{"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":"2024-08-15T12:26:42","modified_gmt":"2024-08-15T10:26:42","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 are NAS servers?<\/h2>\n\n

A NAS is such a drive bay. Most often on 2,4,6 (in the worst case only one) or more drives in one housing, which is equipped with an Ethernet connector, and sometimes but rarely Wi-Fi. They can be connected to a home or company router, which gives us access to the local network via Wi-Fi and LAN from many devices.<\/strong> You can often connect to your NAS over the Internet and have remote access to your files from anywhere, with Internet access. That is why it is often called a private cloud<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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

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

The primary function of NAS is to store files<\/strong>. Most of them allow you to stream photos, music and videos<\/strong> that we can play, for example, from a TV, computer or smartphone. They can also serve as a backup location for<\/strong> our devices. The more efficient ones have the ability to install all kinds of applications for recording video images from surveillance cameras, as servers for websites, mail or CMS systems.<\/strong> You can even run virtual machines<\/strong> on them, e.g. with operating systems.<\/p>\n\n

\"Qnap<\/figure>\n\n
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For photographers, it is primarily a place to backup photos<\/strong> or digital documents. Unlike disks on a USB cable, they are more convenient because we can connect to them via a local network or even remotely. Thanks to multi-disk solutions, we can use RAID<\/strong> arrays ( R<\/strong>edundant A<\/strong>rray of I<\/strong>ndependent D<\/strong>isks, Redundant array of independent disks).<\/p>\n\n

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

RAID<\/strong> gives us greater security (apart from RAID, 0 which consists in writing alternating data between two disks) because the data is written to two disks at the same time. So if one of them falls, we have the data on the other disk. This solution significantly reduces the risk, but does not eliminate it completely because in the worst case we can have failures of both disks, damage to the entire server by overvoltage, fire, flooding or theft.<\/p>\n

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

RAID<\/strong> also gives us the ability to combine several smaller disks into one disk pool that combines their capacity. Pools can be larger than the capacity of one hard drive, and their capacity depends on the RAID system used.<\/p>\n\n

A disk pool<\/strong> is a space that is mostly used to store our data, but before we do that, in order to save something about it, we need to create volumes. The volume can be compared to the hard drives in our computer, except that we ourselves determine their capacity from the available memory pool.<\/p>\n\n

Just like on the hard disk in the computer, we must have partitions on which we can put the system and upload files. In a NAS, shares play this role.<\/p>\n\n

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

I’ll start with the fact that my laptop has only 256GB of SSD<\/strong> which is not a problem for me, because I’m not a hamster. I also use Office 365, which gives me 1TB of cloud where I can put my current files and documents, and the less important ones are available on demand<\/strong>, so I can open them online in a browser, or download them to disk when I need them (on my computer I can see which files are available locally. I can also force them to still be available offline. In this way, I fit on a 256GB disk, but in the future I already want to switch to a 1TB SSD.<\/p>\n

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

In the case of a large number of photos, videos, and above all for large amounts of RAW files, online cloud services will not be able to cope, especially with my LTE mobile internet, which I have at home. With a good Internet, I would be tempted at most to synchronize the folder with the Lightroom directory to work with several computers. The directory is usually on my hard drive, but in my case I don’t have another laptop and I store a copy of the directory locally on my QNAP using QSync<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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

Infrastructure<\/h3>\n\n

I am using a QNAP TS-453Be<\/strong> connected with two Gigabit Ethernet cables to the Asus<\/strong> RT-AC86U<\/strong><\/a> router. Both devices are enclosed in a special shelf with ventilation holes and two fans to minimize noise and at the same time not fry the server. From the cabinet there are 3 Gigabit Ethernet cables in the wall. I put two of them at my desk and one of them runs to the TV. Despite this, the router is so efficient after wifi that it easily maintains the transfer rate of 830-1300 Mbps in the laptop so I can work in the entire 30m apartment.<\/p>\n\n

Use<\/h3>\n\n

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