Photographer wants a NAS

[anand rathi]

Hi

I'm a photographer based in India. We run a small business that adds 3/4 tb of data every year to our library. We already have well built workstations which cater to most of the processor heavy work and also have reasonable storage of their own (4/5 tb internal).

This is where I need some help. We've been wanting to setup a very basic NAS system which (1) provides us with cheap storage (2) has a capacity of atleast 12tb (18 would be better)

Workflow wise, every editor would be copying the data from the NAS to their own workstation every time they edit, so the NAS will never be overburdened by too many I/Os at one time. Could someone suggest a basic build for our requirement. Don't need model numbers et al (because sometimes exact model numbers are not available here). Something like xx sata port mini itx mobo, xx gb ram, xx cpu, xx cooling would suffice.

Thanks so much for taking the time out for reading this.

Regards
A

 

[gpsguy]

See the thread: So you want some hardware suggestions Also take a look at cyberjock's guide

 

[cyberjock]

I will give you the standard answer for people that show up(we get a lot).

You have 2 options if you want to safely store your data.

1. Learn all this new FreeNAS stuff and become knowledgable in all things IT related to FreeNAS. If you don't already have some IT background you are going to spend significant time getting stuff right, making sure you aren't doing it wrong, etc. I've been in IT for more than 15 years and it took me a solid month to feel comfortable with trusting FreeNAS with data. Or...
2. Pay someone to build it.

If you aren't interested in spending the time to do #1, then you'd better expect to do #2. And make sure they aren't doing anything crazy. Ask them to provide you with a build and then drop it in the forums. If we rip it apart the guy shouldn't be building it for you. If we give it a blessing then he probably has the requisite knowledge to safely store your data.

You are a business, and losing data is definitely a bad thing. So you will also need to be concerned with some kind of backup regime. While your primary server may be built for performance, the backup can be less beefy on some specs. I'm not sure what kind of money you are looking to spend. FreeNAS systems aren't "cheap" but they are a lot less expensive than many alternatives(and far more reliable with the right admin).