However, I'm not exactly thrilled about the google photos app and interface. It's rather clunky in my opinion.

My thing is one of the points you brought up initially, I dont want all my stuff in the cloud. Storage drives have come way down in price and you dont have to have a server, I just did that because there are 9+ devices that get backed up here. Most newer routers have usb 3.0 ports on them that you can attach a 4Tb HDD to it and call it a day. :tup:

RAID 5 NAS locally FTW. Parity for drive failure and you can make it as big or as small as you want :twocents:

Godaddy offers 100GB online storage for like $35 per year - they have a program for daily backup. I also use Dropbox for the occasional image or video sharing - I referred a bunch of people early on and have like 10 GB of free storage with them.

Yes, for the foreseeable future, basically our entire lives (in pics/video) would be in the cloud. Maybe it's me getting old, but that just doesn't sit entirely well with me.

I've been looking at some Local NAS set ups for the house. How good/reliable are these? What types/brands of HDD do you IT folks prefer/recommend?

Also for those with a local NAS, what app do you use for external uploading/viewing? How are the access speeds? I know a lot of it is dependent on the internet speeds at the house as well.

I was actually just deciding I need to start looking at this stuff for the office. Our 750 GB drives cost over $500 back in the day - I can practically quadruple storage for 1/4 of that price now. But we'll need a new NAS unit, too.

I like the Qnap products - 4-bay unit in the x31P or x51 series look decent. Right now we're running a Netgear 4 bay unit (solid for over 5 years). Need to do more research on HDs. WD is always decent but gotta make sure you get the right line for your application.

Cant go wrong with Western Digital. They have had the most up time for me. Seagate have the worst failure rate for me, to the tune of about 300% vs. WD.
My faves:
https://www.amazon.com/Red-3TB-Hard-.../dp/B008JJLW4M

I believe the WD reds? are the ones for NAS units? I will take a gander at Qnap devices.

As a local NAS, would RAID 5 be overkill? Any reason why I should go 5 over 1? Note that I'm looking at two drive setups, but open to better suggestions from more knowledgeable folks!

NAS is connected to your LAN, so however fast the connection to your router is. Wired or wireless can make a difference as well as the NAS itself. High bandwidth (HD) streaming is something that needs thought put into these connections. Most photo hosting and light traffic use won't need too much bandwidth.

If you're hosting from the NAS itself, your internet upload speed is going to be the limiting factor. But you don't have to do this - you can use the NAS for storage and still use online services for image hosting and backup. I don't upload every picture I take to the web. I save them all on my computer (or NAS) and then upload specific, relevant pics as needed. Usually either through the forum or temporary hosting site like Imgur or tinypic. I use Dropbox and my online storage for more permanent sharing solutions, but I typically keep those private.

95% of the time we'll be uploading pictures to the NAS in the house so not a big deal BUT I know my wife will want access remotely to view the albums to show her friends and family so I'll have to host.

Yah Ohio folks are so faking stupid dey shipped using 2 day service instead of ground.

If ground I probably get it tomorrow since FedEx. If 2 day earliest is Tues.


These folks are so faking stupid.

India customer service > Ohio customer service.

Parity and performance in one. RAID 5 is never overkill. If you value your data at all, RAID 5 is the minimum IMNSHO. It gives the parity of a RAID 1 (mirrored) combined with the improved performance of a RAID 0 (striped).

But obviously there are increased costs. Typically you have to get a 4 bay unit (3 bay is enough but make sure it supports RAID 5), which costs more than 2 bay units. And you have at least one additional drive (3 minimum).

So if you have all of the data on your NAS backed up on a separate portable HDs regularly as well as an online storage solution, and you don't need the additional performance boost then you might feel comfortable saving a few bucks and just running a 2 bay RAID 1 NAS :twocents:

An online solution might be ok for limited sharing (so many photo websites just get overloaded if you go overboard), but if you just want to share everything a NAS server is going to probably be easiest. RAID 5 will definitely be best for hosting - get four drives and that way if one fails, the RAID doesn't go down.

Thinking about this, the cheapest solution I can think of is a router with the HDD attached.
This would give you the ability to access them easily where ever you are and on almost all devices. Here is s snippet of info i snagged from the web on the router I use.

Obviously this is the bare bones but at least a temp solution until you want to set up the NAS.

I like that it works with Alexa :icon17: