[Leica] [Leica} Tina's Drobos... Update: All loaded.

[Frank Filippone]

More familiar, sure.... but I am not so sure abut the other adjectives....

Certainly using a USB type enclosure, and not having to learn anything about RAID arrays, LAN, and other peripheral stuff is a lot easier.....It just 
looks like another HDD, only bigger.

There are some advantages to NAS, mostly speed of operations, as well as transfer speed.

Of course, the obvious advantage that you can share the same data among 2 or more users.... maybe that does not work with LR?  Not sure....  Tina's 
requirements are for only 1 user, 1 computer.

If you wanted to stick with a cheaper non-RAID solution, AND your computer has a eSATA input ( not all do) get a enclosure for your HDD that has a 
eSATA output.  (Mediasonic makes the ProBox which offers this feature...)This is basically as fast as the SATAIII disks can dump out information, 
6GB/second ( spec, maybe not real) .  BUT these enclosures are still limited to what Windows and your CPU can do.  NAS have their own MicroProcessor, 
and therefore can operate in a random mode faster....The bigger the database, the more you would appreciate a NAS over a Bib USB type of HDD array.

BTW, there are roughly half a million images on this setup... I made LR add it up for me..

AND as a new data point, the catalog has been updated and is now pointing to the NAS for all images.

Translation, it all works!


Frank Filippone
BMWRed735i at Gmail.com

On 5/31/2024 7:04 PM, Jayanand Govindaraj via LUG wrote:
> Interesting. A layman's question - would it not be less
> complex/faster/cheaper/easier to have a data library on 20TB drives from
> Seagate/WD with USB 3.1 or 3.2 ports , either as an external brick, or with
> high quality enclosures? The specs say 10-20 GB/S, though that is only in
> Never Never Land, not in the real world!
>
> Cheers
> Jayanand
>
>
>
> On Sat, Jun 1, 2024 at 1:30 AM Frank Filippone via LUG<lug at leica-users.org>
> wrote:
>
>> If there are any of you still interested in the terribly nerdy, and not
>> Leica related, IT based information of this subject, I continue my tale....
>> Those that do not care, can hit the delete key and save your time and
>> patience for other things.....
>>
>> Tina has all her images, 40.2TB of them, now on one Synology NAS.  At this
>> moment, she is directing LR to find all the new places for these images.
>> Not a fast task, but a necessary one.
>>
>> FYI, the copy speed of the Drobos to the NAS was 5TB/ DAY..... the 40TB of
>> this installation, would have taken 8 Days running 24/7. I made some errors
>> and there were some duplicated folders, so it took longer... about 12
>> days.   The Drobo was directly plugged into the back of the NAS, and the
>> NAS was
>> running directly with the USB port,, no computer in the "middle".  This is
>> the fastest configuration.  The copy was done by use of the faster O/S of
>> the NAS, not Windows.  (This is SOOOOO nerdy,, if you wish to know more,
>> contact me directly.  )
>>
>> The Drobo source files are being preserved for a while until we are sure
>> all the images have been copied properly, none forgotten or misplaced.
>> They
>> sit on a shelf, without power ( or purpose) for now.  Later they will be
>> cannibalized for the HDD inside, to go into her ProDrives for a archive
>> backup to the NAS.
>>
>> If anyone has interest in Drobos, and has the insane ( Value judgement is
>> mine) death wish to use these, please contact  Tina, directly. It is not
>> time to get rid of them yet, but you should check with her to make
>> arrangements....
>>
>> I do not suspect there will be a big stampede, but who knows?
>>
>> Note on the Probox:  These reasonably cheap ( few hundred $$$) HDD
>> enclosures have an interesting feature that I will use when we get that
>> far... they
>> have an eSATA port.  So does the NAS ( not all do).  This is of value
>> because eSATA is significantly faster (so I am told, 5GB/Sec on USB 3.0,
>> 6GB/Sec
>> for eSATA) then USB 3.0.  Backup times will be reduced significantly.
>>
>> If you are thinking about also putting all your images on one HDD array,
>> NAS or RAID or not, AND you have an eSATA port on your computer ( some do,
>> others do not) this is probably the best way to wire up your computer...
>> use eSATA to ProBox directly rather than use USB to make the connection
>> faster.
>>
>> Be Aware that eSATA does not support hot-swapping, therefore the computer
>> has to be restarted to recognize the connected device.  Not a big deal.
>> Especially if you have only one eSATA device.
>>
>> More to come as I get everything working.... better, faster, and more
>> protected.
>>
>>
>> Frank FilipponeBMWRed735i at Gmail.com
>>
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