Ditching an iMac

[Jasonhenley]

Hi

In our household we have numerous Apple devices using mainly iOS and a MacBook Air for my work.

But we also have an iMac that is hardly used and is very much neglected. It holds photo’s and music just to store them and use these on an adjoining basis.

We use ITunes Match and iCloud for the photos aswell.

We are thinking of removing the iMac and not replacing it. The issue is with the photos and music and would a NAS be able an ideal solution for a replacement storage.

Or is there anything else that could suffice? Was looking at the Mac Mini but that would be wasted of what we need it for.

Any suggestions or help would be great.

 

[mreg376]

If all you need is file storage, then a NAS would be it. If you get one with an ethernet port, you can connect it anywhere you have a network cable and it would always be available to all of your devices. If you get one of the less expensive USB models, it would have to be connected to a networked computer that would have to be running to use it, or to a router that has a USB port for that purpose. The more expensive NAS's (like the fine Synology line) are just intelligent drive holders and you have to also purchase/add a drive (or drives) to it. The least expensive option is an all-in-one like the USB Western Digital WD Cloud, although for it to easily be always accessible to all of your devices it should be connected to your router if your router supports that.

The current MacLife magazine has a comparison of NAS's.

 

[Howard2k]

I use a Synology NAS to store my live iTunes and LightRoom libraries. Well, my LR library is split with “active” files local and “processed” files moved to the NAS. It works great. It also functions as a Time Machine destination so I’m constably backing up to it too.

The performance is obviously lower, but if you’re pulling files from the iMac over the network anyway, then you already know that.

 

[AlexJoda]

I use a Synology NAS to store my live iTunes and LightRoom libraries. Well, my LR library is split with “active” files local and “processed” files moved to the NAS. It works great. It also functions as a Time Machine destination so I’m constably backing up to it too.

The performance is obviously lower, but if you’re pulling files from the iMac over the network anyway, then you already know that.

Also using LR on my local iMac and store the photos on a NAS. How did you split the library and how is workflow exactly?

 

[Howard2k]

Also using LR on my local iMac and store the photos on a NAS. How did you split the library and how is workflow exactly?

I import photos into my local library and then work on them. Then once done I can just drag them (inside LightRoom) from one library to the other. Just a literal drag and drop from one to the other, from inside LR.

In LightRoom I have two folders, one is created locally and the second is a folder structure on the NAS.
I have my catalog and cache on my local drive.

It's not completely seamless. Sometimes, like this morning, if I open LR and the network hasn't reconnected the "home" folders show with a "?" next to them and I can only view previews that exist in my local cache. Like how the 2017 folder appears above. I guess I killed that particular 2017 folder in Finder and not LR. When that happens I just connect my network drive and everything works.

The whole thing works surprisingly well.

I have a RAID setup on the NAS, and then every month I also backup the NAS volume to an external disk.

 

[Fishrrman]

"We are thinking of removing the iMac and not replacing it. The issue is with the photos and music and would a NAS be able an ideal solution for a replacement storage.
Or is there anything else that could suffice? Was looking at the Mac Mini but that would be wasted of what we need it for. "

Unless the iMac is getting old and has problems...
Why "replace" it with a Mini, when it works ok now?

I would prefer it to NAS, because (as a repository of photos and music) it can be turned on and can run "independently" of anything else, as well as be "network-accessible" to your other devices.

But... that's just me.

 

[Howard2k]

"We are thinking of removing the iMac and not replacing it. The issue is with the photos and music and would a NAS be able an ideal solution for a replacement storage.
Or is there anything else that could suffice? Was looking at the Mac Mini but that would be wasted of what we need it for. "

Unless the iMac is getting old and has problems...
Why "replace" it with a Mini, when it works ok now?

I would prefer it to NAS, because (as a repository of photos and music) it can be turned on and can run "independently" of anything else, as well as be "network-accessible" to your other devices.

But... that's just me.

A NAS can run independently too. That’s really the whole idea of it

 

[roadkill401]

Unless the iMac is getting old and has problems...
Why "replace" it with a Mini, when it works ok now?

I would prefer it to NAS, because (as a repository of photos and music) it can be turned on and can run "independently" of anything else, as well as be "network-accessible" to your other devices.

But... that's just me.

True, the iMac has it's own screen and you can hook up a keyboard and mouse to it so it will run independantly, but why is that an advantage? Your other devices if they can access the network will give you just as much access so the point becomes rather moot.

But you also have to remember that if you are using the iMac as the single point of storage, it becomes the single point of failure too. As it was pointed out, the iMac is getting old so hardware inside of it is likely reaching the point of probable failure. I bet there is just a single drive inside the iMac so when it fails, POOF! all gone.

A properly setup NAS on the other hand can use hardware drive mirroring so you are now reducing the single point of failure. But single I gather the OP also is using cloud storage so in the case of failure, it doesn't mean total loss. Just what was not copied to the cloud. But that doesn't mean that all is well. Think of it like driving out of town to have a dinner. If your car dies, sure you might have a second car in the driveway at home, but it does little good for you stuck out of town and can't get home. Backups are generally only a safety net to protect against total loss, but fault tollerance is to protect you in the hear and now.