Anyone edit photos off a NAS over WiFi?

[thekillergazebo]

So I wanted to see if anyone edits their photos off a NAS over WiFi? I am currently editing off an external HDD, but I want to see if anyone here has done the aforementioned approach and see what issues and limitations they have had. 

[Megabikerjoe]

I did for a while, wasn't too great of an experience. Using Lightroom 5 with an AC-Router and a synology ds411j

[1823alex]

I tried doing this with Lightroom 6 before, it was extremely slow. I definitely DO NOT recommend unless you absolutely have too. Even when I was hardwired to the network and the NAS was hardwired as well. It was fairly slow especialy, when trying to cull through the photos. I usually edit off an external HDD with USB 3.0 and haven't had any issues so far. I try to backup the entire HDD to my NAS every week or so and then I have the NAS backed up to Unlimited Google Drive via RClone every Sunday at like 4 AM.

[d3sl91]

I did so inadvertently awhile back when I unplugged my ethernet and forgot to plug it back in so it was using wireless, but it was not that great of an experience. Any benefits of wireless versus wired were nullified by the purely poor experience. 

 

I would definitely recommend hardwired if you can - and as a side note, would recommend backing up that external if you don't already - problem just waiting to happen!

[thekillergazebo]

Interesting feedback. I’ve been doing the HDD thing and I back it up to another HDD with CCC, but these new MacBook Pros drive me nuts with dongles. Was hoping for a solution so I can lay in bed or move around and edit. 

 

16 hours ago, 1823alex said:

I tried doing this with Lightroom 6 before, it was extremely slow. I definitely DO NOT recommend unless you absolutely have too. Even when I was hardwired to the network and the NAS was hardwired as well. It was fairly slow especialy, when trying to cull through the photos. I usually edit off an external HDD with USB 3.0 and haven't had any issues so far. I try to backup the entire HDD to my NAS every week or so and then I have the NAS backed up to Unlimited Google Drive via RClone every Sunday at like 4 AM.

When you back up your drive to the NAS do you move it all over in lightroom and then it clears the drive?

[Revamp]

I did as well as the aforementioned posts, when using lightroom and photoshop it was a terrible terrible experience. Previewing large raw images (especially when you come home with 1k photos to go through), as well as stitching panoramas was hair pulling slow.

[HiddenFox]

I use my NAS for my storage only, I often copy my SD card to a folder on my editing pc and then once I'm finished, I put them on my NAS and upload jpegs to my google photos. Guess you need to find the right workflow that suits your style. Any question just quote me and I'll get back to you.

[xQubeZx]

I think it depends a lot on what router you have and what speeds you can reach. But a hardwired setup would be ideal. The speed of the NAS will be important too. Intersting idea though to edit wirelessly. Maybe should setup a quick thing to try it and see if it works. 

[thekillergazebo]

3 hours ago, xQubeZx said:

I think it depends a lot on what router you have and what speeds you can reach. But a hardwired setup would be ideal. The speed of the NAS will be important too. Intersting idea though to edit wirelessly. Maybe should setup a quick thing to try it and see if it works. 

Maybe we can see if @LinusTech can do a video on it? I need the ultimate lazy way to edit my photos and be mobile in my house

[d3sl91]

5 hours ago, thekillergazebo said:

Maybe we can see if @LinusTech can do a video on it? I need the ultimate lazy way to edit my photos and be mobile in my house

You can do it now, it will just be "slow".

 

Now, this is subjective. If you are a professional culling and editing a 2k image shoot where every minute is worth money - it will be more of an issue. 

 

If you are just doing so for fun with a few dozen images - it will work just fine. 

[xQubeZx]

2 hours ago, d3sl91 said:

You can do it now, it will just be "slow".

 

Now, this is subjective. If you are a professional culling and editing a 2k image shoot where every minute is worth money - it will be more of an issue. 

 

If you are just doing so for fun with a few dozen images - it will work just fine. 

If you can get a 100/100 connection to the router it maybe it is fast enough for the average 24mp raw files (~20-30Mb). Considering how painfully slow Lr is the speed might not be and issue. 

 

80Mbit = 10Mb 

 

I have editied off a external drive over USB2 and I barley notice any difference with that over an internal HDD. The USB2 interface is capped at 30Mb/s right? That means a 100/100 connection would leave you a third of that speed which may be too slow. However a lot of new routers easily support way higher speeds than 100/100 so if you can just get a 300/300 to the router and a gigabit connection to the NAS it should theroetically work kinda good. I think the biggest issue will be the laptops wifi card. I donno how fast these usally is but that is a bottleneck that is hard to fix. 

 

If I have time this weekend I may be able to do some tests. Setup my desktop as a ”nas” and see if I would be able to edit the files on it over wifi on my laptop. (I’m afraid my wifi card is pretty shitty on it though compared to my router) 

[thekillergazebo]

3 hours ago, xQubeZx said:

If you can get a 100/100 connection to the router it maybe it is fast enough for the average 24mp raw files (~20-30Mb). Considering how painfully slow Lr is the speed might not be and issue. 

 

80Mbit = 10Mb 

 

I have editied off a external drive over USB2 and I barley notice any difference with that over an internal HDD. The USB2 interface is capped at 30Mb/s right? That means a 100/100 connection would leave you a third of that speed which may be too slow. However a lot of new routers easily support way higher speeds than 100/100 so if you can just get a 300/300 to the router and a gigabit connection to the NAS it should theroetically work kinda good. I think the biggest issue will be the laptops wifi card. I donno how fast these usally is but that is a bottleneck that is hard to fix. 

 

If I have time this weekend I may be able to do some tests. Setup my desktop as a ”nas” and see if I would be able to edit the files on it over wifi on my laptop. (I’m afraid my wifi card is pretty shitty on it though compared to my router) 

This gives me hope. I have a google onhub router and when I test it and check the speeds between it and my phone it said my speed is 235 mbps so maybe their is hope

[xQubeZx]

6 hours ago, thekillergazebo said:

This gives me hope. I have a google onhub router and when I test it and check the speeds between it and my phone it said my speed is 235 mbps so maybe their is hope

Maybe. Just need to test and see if it works. But I think it could if you make sure all parts of the ”system” are fast enough.