Computer Storage for 3D files

[KruleBear]

Ok. I have filled up my hard drive with STL’s and need a better Home system. What is everyone using. @Gadgetman! iirc correctly recommended a NAS system.

 

I am looking at a Synology 4 bay NAS DS420j with  three 4 TB Seagate IronWolf Internal Hard Drives. I figure that would give me room for future expansion. 
 

Does this make any sense? I am not to fluent in these types of systems and was also wondering how hard it is to set up?

 

In addition to hobby related stuf I would be using it for computer back up, music, and home video storage. 
 

If this has been addressed somewhere else, let me know. 
 

Thanks, Mike. 

[Glitterwolf]

Keep in mind that stuff you buy from Myminifavtory stays in your library there.

You can download it any time.

Of course I also always download...I'm using an external HD and thinking about buying a larger one and just use that.

[KruleBear]

3 hours ago, Glitterwolf said:

Keep in mind that stuff you buy from Myminifavtory stays in your library there.

You can download it any time.

Of course I also always download...I'm using an external HD and thinking about buying a larger one and just use that.

Yeah, I have the same thing with Loot and DriveThru,  but knowing the life cycle of companies in our hobby I would rather have them “safe” on my own equipment.
 

I also have crappy internet connection where I am at and have backed some Kickstarters that don’t use those services and been screwed when I didn’t get the files downloaded fast enough.   
 

I have an old Seagate remote hard drive that I was storing photos and music on, but they stopped supporting the connection software and doesn’t work great with newer computer operating systems. 

[Serenity]

2 hours ago, KruleBear said:

I have an old Seagate remote hard drive that I was storing photos and music on, but they stopped supporting the connection software and doesn’t work great with newer computer operating systems.

Have you tried anything to get your old hard drive working with a newer OS?  I'm curious what the issue is, and whether or not the drive can be rescued in some way, maybe by moving it to a different case?

[Clearman]

There's really only a few options:

 

More/Bigger hard drives in either your PC or a NAS unit

A Cloud Service, either in the form of a Storage provider like Drop Box, Google Drive,  etc. or something like Mini Hoarder.

 

The choice is either time spent maintaining a home system, or money paying for a subscription.

[KruleBear]

2 hours ago, Serenity said:

Have you tried anything to get your old hard drive working with a newer OS?  I'm curious what the issue is, and whether or not the drive can be rescued in some way, maybe by moving it to a different case?

Not a bad idea. I have several old hard drives from laptops my wife broke that I have hooked up for back up storage. I can probably do the same thing with the old Seagate which is tied in to my house wifi.

 

38 minutes ago, Clearman said:

There's really only a few options:

 

More/Bigger hard drives in either your PC or a NAS unit

A Cloud Service, either in the form of a Storage provider like Drop Box, Google Drive,  etc. or something like Mini Hoarder.

 

The choice is either time spent maintaining a home system, or money paying for a subscription.

 I like the idea of a stand alone storage that I can access from the multiple computers in the house which is what it sounds like the NAS can do. 

 

I am a little paranoid about relying on big tech to store stuff for me, although I do some of that with Apple already. There is also my sporadic rural line of sight internet (doesn’t like the neighbors trees in the summer) I will have to check into mini hoarder. 

 

That being said, I already have so many irons in the fire I would probably end up doing a crappy job of maintaining it. 

[PaganMegan]

10 hours ago, Glitterwolf said:

Keep in mind that stuff you buy from Myminifavtory stays in your library there.

You can download it any time.

Of course I also always download...I'm using an external HD and thinking about buying a larger one and just use that.

Our problem would be Patreon.

 

More than half our files are through Patreon.

[Glitterwolf]

20 minutes ago, PaganMegan said:

Our problem would be Patreon.

 

More than half our files are through Patreon.

 

Guilty as charged...

[Gadgetman!]

20 hours ago, KruleBear said:

Ok. I have filled up my hard drive with STL’s and need a better Home system. What is everyone using. @Gadgetman! iirc correctly recommended a NAS system.

 

I am looking at a Synology 4 bay NAS DS420j with  three 4 TB Seagate IronWolf Internal Hard Drives. I figure that would give me room for future expansion. 
 

Does this make any sense? I am not to fluent in these types of systems and was also wondering how hard it is to set up?

 

In addition to hobby related stuf I would be using it for computer back up, music, and home video storage. 
 

If this has been addressed somewhere else, let me know. 
 

Thanks, Mike. 

 

If you can afford larger drives, get them, even if you only can get 2 of them. 

3 x 4TB gets you 8TB(well, really closer to 7.5TB due to marketing speak and silly standards)   

The same will 2 x 8TB drives get you if you run them in a mirror. 

 

The Synology is smart enough to rebuild the array from mirroring to their version of RAID5 automtically when you install more drives. 

But the smallest drive in the array decides the max usable storage. So adding a 12TB drive to the existing 4TB drives later would mean that you only get to use 4TB of it. The rest won't be available until all the smaller drives have been replaced. 

(The synology will rebuild the missing data if you pull out one HDD and replace it with a larger one. And if the replacement means a larger array can be created, that happens as soon as the rebuild is done. )    

 

I started mine with 3 x 4TB because I already had a 4TB HDD(in an USB enclosure). 

The  old 4TB started degrading a while ago and has been replaced with a 12TB drive. 

The hope is to buy 2 additional 12TB drives this summer. That will push it to around 23TB available storage... 

(I've used about 4TB of the 75TB I have now. But I'd really like to unpack some of the .stls from all those patreons. And I've gotten hold of a HDMI recorder that I use to record interesting TV programs... And then there's my computer library... and my ripped DVD library, my iTunes backup... and so on... )   

 

Should I need to expand it later I would still have a free slot for yet another 12TB drive.    

 

Also, Synology boxes can do a lot more than just save your files. They're miniature servers capable of running a lot of SW packages. 

I even  ran my smart home setup from mine for a little while...    

(It's on a dedicated PC now, though)   

If you want a cooperative Office suite similar to Google's, it's there. 

Home security video cams?

Pretty certain there's an app for that, too.   

 

 

[KruleBear]

@Gadgetman! Thanks. Great advice. When I pull the trigger, I will start with a bigger drive in it. It is good to hear the the Synology is a decent unit. 

[TheAuldGrump]

It looks like MiniHoarder and Google are par, in regards to price per year -

100 GB for $20 per year from Google

500 GB for $5/month from MiniHoarder.

 

It also looks like MiniHoarder has better tools for organizing things.

 

The Auld Grump

Edited January 4, 2021 by TheAuldGrump

[haldir]

7 hours ago, TheAuldGrump said:

500 GB for $5/month from MiniHoarder.

 

It also looks like MiniHoarder has better tools for organizing things.

 

I don't know if knowing about this site is good thing or not, ha ha. Probably a good thing as my dropbox folder is filled up, I'm just on a freebie plan there. I was about to do a paid plan 2 TB for 11.99 a month (a little steep if you ask me, but I like the simplicity of db.

 

I've got a secondary HD that I use mostly for stls & rpg pdfs, as my primary is smaller but faster & it up to 300 GB already.

[Glitterwolf]

About saving storage...

 

I just went through a lot of my files and saved up a lot of room.

For example EPIC tends to put a file for a base in with every mini.

Meaning that you have a LOT of files for the same basic plain 2 inch base.

I deleted those, keeping one.

Also the preview pictures are HUGE, removing those saved me some MB's!

And after doing so, re-zip the files so they take up less storage.

[Unruly]

As I'm just getting started in this, I'm planning on just using an old 2tb drive from an out of service PC as external storage. Either that or finally trying to set up my ancient home server that I built a decade ago using old parts and never really did anything with. I mean, it's an AMD Opteron 165 on a Tyan Tomcat, so it's actual server hardware, it's just old as heck now. Should be plenty for a Linux based fileserver, though. If it still works.

[Gadgetman!]

19 minutes ago, Unruly said:

As I'm just getting started in this, I'm planning on just using an old 2tb drive from an out of service PC as external storage. Either that or finally trying to set up my ancient home server that I built a decade ago using old parts and never really did anything with. I mean, it's an AMD Opteron 165 on a Tyan Tomcat, so it's actual server hardware, it's just old as heck now. Should be plenty for a Linux based fileserver, though. If it still works.

 

How old is 'old'?

 

A HDD that's over 5years old is more suspicious than a Goblin whistling innocently while standing near a paint rack. 

And anything over 3years old is on the 'not enough lifetime left to bother with' list. 

It doesn't matter if it has been left unpowered, on a shelf. The lubricants for the bearings degrades.