Are you thinking of buying another lens? Can’t wait for a new body? (In my case, reincarnation was the only option). This article covers the main reason why I Synology DS1821+ is the best purchase I have made in 2020 for my photography business.
Where did I start?
I, like most of my suspicions, started my photography career by storing my images on old hard drives, CDs, DVDs, and memory cards (eventually). When I finally decided to switch to being a full-time photographer (since 2008), the thought that I needed to merge my images into one location meant buying a massive 2 TB hard drive. It cost a fortune back then, and I thought, “It’s going to take me a while to fill it up.” Turns out I was wrong. It took about a year. Since then, backing up has become cheaper and more accessible with cloud storage and smaller hard drives the size of a credit card at incredible speeds, but the demand for accessible storage Concentration has never been greater.
Buy one Synology DS1821+ (We’ll just call this my “NAS” in this article, for the sake of my word count!) is a big decision. It was an expensive purchase for me and I’ve had the DS1815+ for a few years now with no problems. The drives inside it have been individually replaced a few times, but the enclosure continues to function despite multiple power cuts and surges. This is one of the reasons I’ve been with Synology for so many years (I’ve experimented with so many other makes and models in my job role). For me, reliability and speed are far ahead, even though the NAS looks sleek and glamorous as hell. Can a NAS look glamorous? I said yes, really!
Why DS1821+?
Efficiency
The previous NAS had two Gigabit Ethernet ports on the back, and while data aggregation was available, transferring data across the two ports meant a global throughput of 2,000 Mbps. To elaborate: if multiple people are using my NAS to access files, with one cable plugged into the back Ethernet port, it slows down fetching content on it, but when more cables are plugged in, it does. will propagate requests across multiple cables, like having a computer processor with more cores. The new NAS has four Gigabit ports, giving a theoretical top speed of 4,000 Mbps, with an expansion port slot for 10 or 25 GB cards if I decide to install one when upgrading every other step in the entry chain. a day later. If I decide I need faster access, I can add two M.2 NVMe drives that cache recently used files for faster and more efficient delivery.
Ability of extension
There’s nothing worse than running out of space on your drive when you have to archive work, right? My NAS solves this problem by using SHR (Synology Hybrid RAID) instead of RAID 5 and SHR-2 in place of RAID 6. A traditional RAID 5 array won’t see drives with higher capacities like the size. their actual size when installed after the array was initially created. SHR allows this with a few minor caveats. Let me give you an example of how it works in your favor. I will use 1 TB drive size as an example for ease of understanding. In a standard RAID 5 configuration 4, the 1 TB drive provides 3 TB of usable capacity, just like the SHR. Now imagine if you want, that one of those drives fails, and the RAID 5 capability allows you to read from the drive while the array is in a failed state, you replace it with drive 2 TB (they’re just cheap right now, 1 TB after all, right?). This will only show up as 3 TB of usable space, as RAID 5 will only recognize this as a 1 TB drive. The same goes for SHR until you replace the other drive with a replacement 2 TB drive. Then, SHR’s aggregation allows you to increase storage capacity and take advantage of the additional space, giving you 4 TB of usable space. There is a computer RAID space on the Synology website This if you want to see what the different combinations yield. My point is that when your system is full, you can plan to increase the storage capacity by purchasing an additional drive, placing it in excess space and expanding the array, or by changing each drive. one for higher capacity drives (remember you need to give them enough time to rebuild). This means that for a system you buy in 2020, for example, as long as the case is in working order (Synology has replacement parts available to buy if the fan stops working), the capacity can increase over time. Even if you manage to fill this capacity up to 108 TB, which is the maximum single drive size, you can still add additional expansion units your way. Synology DX517, plugged in via the E-SATA 2 port on the back panel, and then added to the array. I use Seagate Iron Wolf drives in my array now, but used before WD Red that’s just as good.
reliability
The previous device, the DS1815+, was reliable. It’s outlasted anything else I have technologically, and the only real reason to upgrade is because it’s newer, faster, and more compatible with the new DSM software version 7. DS1815+ has upgraded to version 6.2, which still works and is great, but the newer version offers more features. Plus, with my engineer mindset, there’s only a certain amount of time that a piece of hardware can work, and I’ve pushed past the limits of what I can get out of it in 5 years. I gave it to my friend and fellow photographer Steve, who is still using it with no problems to this day, technically it’s been working for 8 years and still works fine. Newer NAS is compatible with more UPSs, has faster RAM and NVMe compatibility, and performs better.
accessibility
The ways to access this are great. I can download files anywhere in the world over my mobile network or Wi-Fi on my mobile phone, tablet or computer. Synology quick connect service (free with Synology sign in) is awesome. I enter my username and it looks like I’m there before the thing. This means that if I’m on the outskirts of Mongolia (I’ve never been, but if someone is willing to sponsor me, I’ll test this in real time) and I have an internet signal, I have can access your files and share them with customers. I can use my phone apps and it’s great that I can get my stuff anywhere.
Featured
Besides the obvious, there are a number of features that make this a great purchase. The included apps are great. Cloud sync allows me to connect to a variety of cloud-based backup services (I use BackBlaze, but there are many more available). It allows for scheduled, incremental sync so it doesn’t take up valuable resources as I work on it. My kids have movies stored on them so they can watch them in any room of the house. (Remember, I mentioned many people using the NAS at the same time. Do you think I mean my colleagues? I mean my little ones!) There are four USB ports- 3 on the device, which means I can plug in a drive and transfer stuff to it in no time, which is great if I also transfer the wedding files to the main drive on the fly. The ability to quickly rebuild and scale is very important to me, and with the speed of the intranet, I can edit directly from the drive if I create a preview in Lightroom with no lag or lag. .
In short
This is the kit piece I use every day. It’s not cheap, but it will last me for a long time. My father used to say, “buy cheap, buy double” and that’s the best advice I’ve received. I want to add to that and say plan well, save hard and buy specifically. Thanks for reading.
If you liked this article, you might want to read an article I wrote about managing your photo files This.
If you’re in the states, B&H has this at the time of writing for $999. This enclosure is a bargain, as it costs over a thousand dollars in the UK.
