If you have 1000’s of images on your computer, at some point you may want to move these files to a NAS (network-attached-storage), where you can benefit from an expandable, resilient pool of storage.
Trouble is, most home networks can’t keep up with even the slowest of hard disks. File transfers to my Synology NAS easily saturated my network during back ups, despite having two 1 Gig Ethernet connections bound together to form a 2 Gig connection via a 2.5 Gig network switch to a 2.5 Gig ethernet port on my PC. I use an application called Goodsync to archive files from my PC to the NAS, and this frequently reported errors and timeouts, requiring backup jobs to be checked and re-run almost every time.
To put this in context, even a traditional spinning hard disk will achieve a file transfer speed somewhere between 80-160 MB/s, but a 1 Gig ethernet connection equates to about 125MB/s. With an array of disks such as you would have in a NAS, speeds can be higher because multiple transfers will be happening from different physical disks in parallel.
A NAS upgrade was needed anyway due to expanding storage requirements, and the new NAS (UGreen DXP8800 Plus) has two 10 Gig ports, as well as having very fast SSD (solid state disk) storage for caching.
After scratching my head and pondering how to make the most of all this new tech by getting a 10 Gig connection between this and my PC (even briefly contemplating a very expensive 10Gig ethernet switch), I came across this website which clearly explains how to make a direct network connection to your NAS from your PC.
The beauty of this is all you need is a NAS that has two ethernet ports (many do), a Cat6a or better ethernet cable, and an ethernet connection on your PC that is at least as fast as the one on your NAS.
Although my PC has ‘only’ a 2.5 Gig ethernet, it has USB4 ports, so using this Sabrent adapter I was able to provision a 10 Gig ethernet port (USB4 runs at up to 40 Gig so easily copes with this LAN speed). Other USB 10 Gig ethernet adapters are available, but read the small print as some are not capable of achieving full 10 Gig speed - ditto PC card adapters, which may be bound by the speed of the slot they are installed in.
You will need the second ethernet port on your NAS to connect to your home network in order to download updates and if you want other devices on your network to be able to access the NAS, or you want to upload directly to the cloud or internet from your NAS.
Your PC will also need another connection (WiFi or ethernet) to connect to your network for internet access, but that’s not usually a problem. In my case, the USB4 10 Gig adapter freed up the PC 2.5 Gig ethernet for this purpose.
The solution is slowly being built out now, I am hoping the careful selection of components is going to lead to some really impressive improvements, and potentially, allow the backing up of new and changed files in close to real-time, effectively automating the process so it runs in the background.