NAS or ext. HDD

[dacav5fan]

hi guys, i'm looking for a storage solution for my photo library.

I'm looking for a 6+Tb solution, which is fast enough to edit those photos with lightroom and photoshop.

The Photos are in Raw format, so they take about 20-30mb storage.

What would u say i should buy? A fast Nas (how many bays?) or just an external usb 3 / thunderbold2 drive?

it would be cool if i could connect it to two computers (imac/ win).

thx in advance

 

PS: i'm from germany so europe Pricing would be cool:P

[N4dez]

I would go with a nas, but this has a few requirements. If you want to run a nas everything goes over the network, so make sure that your local network can handle it and won't slow it down.
A nas comes with a way higher price tag and you need some basic storage and networking knowledge to set it up.

A nas is more reliable and you could set up a raid array, so if a hard drive fails, you don't lose your data like an external hdd.
You can't take a nas with you, Your data will be stored home. There are some options to turn your NAS in a cloud thing so you can acces them from outside the local network but not every nas supports this and i have no idea how good this actually works.

An external hard drive is way cheaper and it's mobile, depending on your local network it will be slower or faster then a nas. 

 

[dacav5fan]

I would go with a nas, but this has a few requirements. If you want to run a nas everything goes over the network, so make sure that your local network can handle it and won't slow it down.

A nas comes with a way higher price tag and you need some basic storage and networking knowledge to set it up.

A nas is more reliable and you could set up a raid array, so if a hard drive fails, you don't lose your data like an external hdd.

You can't take a nas with you, Your data will be stored home. There are some options to turn your NAS in a cloud thing so you can acces them from outside the local network but not every nas supports this and i have no idea how good this actually works.

An external hard drive is way cheaper and it's mobile, depending on your local network it will be slower or faster then a nas. 

 

Well i already have the WD My Cloud so i think my network could handle it, but its kinda annoying to connect everytime then i boot my pc to the drive:/ and a nas with 4 bays is like 450€ without any drives and for example the lacie d2 6Tb is like 480€, so i think if i take a nas with 6 tb it would cost me like 710€ and thats a huge different:/

[N4dez]

If you have a WD My Cloud, You could just mount it under a drive letter in windows, so you can access it really quick.
Here is a small tutorial on that

 

I don't know exactly what you mean by booting my pc to the drive? Have you installed windows on it or some stort and boot from it over the network? Because that would be really weird.

And a good NAS indeed cost's a lot of money. What's the model number of your WD MyCloud?

[dacav5fan]

If you have a WD My Cloud, You could just mount it under a drive letter in windows, so you can access it really quick.

Here is a small tutorial on that

 

I don't know exactly what you mean by booting my pc to the drive? Have you installed windows on it or some stort and boot from it over the network? Because that would be really weird.

And a good NAS indeed cost's a lot of money. What's the model number of your WD MyCloud?

well i did that thing with the drive letter in windows and everytime i boot my pc i have to connect manually to the drive. so click on it with the explorer and then it starts connecting and its really annoying that it doesn't connect automatically:/

 

thats my cloud :

http://www.amazon.de/Cloud-Pers%C3%B6nlicher-Cloud-Speicher-Zoll-wei%C3%9F/dp/B00FOKN7B0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1428914703&sr=8-1&keywords=wd+my+cloud+3tb

[N4dez]

Do you need to login if you connect the first time?
This sounds really stupid and annoying, maybe there is a setting to remember the session or something like that.
I'm running a custom build freenas setup as a nas, and i get immediate acces on my nas every time. And i didn't have to change anything for that.
I have never used a MyCloud or seen one IRL, so this is kinda out of my knowledge.

[dacav5fan]

Do you need to login if you connect the first time?

This sounds really stupid and annoying, maybe there is a setting to remember the session or something like that.

I'm running a custom build freenas setup as a nas, and i get immediate acces on my nas every time. And i didn't have to change anything for that.

I have never used a MyCloud or seen one IRL, so this is kinda out of my knowledge.

well i have 2 users on the cloud one admin ( me ) and another one and i don't have to log in with my username but i have to click on "connect/reconnect" or sth like that. well i think i might just buy a cheap synology 2 bay nas(160€) with 2x 4tb (150€ each) and that would be the cheapest option^^

[N4dez]

well i have 2 users on the cloud one admin ( me ) and another one and i don't have to log in with my username but i have to click on "connect/reconnect" or sth like that. well i think i might just buy a cheap synology 2 bay nas(160€) with 2x 4tb (150€ each) and that would be the cheapest option^^

Maybe there is some auto connect option in windows.

You could go hardcore and write a batch script that runs at start up to auto connect to it.