NAS for office – AutoCAD, Scanning, cloud backup, offline video & audio

 

The Need for a NAS:

Business: mainly for document storage and cloud access. Consulting Practice in Construction. Probably need MAX about 2 TB of storage. Mainly it is documents, word etc. No video editing speeds needed. Some large files in AutoCAD etc but only for viewing.
Files centralized on a NAS works better than the current system.
Currently: Hard Drive of laptop and back up to the cloud.

Tango DJ: Currently about 1TB of digital music, allow an increase to 2 TB. Travel with music on external La Cie Rugged Raid set to Raid 1. Backups on several external hard drives. DJ using 2014 15” MacBook Pro retina.

NAS appeals as a central backup point, ability to play music and also in case of loss of music when traveling remote cloud access to download before a gig?

Often return with videos of gigs, etc not super long, taken with a phone. Edit and post on facebook etc.

Files mainly FLAC up to 50mb in size, average 24 MB.

Also
Photography: (analog) large scans of negatives using a digital scanner, single shot around 150 megabits maximum Need about 1TB max. Editing speed not critical.

Would be nice to use old Lenovo i3 and scanner to save straight to NAS and leave it running in the background as scanning can take up to 30 minutes per sheet.

Don’t own a TV, watch a little of Kodi but rarely not a factor.

Estimated storage needed 5 TB.
Future proofing and expansion a positive.
Might archive DVD collection in time on it.

Work, backups, synchronicity.

My suggestion for you is Synology DS918+. It will work perfectly with your AutoCAD files. In fact, there many AutoCAD users creating a syncronised folder on work and home computer where these software files will live. Whatever is done at work will be instantly synchronized with a folder on a NAS and also on a folder in home PC. You can also have previous versions available with Synology Drive app. If something is messed up you can just switch back to yesterdays file version. (similar to Dropbox cloud, just free and unlimited).

Music.

Synology comes with free DS Audio app, you can have in on a PC or any mobile device. It will let you stream music from your NAS even if you are at the remote location. If you don’t want to use your mobile data, an app will let you download any songs on your iPhone or Android device and play them without the internet connection.

Video.

DS Video app is a free app from Synology which works similarly like DS Audio app. You can use it to stream from remote location any video you like. DS918+ will automatically convert video file to a small enough resolution for you to be able to watch a video using mobile internet connection. It will also let you download videos on your iPhone or Android device for watching without internet.

Scanning storage

You need a network scanner than you can have all scans automatically saved on a NAS. Alternatively, with USB scanner, you can set up a syncronised folder which will automatically copy all scans from a local PC to a NAS. Here are some network scanners:

Expansion

Beauty with a 4 bay NAS is that you can start with just 2 or 3 drives and add more drives later. the It is best value for money. It also comes with an expansion port – so you cann addextra box and have totla of 9 drives.

DS918+ and alternatives.

DS418play little cheaper as it is a bit less powerful.

 


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