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Author Topic: home is where the hard drive is  (Read 2468 times)

lowep

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home is where the hard drive is
« on: August 20, 2019, 11:03:39 pm »

I plan to do a fair bit of travelling but may from time to time need to get hold of old photos that until now I have stored offline at home on a double set of 10TB hard drives in seperate storage cabinets, since I am no fan of cloud solutions. Would the best and most cost-effective way to keep my files secure but also be able to get remote access to them be a NAS hard drive hooked up to my home network that I could wake up when I needed to get hold of something, or could there be a better solution apart from uploading everything maybe even including myself to the cloud?
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rdonson

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Re: home is where the hard drive is
« Reply #1 on: August 21, 2019, 04:15:21 pm »

Are the files stored as:  RAW, DNG, TIFF, PSD, JPG, something else?

Do you want access to ALL of your old photos or a limited set of photos?

Do the files you want to access change with your traveling?  For example, you're going to the Grand Canyon and would only like to get hold of Grand Canyon files.
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Ron

faberryman

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Re: home is where the hard drive is
« Reply #2 on: August 21, 2019, 04:18:34 pm »

Do you really need access to your old files while traveling? When I'm on a trip I am focused on the new things I am seeing and the new images I am making. Just because a thing can be done does not mean it should be done. But if you must, it is certainly technically possible. Whether you are up for the time and expense to do so is an entirely different question.
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lowep

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Re: home is where the hard drive is
« Reply #3 on: August 21, 2019, 09:41:12 pm »

Thanks for these questions. The files are a mixture RAW (original untouched), PSD (layers) TIFF & JPG (delivered), Word documents, PDFs, HD and 4K video clips, finished movies and a lot of other stuff, so a bit of everything.

I guess I may want to access them to respond to requests about old projects, use in new projects, check documents when my memory does not work as well as it should, etc, so again: a bit of everything - though mainly as insurance rather than a specific need I know in advance that I will have.

Fortunately I am not as young or ambitious as I used to be, so even if I lost access to all of the files it would not be the end of the world (and as you say may be quite theraputic) but old habits die hard and whatever happens I expect that I may be more comfortable if I have some way of accessing them while otherwise enjoying being on the road.
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rdonson

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Re: home is where the hard drive is
« Reply #4 on: August 22, 2019, 12:40:26 pm »

It's likely to consume time and $ to set things up for a "I guess I may want to access..." use case. 

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Ron

MattBurt

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Re: home is where the hard drive is
« Reply #5 on: August 22, 2019, 01:08:56 pm »

My day job is as a software engineer although I do make some money with photography too, it's not my main gig. I travel for my software job on a semi-regular basis and it always seems like whenever I travel for a software gig, someone needs an image RIGHT NOW and it has been tricky sometimes to accommodate the requests remotely in a fast enough manner.

So what I do is leave my PC running and disable sleep/hibernate. Then I just use TeamViewer which is running and listening on my home PC to remote control that machine as if I was there and then I can use Dropbox to get the files to their destination or put them on my own website (depending on the client's needs). This seems to be a very solid solution as long as my connection is good and the PC at home stays powered on and awake.

Of course if your main machine is a laptop and it comes with you then this could complicate the issue. If it's not then this is a great free way to do it.
TeamViewer is a free download for personal use and is solid and secure. We use it in our software business all the time. There was news of a TV breach a couple of years ago but it turned out not to be the source of the breach, just a vector used to exploit it.
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mcbroomf

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Re: home is where the hard drive is
« Reply #6 on: August 22, 2019, 01:50:52 pm »

How much space are the images taking up in one of your 10TB drives?  If less than 8TB, or if it could be filtered to less, then a pair of 4TB SSD SATA drives will be small, light to take travelling and fast for access.  The 4TB drives do not stand being bus powered though, but a small PS is easy enough to add.

Alternatively, and something I have accepted, is that I really don't need access to large Raws or PSB files for editing or reworking, rather I need a decent sized jpg just to show.  These can be squeezed into a much smaller space and/or left on-line in a web page or the cloud.  I use google.

Not knowing much about your travel I've found that having access to even moderately fast wifi is not a given when crossing this country.  If I'd had to do real work on line I'd have lost days sitting in a Starbucks on some occasions, or would have had to drive 50+ miles on moran one occasion to even find one when the small town motel wifi was unusable.
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lowep

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Re: home is where the hard drive is
« Reply #7 on: August 22, 2019, 08:03:10 pm »

It's likely to consume time and $ to set things up for a "I guess I may want to access..." use case.

Yep, I absolutely agree with this being the case until, as MattBurt mentions, "someone needs an image RIGHT NOW" (good to know this doesn't just happen to me), so I am also grateful for the two very useful suggestions I hadn't thought of before to either leave a computer set up at home online or copy a selection of key files to (yet another) small portable hard drive. Both of these options will take time and money to setup - but maybe not too much compared to the usefulness of having access to my old files while on the road.

Actually this leaves me wondering whether the universe really is becoming more unpredictable and chaotic, or is it just my age and climate change?
« Last Edit: August 22, 2019, 08:11:27 pm by lowep »
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rdonson

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Re: home is where the hard drive is
« Reply #8 on: August 23, 2019, 08:02:22 am »

Entropy rules!  ;)


Come gather 'round, people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin'
And you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'

- Bob Dylan -
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Ron

lowep

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Re: home is where the hard drive is
« Reply #9 on: August 23, 2019, 11:23:40 am »

Entropy rules!  ;)

Maybe I ought to print that on my shower cap!!

Those lyrics go good with my morning coffee too.
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MattBurt

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Re: home is where the hard drive is
« Reply #10 on: August 23, 2019, 11:45:08 am »

If you need a low power machine just to serve your remote access needs, you can do it pretty inexpensively.
You would not want to edit photos on it but something like one of one of these little mini PCs that are often under $200 with Windows 10 could just give you access. They are low power and cost very little to leave running too.
I have one at my brother's house to manage my offsite "cloud" backup. It just syncs a couple of hard drives of RAW files with the ones I have at home in case of something catastrophic like a fire or flood at home that might take out my regular backup too.
« Last Edit: August 23, 2019, 01:50:49 pm by MattBurt »
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rdonson

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Re: home is where the hard drive is
« Reply #11 on: August 23, 2019, 12:36:01 pm »

Entropy rules!  ;)

Maybe I ought to print that on my shower cap!!

Those lyrics go good with my morning coffee too.

No matter which path you choose to avail yourself of to access the photos keep security of your home network, computer and drives in mind. 
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Regards,
Ron
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