{"id":32427,"date":"2021-05-17T07:06:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-17T05:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/urbanflavour.pl\/server-us-for-event-photographer\/"},"modified":"2026-10-05T07:39:42","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T05:39:42","slug":"server-us-for-event-photographer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/urbanflavour.pl\/en\/server-us-for-event-photographer\/","title":{"rendered":"NAS for the Photographer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What is a NAS server?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A NAS server is basically an enclosure for hard drives. Most often it holds 2, 4, 6 (or, at worst, just one) or more drives in a single case with an Ethernet port, and occasionally, though rarely, Wi-Fi too. You can plug it into your home or office router, which gives you access on the local network over Wi-Fi and LAN from many devices.<\/strong> You can often connect to a NAS over the internet too, so you get remote access to your files from anywhere with an internet connection. That is why it is often called a private cloud<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"NAS<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Advantages of NAS servers<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The basic function of a NAS server is file storage<\/strong>. Most of them let you stream photos, music and films<\/strong>, which you can play on a TV, computer or smartphone, for example. They can also serve as a backup location<\/strong> for our devices. The more powerful ones can run all sorts of apps, such as recording video from CCTV cameras, or working as web servers, mail servers or CMS platforms.<\/strong> You can even run virtual machines<\/strong> on them, for example with other operating systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Qnap<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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For photographers, it is above all a place for backups of photos,<\/strong> and of digital documents. Compared with drives on a USB cable, they are more convenient because we can connect to them over the local network, or even remotely. With multi-drive solutions we can use RAID<\/strong> arrays (R<\/strong>edundant A<\/strong>rray of I<\/strong>ndependent D<\/strong>isks).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"NAS<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

RAID<\/strong> gives us more security (apart from RAID 0, which writes data alternately across two drives) because the data is written to two drives at the same time. So if one of them fails, the data is still on the other drive. This greatly reduces the risk, but does not eliminate it completely, because in the worst case both drives can fail, or the whole server can be damaged by a power surge, fire, flooding or theft.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Division<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

RAID<\/strong> also lets us combine several smaller drives into one storage pool that adds up their capacity. Pools can be larger than a single hard drive, and their capacity depends on the RAID level used.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A storage pool<\/strong> is space that is mostly used to store our data, but before we can save anything on it, we have to create volumes. A volume can be compared to the hard drives in our computer, except that we decide their capacity ourselves from the available pool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just as on a computer’s hard drive we need partitions on which we can install a system and copy files, on a NAS server this role is played by shares.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do I use my server as a photographer?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I will start by saying that my laptop has only a 256GB SSD<\/strong>, which is not a problem for me, because I am not a hoarder. I also use Office 365, which gives me 1TB of cloud storage where I keep my current files and documents, while the less important ones are available on demand<\/strong>, so I can open them online in a browser or download them to the drive when I need them (on the computer I can see which files are available locally. I can also force them to stay available offline all the time). That way I fit on a 256GB drive, but in the future I want to move to a 1TB SSD.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"OneDrive<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

With large numbers of photos and films, and above all large numbers of RAW files, online cloud services cannot cope, especially with the mobile LTE internet I have at home. With a good connection I would, at most, be tempted to sync a folder with the Lightroom catalogue to work across several computers. The catalogue normally lives on the hard drive, but in my case I have no other laptop, and I keep a copy of the catalogue locally on my QNAP using the QSync<\/strong> app.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Qsync<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Infrastructure<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I use a QNAP TS-453Be<\/strong> connected with two Gigabit Ethernet cables to an Asus<\/strong> RT-AC86U<\/strong><\/a> router. Both devices sit in a special shelf unit with ventilation holes and two fans, to keep the noise down without frying the server. Three Gigabit Ethernet cables run from the cabinet through the wall. I put two of them at the desk, and one goes to the TV. Even so, the router is powerful enough over Wi-Fi to hold a transfer rate of 830-1300 Mbps on my laptop, so I can work anywhere in my 30 sq m flat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uses<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I mainly use the NAS server as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n