explain your workflow with such a Synology nas ? 😇
Because I have a Synology Nas attached to my local (gigabit ethernet) network, and it isn't fast enough to edit my pictures on it with Capture One (Capture One seems to update the picture preview or other datas everytime I edit something, and it slows down the process).
I have to store and edit the photos on my Macbook before to archive them on the nas. This isn't ideal, this is long and risky. Did i make a mistake?
Thank you so much with your soooo useful channel. 🙂
Great job explaining a complicated topic. I actually bought a Synology system 2 months ago and decided to go with SHR-2 and am happy with it so far. I use it to backup all my family's computers to a central network location, as well as store all my photos and videos. I have noticed that my network access to the Synology system needs to be improved. Accessing Synology over WiFi and even a direct Ethernet connection into the Synology system is about 1/2 as fast as a locally attached SSD, , so if you do any future videos on Synology systems, I would be interested in your recommendation for how to improve the network performance. Thanks for your videos.
I just updated my Synology from 1 GbE to 10GbE and the speeds are comparable with SSDs on USB-C.
I just bought a Synology system and have appreciated these videos! But did you ever follow this on up with the setup video?? Yours are better than Synology's so hoping to find it!
Thank you so much. I was just about to get a Synology and I am grateful for all the very valuable information as I am absolutely ignorant of this staff. One of my questions is a Synology with 4 drives can use drives of different capasity....eg. 2 TB, 4TB 10 TB and 4TB....? If yes What is the benefit of that? Thank you very much for your time and efford. Always your videos are so helpfull
very helpful~ thanks
Crystal Clear Explanation 👌 Saving This In my Playlist Future Reference.
Have u Tried installing 10 Gbe Ethernet For Faster Work Flow Maybe In Future Video
Thanks for this video !!
Appreciate the disclaimer but unless you are required to return the expansion bay and 10TB drives, that's a "gift" worth more than US$2000. More power to you and thanks for putting out these helpful and informative videos.
Great video!! Cheers!
thank you so much!
thank you so much
Great vid and good work on trying to make this information not a total snooze fest! Just a correction you gave an example of raid 5 using only 2 disks this is bad info you need at least 3 disks for raid 5 and following your example using 10TB drives instead of 30TB you would get 20TB.
In future videos on the subject, please include some form of disclaimer around hard disk handling - i.e. if you value your data, never handle them like this. Apart from the dropped disk, every time they were picked up and put down introduced a very real risk of damage. The problem with hard disks is that they have a bunch of very fast moving parts and very tight tolerances, it doesn't take much to cause a little bit of damage that will lead to premature failure. Disks should only be picked up by their edges where they have strength, holding multiple disks with force against the top of disks will risk damage, shaking disk will risk damage, banging disks against other objects, such as a desk, will cause damage. While some disks will fail prematurely due to manufacturing defects, most of the failures I've seen have been due to improper handling.
Yeah I've been cringing each time he handles any drive LOL
I've really enjoyed the first two videos on this subject but am having trouble finding the third (and others if available.) Can someone help me? Many kind thanks in advance! Best, Terry
Love this video! Question: what's the difference between one of these Synology setups and say an OWC Thunderbay drive setup? Is it the networking part of it?
Same question here. Thanks for asking.
Yes, the networking part is the difference. NAS = Network Attached Storage, but there are lots of USB/Thunderbolt RAID setups to be had as well.
This is a great video - thank you! Do you know when you might release the next in the series? Looking at buying a NAS in the next couple weeks... (fingers crossed for some Black Friday deals).
An excellent tome for beginner!! Well done!
My problem is finding a quality NAS, that I can hand directly off my computer as a work drive, which I'd mirror to a NAS unit on the network. I'm trying to find a good "NAS" type unit that I can hang off my computer via thunderbolt or USB-C, etc....rather than ethernet accessible. I'd like this to be my work drive and need the speed.
Any recommendations you might know of?
CC
A hard drive array with thunderbolt or USB connection?
Hey here second. Wow. Always enjoy your content
Hi Ben!!!!! Awesome to see you here!!
Very helpful. It might have been a bit more clear to track one example of total photo storage, e.g. 4T. Then, how many disks of what size would you use for total storage?? Why, can’t it be backup, except that it’s not offsite? Why can’t a configuration be 4T primary storage and another 4T for backup? Thanks for your help!
Great video as always :D. You do a great job of breaking down a very complex and imo exciting topic. I cant wait to see how you configure your setup over the next few videos. Personally I like to play fast and lose with raid 0 ;). But I have a very comprehensive backup system in place that mirrors my data onto a local server and then to an offsite as well. That said all that is on my personal setup at work things are so backed up you would not believe. Events are shot in triplicate on SD cards, local raid 1 disk, and cloud simultaneously. Then the footage is ingested to a server that is multisite resilient then copies are made from that master for editing. The editing machines are raid 1 and cloud redundant and well you get the point we are very resilient.