Can anyone recommend someone — preferably an individual rather than a company — who offers a service to set up a home network. 

 

My set up has worked well until recently but things have gotten complicated with 2 Apple computers and multiple separate hard drives which aren't synchronised.   

 

I use Apple exclusively and use:

Roon with a pretty substantial music file collection.

Photoshop/Lightroom with a rapidly expanding image collection

Adobe Indesign for editing and book design

 

I probably need a server set up or a NAS, anyway I'd like someone to come to my place and sort me out. 

 

I'm in Richmond, Vic.

 

Recommendations please 

 

thanks Russ

 

 

 

 

Hi Russ,

 

Don't you know a young person to do this for you? I'm sure this would be a walk in the park for them.

Yes, we all need a digital native in our lives.

On 28/01/2024 at 11:35 AM, buddyev said:

I probably need a server set up or a NAS

 

Just some considerations for your home network set up that might help clarify choices:

 

About NAS:

These come in all kinds of configurations, from what you describe you have real data storage needs. This means a 4+ bay NAS with large drives.

Note that depending on the RAID configuration about 1/3 of the nominal storage capacity will go to back-up safety.

A NAS with sufficient processing power/RAM will be necessary, or you will end up frustrated by constant lag times.

 

At least on Apple it is very easy to connect the NAS as a drive in Finder.

 

About your workflow:

ROON: it may be the case that all your playlists will need to be remade once you have migrated all the music files from your unsynched harddrives (external USB I take that to mean) to the NAS

What playback software do you use, is ROON the playback software itself? Research whether the NAS you want to select can play nice with ROON.

Can your audio streamer take an ethernet connection? Depending on the NAS, it's not always the simplest thing to get permissions set up between devices.

Or do you envisage wifi playback?

 

ADOBE: are you looking to import photos in Lightroom to your Apple first, and then copy things across to the NAS...or import directly to the NAS?  If the latter, and depending on the size of files and your local RAM availability, there might be lag again due to the chain (NAS HDD/RAM/CPU > ethernet > Apple computer > Adobe and back)

 

--

What size are your current unsynchronised drives, how much data needs to be integrated?

Edited January 29, 20242 yr by Steff

Thanks for this Steff. 

after some research I don’t believe my main problem - using Lightroom on 2 computers - can be solved with a better network or a NAS.

 

since adding the laptop for use when I’m away I’ve been frustrated at losing all my file edits when switching back to my home machine. 
it’s basic stupidity on my part - Lightroom file info is stored in a separate catalogue file and not with individual raw files. It’s not rocket science but I hadn’t needed to think about it with only one computer. 
anyway, what I’ll do now is use a portable standalone hard drive storing the catalogue and files which can be swapped between the 2 machines as required. It seems cumbersome but it will solve that problem. 

Lightroom does have a cloudbased version which avoids this issue but it doesn’t have the editing capabilities of the desk top version. 

Roon and my desktop publishing software are ok where they are. 
 

 

 

 

I was just about to suggest using Adobe's cloud services.
I came across the same problem as you but with Premiere Pro while working remotely.

I now use Cloud storage despite my aversion to cloud anything. In this case, it's convenient.

You should be able to use the desktop/laptop installations on both your computers, but just save the project in the cloud. That should give you full editing ability?

Thanks Marc. I’m also reluctant to use cloud services for anything other than back ups. 
 

I use the Adobe creative suite - Indesign, Photoshop, Lightroom - it comes with cloud storage but their cloud set up is ridiculously restrictive with the. kinds of files you can upload - and you can’t use it just for simple storage -  im  paying for something I can’t use. I now use Apples cloud storage - it’s cheap and flexible.  
 

Lightroom has two versions - a desktop version using standard raw, tiff, jpeg files etc / this is what I use. I will see if I can store a single catalogue in the apple cloud - it’s a good suggestion and it would solve the problem of having separate catlogues on each computer. 

 

The adobe cloud based version of LR is designed for mobility but it’s considerably less powerful and uses a different file structure. The two versions aren’t compatible. 
 

 

 

I have used Lightroom since its beta days in 2007. In those days you bought version 1 and the upgrades were free until they released version 2. You paid a modest price for each upgrade that was every 1-2 years. Then they switched to the subscription model. Life got too busy and photography dropped away until more recently. 
 

You are right about the challenges of using 2 computers and how you manage the Lightroom catalog. I think the  recommended way is to keep one catalog on an external hard drive and plug your computer into that drive when you are using it. I don’t think with the classic version you can keep your catalog on a network drive or be cloud based. Don’t quote me on that but I think it was one of quirks about Lightroom Classic
 

https://insider.kelbyone.com/using-lightroom-classic-on-multiple-computers-by-rob-sylvan/

 

I have a similar issue with Genealogy software I use. This is windows based, but still a similar situation. I mainly use the software on my main laptop, then after any updating, I sync the whole data directory (which resides in the documents folder on the laptop) to a directory in the documents folder of my Synology NAS, using FreeFileSync

 

When I want to use the same software on my other laptop, I just sync the folder from my NAS to the folder in this laptop, prior to opening the software.

 

This also gives me a backup of my data.

11 hours ago, digoxin said:

I have used Lightroom since its beta days in 2007. In those days you bought version 1 and the upgrades were free until they released version 2. You paid a modest price for each upgrade that was every 1-2 years. Then they switched to the subscription model. Life got too busy and photography dropped away until more recently. 
 

You are right about the challenges of using 2 computers and how you manage the Lightroom catalog. I think the  recommended way is to keep one catalog on an external hard drive and plug your computer into that drive when you are using it. I don’t think with the classic version you can keep your catalog on a network drive or be cloud based. Don’t quote me on that but I think it was one of quirks about Lightroom Classic
 

https://insider.kelbyone.com/using-lightroom-classic-on-multiple-computers-by-rob-sylvan/

 

Thanks for the link - very useful comprehensive info there. 

Regarding the use of a network drive or cloud storage for the Lightroom Classic catalog, it’s generally advised against due to potential issues with catalog corruption and loss of edits if the catalog is open on both computers or if syncing hasn’t finished2. However, it is technically possible to use services like iCloud Drive, Dropbox, or Creative Cloud Drive to sync your catalog and images between computers, but with caution.