A Guide to NAS for Photos - Before You Buy

[@dancarpenter419]

This is great info. The only reason I want a NAS is for saving and protecting photos.

[@jinx0192]

I bought a Monument Labs NAS for photo backup only. Brilliant little machine. They are coming out with a new one this summer. They update their software often and I never had a problem with it. Worth a look if your someone like me who wanted to get photos in one area from computers and cell phone and iPods.

[@d4videna]

I bought what I could find in stock... given all the various shortages! Will report back once I’m fully migrated

[@Leoniums100]

So which nas should we choose? What do you think? For photos, index using mobile?

[@apiwatikkyu]

Can you please review recent NAS Android apps for photo management/backup?

[@jonathanptaylor]

Really informative video as ever. It would be great to have a version of this for DIY NAS users covering what applications are available to deploy on systems based on the likes of TrueNAS and UnRAID.

[@donsylvester5275]

PLEASE increase the volume of your videos?! I enjoy your videos and learn plenty ... but they're all too quiet. I'm often forced to use BT headphones. And no, its not my bad hearing or my bad PC speakers. Most other videos provide reasonable volume ... yours stand out as way too quiet. Just trying to help! EXCELLENT topic to cover!! You could go waaaay deeper on this subject as I'm sure there is a huge audience. So many folks primary use for a "home NAS" is to store their photos/videos. Me too.

[@ryanreyes5440]

I wish I knew about the Google stripping away the meta data from the photos. What a pain this process has been.

[@alenshah]

For DIY NAS what app you recommend to backup videos and photos?

[@AhmedG9]

I'm searching for good NAS as alternative for Google photos,... Is building PC with turenas good option?

[@lauriet5987]

Thanks! This is a very helpful starting point researching NAS for photo storage.

[@frank444]

One more great video. Can I move my Apple Photos Library, which currently is stored on my iMAc (not in iCloud) to a Synology NAS (DS920+) and keep on working with my fotos (using Pixelmator Pro as editor) as I do now?

[@sandmanxx6049]

ROBBIE! We -need- a Synology photos setup video for android and/or mac app I can't get photos to automatically upload-update until I get home, even if Wifi only is UNcheckled in the app. An idiot-proof video would be great. Thanks!

[@ajt22]

NAS's have come on a long way. I didn't realise AI on photos was such a thing in the NAS world.

[@Garou0410]

useful video. Good and helpful information. Thank you

[@nlpx]

What would be the best choice if foto editing in lightroom or darktable is preferred? syncing every image (mobile/dslr) to the nas and then?

[@MaSi84]

NAS with docker container with photo editor? Is it possible?

[@georgewashington3012]

Nice NAS guide. I’m finding it helpful.

[@x3merx3mer]

Nobody talks about difference in HDD performance in photo world. ...how important/different it is to use CMR vs SMR vs SSD vs HDD+SSDcache for photos?? My drives are grinding and struggling with every operation, so i'm wondering whats the best choice to improve it.

[@acavals8080]

A bunch of important information! Thanks a lot

[@nascompares]

Cheers buddy

[@wvansluisveld3011]

I've just been trying out QuTS Cloud to see if I'd ever get used to the interface of QNAP. When aiming to try out QuMagie it is asking for a monthly subscription fee of $10/month or $99/year. Is it really the case that you're stuck to this subscription if you want to manage photos on a QNAP NAS? This would be a complete and total deal breaker and a good reason not to buy anything from this brand. If this comes for free with the NAS they are stupid for making it appear as a paid service in their demo environment. First impressions are not good. Being used to DSM it also looks very inconsistent and cluttered to me. Like a 16 year old X-Box fanatic has performed UI design.

[@mattschoular8844]

Thanks Rob

[@Jacknjellify531.]

Just the video i was looking for, do you suggest some models in particular which has all the features u mentioned?

[@JJRobinson92]

Great video. I am currently trying to figure out what to do with my google photos. I exported my library and it was 1.4 TB. However, here is one correction... All the metadata came with most the photos. There were some that came out without the metadata, but those were mostly random screenshots and stuff that had been backed up. But with most the photos, metadata came with. I have even started uploading to a new google account and all the metadata got re-uploaded to the new account. I'm not sure if that is a recent change or not, but it worked for me. I found your channel while looking for NAS solutions. Any recommendations? I have around a 400-500 budget. Looking to have about 6tb of usable storage after raid. Total noob to all this so any guidance would be appreciated.

[@ahoogs13]

That's what I found as well. I am currently using a synology ds920+ ($550) and it works great. Be ready for the indexing to take over a day with that many photos.

[@DryUrEyesMate]

Hi, I still would not buy a Qnap as still, they do not have an option to help you with duplicate photos

[@epsig1507]

"Indexing is for the system to know where your photos are" Yes, but it's more than that. The system knows where your photos are the moment you setup the Photos folder, that's it. Indexing is the process to build an index to access photos more efficiently. Reading photos from the Photos folder sequentially is too slow, an index can do that much more efficiently, but it need to be built and refreshed

[@topgazza]

I don’t want AI. I hate it when you are semi forced down this route. I store pictures by folder and by specific event such as Majorca 2010. Or Garden 2018. All of those I want to create myself. Then I don’t need to search and get every garden shot I’ve ever taken for instance

[@cenk82]

In synology photos, the file indexing is staying as you have created them. No changing on that system. It is doing the AI, additionally as a "plus".

[@markhamilton8765]

@@cenk82is there a way to turn the AI off?

[@cenk82]

@ ask gpt bro, i have no idea.

[@MrGarrettgrillo]

Great detail and information!

[@Heymikejohnston]

Thats a really useful video - thanks. I have really struggled with setting up and using my NAS. I'm a photographer not a computer expert. Everyone I ask about NASs looks at me blankly. Where is the best place for photographer-specific advice on NASs their set up and use?

[@TiziM]

Did qnap fix the live photo problem?

[@tulypo]

Hi I am thinking of buying a NAS, I am between DS1821 + and Asustor Lockerstor 8 AS6508T, the latter has better features, but Synology has better photo software, do you think ASUS will match this aspect with mobile options to upload photos? Greetings and thanks for everything

[@pascalchiasson8929]

will the synology index RAW files and AI ?

[@ollejarleborg1207]

Thank´s for a great video ! However I faced a problem when I have moved my photos to the Moments folder in Drive. I can´t see any photos ? How can I forward the photos from the Drive app ?

[@lilrr1431]

Hello. Thank you. Please help me decide which one i should get i have about i would like about say 8tb worth of backup. I have not used cloud. Should i get nas and which i have alot of really old photos in my conputer etc. and also do i still need a cloud aswell as nas as its a physical backup?

[@GamerFromJump]

I really want a NAS that I can auto backup photos from my phone, and also share to family and friends easily.

[@scd6969]

incredibly valuable channel. thank you.. +1 sub you are an amazing speaker

[@ChinLimHow]

Hi, how to move google photo to Qnap NAS?

[@sandorszenas943]

Hi i have a problem could you help me? I have a qnap 453be and it dead , i used 2 8tb wd purple hdd raid 1 , how can i get my data back

[@Mike0193Azul]

I 100% need Ai photo recognition for my thousands of photos

[@HansOttoBordvik]

Is there any way to retain Albums and AI recognition made in G Photos when moving over to Photo Gallery 3 (NIMBUSTOR 4 AS5304T)?

[@MiniKodjo]

Indexing takes months

[@toytalks7541]

Anyone having problem in importing photo to Mac Photo Library which living on NAS?

[@mrpcakes]

my photos are in its own backup folder. should i move them into /photo folder or just copy to that folder.

[@cenk82]

You should keep them as it is, as you filed them. But just copy them into either /photo or for personal folder which is /username/photos or something like that.

[@AbgYak]

Just wanna share that ive dumped 100k photos & 500 videos worth 600GB on my DS220J and has been indexing for 4 days straight and its still at 21% .... found some photos are upside down... wonder how the NAS can sort this out....

[@EnriqueIsa]

Hey how is your da220j holding up 1 year later? Was it good enough?

[@alexandrpaslari5254]

Could you please advise, what is the best starting nas for synology moments? I have big library (around 2tb), now I’m using ds220j and it’s taking ages to index all this. I’m considering to upgrade to ds220+. Thank you

[@cenk82]

After purcahing ds200+, you should also manually upgrade to DSM 7.0 to use synology photos, which is the better version of moments.

[@HL-fk8wq]

What I value the most of cloud service is the video streaming. Yeah, you may feel it is nonsense since NAS can streaming as well, but here is my story. I recently received a Synology entry-level nas. My initial idea was the store photos, videos and share with family half global far away. But it turns out I can't even play the upload video on my phone even in the same LAN. I was quite disappointed. I am still learning how to handle that, but for now, online cloud has its unique advantage for my scenario.

[@HL-fk8wq]

Alright, I have got the issue partly solved , it is about the setting of moments, instead of https,one should use http, simple as that. The other part of issue fully depends on the network capacity, not really the issue of nas.

[@TheoSmith249]

@@HL-fk8wq What size NAS did you get. I'm considering getting a 6 bay 24TB for a family with 30k images

[@HL-fk8wq]

@@TheoSmith249 I have two 3T HD, with SHR. So far it works well for me.

[@EnriqueIsa]

Hey which entry level Nas you got? How is it holding up? Tried the Synology photos demo, uploaded a video and could not get it to play smoothly at all

[@bbdj2779]

99.9% of photo professionals, and those serious enough to be looking for NAS storage for their photography will unlikely ever use the AI or be interested in the indexing on a NAS, as they will already be HEAVILY invested in software libraries such as Lightroom or Capture One where their photos are carefully managed, tagged, have thumbnails generated, indexed, and edited. It would be nice if these programs could utilise the hardware of a NAS for the AI and thumbnail generation, but I doubt that’s possible. What these users care about in a NAS, is speed of access to their libraries housed on a NAS (how long it takes to load and browse through hundreds/thousands of thumbnails), reliability, ability to access remotely, security, and how to keep many TB of photos properly backed up… ultimately looking for an answer to whether a multi-drive NAS running something like Synology’s SHR is a reliable enough solution?

[@sriramh]

After weeks of research on various NAS devices, I built my own and it’s running windows 10 😂 ... raid 1 . For less than the price of a synology 2 bay nas. Now I wonder why people go for such company made dedicated nas devices rather than building their own which is cheaper , expandable, upgradable and super powerful in terms of performance

[@dancarpenter419]

Did u build it using an old pc ? I was thinking of doing the same thing

[@sriramh]

@@dancarpenter419 Yes Dan... works so nice...

[@cenk82]

For me, the reason is electricity cost.

[@Zaclauck]

With synology photos - Will iPhones automatically back up photos without needing to open up the app. (Even if the app is not minimized)

[@nathan12581]

It is possible for apps to do that using the background app refresh api on swift. So no, it’s not a limitation on iOS, more a task Synology will have to do.

[@Zaclauck]

@@nathan12581 can you explain a little more how that works, not familiar with swift

[@nathan12581]

@@Zaclauck sorry, you won’t be able to do anything about it. It’s up to Synology to add it to their app - which I’m sure they will it’s still in beta. The best you can do is open the app and use your phone without closing the app fully

[@janphilipmahncke3197]

On Android that works properly!

[@S0L1D_]

Does this really need to be a 20-min video?

[@nascompares]

That very much depends on how much you want to spend on your NAS and how seriously you take your data safety.

[@nassimabed]

I've been watching tons of your videos. The more I learn about Synology, the more I am convinced I should avoid it like the plague. Why does a hard disk want to be an operating system? It's a contrived philosophy. Really. What next, Synology attached to a monitor? Jeez.

[@mongini1]

buy a used PC, get unraid - if you like to tinker a bit - and have unlimited possibilities ^^

[@Lucy-dk5cz]

Thumbnail generation is almost pointless....any tog that needs the storage of a nas is going to be using like a program like LR or C1 which renders its own previous and doesn’t touch thumbnails. While you know a lot to do with NAS you know almost nothing how photographers use them

[@nascompares]

Umm... You realise thumbnails are generated by the system for use in alot of applications outside of photo editing suites? I mean..you don't just hear the word thumbnails and just assume that the photos on a NAS and preview images are just for editing... While you know a lot to do with Lightroom and Capture One, you know almost nothing about how everyone uses thumbnails... Jeez...

[@Lucy-dk5cz]

NASCompares your video is about nas for photos/photography. I was pointing out that almost no photographer needs thumbnails as from the time they are culling to exporting we are inside of suites. I was mentioning this as a large portion of the video is discussing irrelevant points

[@EViL3666]

That UPS on the desk, says Fujitsu, but I swear its APC...

[@mohpilot2001]

Blew my mind explaining soooooo long

[@manucohen16]

can i create 2 different synology photo accounts on the same synology account? thanks