First NAS for Direct photo editing

I purchased a SynologyDS215j in 2015 before my business kicked off, I shoot newborns/portraits/landscapes and have recently kicked my business off( at the ripe old age of 58) I realize my career won’t be a hugely long one in terms of time so my needs and budget will reflect on my choices. I run a 27″ iMac (2016) and am thinking the Synology unit with theWD 4Tb reds will be more than enough for my needs as I set up – will it be easy to migrate to a larger 5 bay as/if my needs require?? I’d love to be able to work from the files on the NAS and not have them on the iMac drive unless needed – but realize this will not work without significant dollar input with a high spec machine, so working with local storage/time machine / NAS would be the way to go????

For files around 20-50MB each, you can get DS218+. It is not that much about NAS spec but more about connection sped between a NAS and your computer. For files bigger than 50-100MB I would suggest considering 10GbE network solution like DS1817 (not all drive bays need to be filled with drives) or TS-253B from Qnap which supports 10GbE card installation. The upgrade process from 2 bay NAS to a bigger option will be as easy as putting old drives into a new NAS and clicking “next” few times.  If you are considering new drives, then WD Red will be recommended as they are more energy saving and quieter.

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What can I connect to a NAS?

Wireless Speaker Sonos

The great thing about Sonos is that you don't need to pay for music subscription service. With the cheapest NAS at home like DS115j or any other, you can have your backups done for all of your devices and still use your network drive as a Sonos music library. Sonos will connect to your NAS via your network and let access your provided music library. If you have little more of IT knowledge, you can even set up your Alexa or Sonos with Alexa built in to play music on your voice commands ("Alexa! Ask DS Audio to Play Music!").

Casting devices

Nowadays it is so cheap to upgrade your old TV and make it smart. All you need is Google Chrome or EZcast alternative plugged into your HDMI port at the back of your TV. Now you have great functionality added to your TV to send a video file directly from your NAS to a TV. No need for wires and chargers and other mess. You can use your phone as a remote to go to your movies or family videos and cast that content on your TV during family or friend gatherings.

 

Apple TV

Amazon Fire TV

You may not have a smartphone, or you just simply prefer to control your content with a remote in that case Amazon Fire TV will be a great addon to get to your TV. It also plugs into your HDMI port and will play content from your NAS to a TV. No wires no mess.

nVidia Shield TV

It gets even better! If you want some more entertainment and all previously mentioned functions - nVidia TV is a great thing to get. You can use it for playing games and watching movies from your NAS. The greatest thing is - shield TV does video transcoding. So even if you have a cheap NAS with a weak CPU, in a combination of shield TV you can now automatically on the fly change video file size and format for a destination device. It is a great way to reduce network load and let older devices to play video content which normally was not supported on the device.