What HDD for photo storage... a NAS drive? Enterprise drive? 5400rpm drive?

philmar

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I am building a new photo editing rig. NO gaming or video processing. As a recent retiree and photo enthusiast (early adopter of digital imaging) I have terabytes of old digital files I want to store on my new rig. Here is my new set up:

Drive A) 1 TB Kingston KC3000 for OS and programs
Drive B) 2TB N850X 2 TB for current projects I am working on
Drive C) 250GB Samsung 2.5" SATA for Lightroom catalogue and Windows scratch file
Drive D: An as yet unpurchased HDD

After about 2-3 months I will transfer photo files off of Drive B for long term storage on to Drive D, a large terabyte HHD that I plan to purchase. (I will also have external backup).
It's been 11 years since I've purchased a HDD and the landscape seems to have changed.
I'd like something between 16-20 TBs. There seem to be a dearth of consumer HDDs nowadays. I see sales on NAS drives and Enterprise drives. It seems like they can be used on a home PC. Some people discourage them because they seem to be always on, are noisier and consume more power. Others suggest they are better quality than the consumer HDDs. I will be only writing to them maybe once a month...though I may access them to work on a photo I'd taken previously. This probably might happen ten times a month when people purchase prints from me.
I'm wondering if the slower 5400 rpm drives are better for my usage - they are quieter I assume and hopefully cheaper. And if I rarely access the info on them I doubt if I care if the disks take a few seconds longer the 20 times a month I'll access them.
Conversely I wonder if the NAS/Enterprise drives will be a waste of energy consumption if they never idle down - do they never idle down?
What are your thoughts?
 
For me when disk size went up so much, beyond 8tb in a desktop the indexing time of the drive was the issue. Better to get those large drives out to a NAS in RAID. Start up and searches get very slow with big drives local.
 
A) Basically any HDD can be used for a home pc, NAS, Server, etc... And yes, the indexing process will take longer on a larger drive once it has a fair amount of data on it, but that can done in the background will you are doing other stuff that does not require reading from or writing to the drive(s)... However, the Enterprise/NAS drives typically have higher endurance ratings than consumer-only drives, albeit at slightly higher prices, so you will need to decide which way to go on that subject

B) In the usage scenario you describe, where your data is important to keep safe & will be used to make you money, investing in a name brand Enterprise/NAS-grade drive would make sense. I normally recommend Western Digital, which is my preferred vendor, but there are many others out there in various capacities up to about 20TB & price points.... get what ever fits your budget & space requirements now...

C) Since you say access will be occasional and that speed is not a huge concern, 5400 rpm drives will be a tad bit slower, but also use a tiny bit less energy, be a tad bit quieter, & run a few degrees cooler, but these differences & prices vs. 7200rpm drives are marginal at best, so I would go for the best deal you can find either way. And most drives can be set to idle down, either thru windows or with the mfgr's software tools...

D) You could always start with a small(er) multi-drive NAS, use raid to get both redundancy/failure protection & speed, and then move to larger drives & transfer your data to them later on if your space requirements change...

WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, BUY OFF-BRAND, EL-CHEAPO KNOCK OFF DRIVES...PERIOD.....you can thank me later, hehehe :D
 
If you are talking about the cloud-based version of Lightroom, then I have no idea. I have been using the original, desktop (now called "classic" in some idiotic naming by Adobe), since about 2015. I probably have about 2 TB of photos now or waiting to be imported into Lightroom. If it matters, I use a catalog organization based on YYYY/MM/DD. One import can span multiple days. I never import directly from an SD card. Instead I COPY the SD card contents to a temporary folder. I shoot only RAW, specifically Nikon NEF, and Windows explorer can display the embedded JPGs. First I review the images in Windows explorer to weed out the obvious duds. Then the rest get MOVEd into Lightroom in the appropriate folder. Once photos are in Lightroom, most of the "action" takes place in the catalog, so it's important to keep the catalog on a fast SSD or NVMe drive. For super-redundancy, I also write XMP files back to the image folders, but XMP files are typically only 4 KB, so that process goes fast.

Later this year, I expect to replace my ancient Nikon D3 with something like a Nikon Z 7 II, with much larger RAW file sizes (and faster SD card transfer rates), so I may end up needing a larger image storage drive soon enough.

My approach has been to get a very large 7200 HDD, and use Windows to spin down that drive when it's not being used. Compared to the cost of photo gear, and even to the Lightoom subscription, the cost difference between 7200 and 5400 rpm isn't that big. Also, based on Backblaze drive reliability history, I get only WD non-enterprise, non-surveillance drives. NAS is OK for me if the price is right.
 
For me when disk size went up so much, beyond 8tb in a desktop the indexing time of the drive was the issue. Better to get those large drives out to a NAS in RAID. Start up and searches get very slow with big drives local.
Even when defragmented? With my usage my data files rarely need defragging.
 
A) Basically any HDD can be used for a home pc, NAS, Server, etc... And yes, the indexing process will take longer on a larger drive once it has a fair amount of data on it, but that can done in the background will you are doing other stuff that does not require reading from or writing to the drive(s)... However, the Enterprise/NAS drives typically have higher endurance ratings than consumer-only drives, albeit at slightly higher prices, so you will need to decide which way to go on that subject
I don't mind spending more for the more reliable ones - I just worried about extra heat, noise ect. Just gathering info because I am ignorant about these things. My new rig will have a spaceheater i7 13700 with air cooling...TBH I can't fing HDDs >16 GB that are NOT NAS drives...I live in Canada.
B) In the usage scenario you describe, where your data is important to keep safe & will be used to make you money, investing in a name brand Enterprise/NAS-grade drive would make sense. I normally recommend Western Digital, which is my preferred vendor, but there are many others out there in various capacities up to about 20TB & price points.... get what ever fits your budget & space requirements now...
I have always been a WD loyal customer but don't see any consumer large capacity HDDs here....only ever had problems with a Maxtor drive in the 90's...Maxtor was bought by Seagate.
C) Since you say access will be occasional and that speed is not a huge concern, 5400 rpm drives will be a tad bit slower, but also use a tiny bit less energy, be a tad bit quieter, & run a few degrees cooler, but these differences & prices vs. 7200rpm drives are marginal at best, so I would go for the best deal you can find either way. And most drives can be set to idle down, either thru windows or with the mfgr's software tools...

D) You could always start with a small(er) multi-drive NAS, use raid to get both redundancy/failure protection & speed, and then move to larger drives & transfer your data to them later on if your space requirements change...
Crap - this might be the right answer but the thought of more research to understand NAS/RAID ect. might blow up my mind. I just spent 6 weeks researching all the other components of my new build. I just updated my rig from a gen3 build I made 11 years ago. I didn't even know what a NVMe drive was until 3 weeks ago.;)
WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, BUY OFF-BRAND, EL-CHEAPO KNOCK OFF DRIVES...PERIOD.....you can thank me later, hehehe :D
You can bet that will NOT happen!
 
I am not sure you need-want raid for that usage, raid is nice for something that want redundancy/failure protection that need to be online and still work during the issue.

You will want an actual backup (raid should not be considered has a backup) anyway and it will start to be costly for something you probably do not need (will it be an issue to you to access the backup drive instead ?).

To me it feel like a larger HDD in your machine and a large HDD in a nas machine on the network if you want the backup in a different enough location in the house in case of water event and what not or a simple usb drive otherwise, an automatic backup schedule from the machine to the NAS, would it do the trick ?
 
I do photography full time and have a couple of WD Red 6TB drives in my computer for archives and storage. They're older 7200 rpm drives from before the Pro line came out that I pulled from my NAS. Before that I used 4TB WD blue 5400 rpm drives.

Copying files to and from the drives sped up a bit but the biggest change was how quickly Lightroom would generate previews from folders on the drives, especially since I periodically delete the previews from my LR catalogs folder for older images. Luckily I'm like you and rarely need to access any of the images from those drives.

I also have an old Drobo NAS at home and a Synology NAS off site for backup of all my RAW files and edited images.

In your case, I'd put the emphasis on reliability over speed. If you can find 5400rpm Red Plus drives much cheaper than 7200 Red Pros, I'd say go for it. You already use SSDs as your working drives and that's where drive speeds matter the most.

You also might consider a NAS or DAS box as additional redundancy too.
 
WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, BUY OFF-BRAND, EL-CHEAPO KNOCK OFF DRIVES...PERIOD.....you can thank me later, hehehe :D
Who is still around making off-brand drives? Or do you mean Seagate? LOL!
 
Right now I have just completed the design of my first new build in 11 years. My last build was a Gen.3 i7 3770K. I'm a photographer, not a pc tech guy so I took a month to learn pc components and I designed a stable fast rig that even to this day is fast enough for my use. But I just retired and I am treating myself to a new setup just because I can, not because I need to. i'll be spending more time on my pc developing digital photography. I don't want to spend $3000 to design the fastest pc when I can pick value parts and get one that is incrementally slower but costs only $2000. This HDD is the last piece of the puzzle because after the mobo, RAM, GPU, PSU ect. I thought the HDD would be the easiest one to pick. Turns out they don't have any large capacity consumer home pc HDDs - only NAS/Enterprise HDDs. After 6 weeks of learning about the new component technology I have had enough and just want to build the damn thing and enjoy it - get out and shoot some photos. I don't have the desire to learn about RAID, redundancy, docking stations, NAS, drobos, DAS ect. I like to keep it simple. Photos on the PC, copies on desk external and a second copy on externals at my sister's house (I swap update and swap the externals periodically). I appreciate the great advice. I will have plenty of time later to rethink different storage strategy but at this point all I need is another large capacity HDD and possibly another external.
Because I acknowledge my own ignorance I wanted to make sure that purchasing a NAS HDD would not be a problem. I prefer to know beforehand rather than find out later that it might be unsuitable due to noise, power or heat or whatever. It seems to me that this is probably the path of least resistance for me at this juncture of my build adventure. If purchasing a NAS drive is not catastrophic then that is what i will purchase if I cannot find any large capacity 5400rpm spinners. My mobo can take up to 6 SATA drives and I have 3 of them spoken for already. Thanks everyone - I really appreciate the time you have taken to help me out!!
 
There's no reason not to use a NAS drive for your use. It's not going to hurt anything and there won't be any problems. I have a 6TB Seagate Ironwolf NAS drive as my storage drive in my main system and it works just like any hard drive. In fact I wouldn't recommend anything lower than a midrange NAS HDD such as the Seagate Ironwolf I mentioned. Practically every "consumer" drive is going to be junk. At most it will probably be 5400 RPM and almost guaranteed it will be a Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) drive and no one should ever have to suffer with one of those. There's absolutely no positive to SMR drives and they're only made because it's cheaper to make them. You will definitely want a CMR based drive which most of the midrange and above NAS drives are. At least they are now after a massive backlash against Seagate and WD when they both tried to make SMR NAS drives.

5400 or 7200 is your choice but I always go 7200. Unless your computer and the room and everything around it is completely and totally silent the likelihood that you'd notice any difference in sound is slim to none. Temperature and power usage difference is also going to be very small and probably not noticeable. NAS drives can be a bit louder but for the most part I think any difference is massively overstated unless you have the perfectly silent room. The fans in my main system and my server are much louder (and they only hum) than any of the NAS drives I have. Consumer drives from the mid to late 2000s are quite a bit louder than the NAS drives I have.

I would avoid any enterprise drives. Those are not meant to be used in areas where sound could possibly be a concern. I don't have any enterprise drives but they are made for use in systems which are stuffed away somewhere where you won't hear them. They also tend to cost more than NAS drives with no real advantage for your use case.

As I said, I've had no trouble with some Seagate Ironwolf (non-pro) drives as well as a couple Toshiba N300 drives although the Toshiba do run a couple degrees warmer. Just make sure the Seagate Ironwolf or WD Red drives are CMR and you should be fine. If you want to step up to the Ironwolf Pro or WD Red Plus for the longer warranty you can but it will cost you a bit more.
 
There's no reason not to use a NAS drive for your use. It's not going to hurt anything and there won't be any problems. I have a 6TB Seagate Ironwolf NAS drive as my storage drive in my main system and it works just like any hard drive. In fact I wouldn't recommend anything lower than a midrange NAS HDD such as the Seagate Ironwolf I mentioned. Practically every "consumer" drive is going to be junk. At most it will probably be 5400 RPM and almost guaranteed it will be a Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) drive and no one should ever have to suffer with one of those. There's absolutely no positive to SMR drives and they're only made because it's cheaper to make them. You will definitely want a CMR based drive which most of the midrange and above NAS drives are. At least they are now after a massive backlash against Seagate and WD when they both tried to make SMR NAS drives.
GREAT info!! Thanks
5400 or 7200 is your choice but I always go 7200. Unless your computer and the room and everything around it is completely and totally silent the likelihood that you'd notice any difference in sound is slim to none. Temperature and power usage difference is also going to be very small and probably not noticeable. NAS drives can be a bit louder but for the most part I think any difference is massively overstated unless you have the perfectly silent room. The fans in my main system and my server are much louder (and they only hum) than any of the NAS drives I have. Consumer drives from the mid to late 2000s are quite a bit louder than the NAS drives I have.
I search for value not cheap. 7200rpm it is!
I would avoid any enterprise drives. Those are not meant to be used in areas where sound could possibly be a concern. I don't have any enterprise drives but they are made for use in systems which are stuffed away somewhere where you won't hear them. They also tend to cost more than NAS drives with no real advantage for your use case.
you're the best!
As I said, I've had no trouble with some Seagate Ironwolf (non-pro) drives as well as a couple Toshiba N300 drives although the Toshiba do run a couple degrees warmer. Just make sure the Seagate Ironwolf or WD Red drives are CMR and you should be fine. If you want to step up to the Ironwolf Pro or WD Red Plus for the longer warranty you can but it will cost you a bit more.
Yeah I've always avoided Seagate - especially after they purchased Maxtor, the maker of the only drive to fail on me. Have always been loyal to WD. But if Seagate are more reliable now I may roll the dice. After all I did finally buy a mobo NOT made by ASUS this time;)

:)
 
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