NAS vs USB hard drive attached to router; which is faster?

[ymc226]

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Which is faster for back up for LR photos on import and for Time Machine use?  I have a Drobo FS NAS which is very slow in backing up.  If I get a USB hard drive and attach it directly to my router upstairs (Airport Extreme - only USB 2.0) so anyone in the family can share it, will it be any faster?  The HD would be accessible via wifi or ethernet (via Powerline adapter).

 

Right now, when I import into LR and choose a 2nd copy to the Drobo, it invariably fails I think due to the slow speed of data transfer.  I could just hook up the external HD to my Mac Mini, but then others could not use it.

[Exodies]

Not enough information. How is the NAS connected? What are the specs of the mains Ethernet gear? What is the wifi version of the router and what (walls, floors) is in the way of the signal?

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[zeitz]

Thunderbolt is 10 giga BITS per second, Thunderbolt 2 is 20 gbps, USB 2 is 480 mbps, USB 3 is 5 gbps and the latest SATA is 6 gbps.  The current Mac Mini has gigabit ethernet (1 gbps).  You don't say which Mac Mini you are using.  Also you didn't say what drives you are using.  Samsung EVO 850 solid state drives do random read / write at about 540 giga BYTES per second or 4.3 giga bits per second; these are state of the art for speed.  Hard drives are slower to substantially slower.  Newer Drobos accommodate an SSD buffer drive to get very high speed even with slow hard drives.  

 

The cheapest / fastest solution is to just work on your internal drive and move the files to the NAS Drobo RAID when you are done working with LR.  The next step up solution might be to get an external USB 3 drive with a hybrid drive (SSB buffer drive transferring to a hard drive like newer Drobos) and move the files to the NAS Drobo RAID when you are done working with LR.  Just do Time Machine on your internal drive relying on the RAID for external redundancy (but no revision to older files).

[wattsy]

I could just hook up the external HD to my Mac Mini, but then others could not use it.

 

Can't you hook up the drive directly to your Mini (via USB or thunderbolt) and make it available to others on the network as a shared drive?

[sandymc]

Be aware that power line adapters are notoriously slow; with real wiring they seldom reach anywhere near the speed claimed on the box. In my experience, the best of them seldom get above 200-300 mbps. In many situations sub 100 mbps speeds are the norm. They also tend to drop a lot of packets, which backup software doesn't like at all. So I would strongly recommend against having a power line adapter in any link that you're going to do backups over.

[zeitz]

Sandy, I'm not familiar with the term "power line adapter".  Could you explain?  No device ever seems to get to the spec speed.  But a bus with a spec speed lower than the spec read / write speed of the drive seems like a bad combination.

[sandymc]

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Sandy, I'm not familiar with the term "power line adapter".  Could you explain?  No device ever seems to get to the spec speed.  But a bus with a spec speed lower than the spec read / write speed of the drive seems like a bad combination.

 

It's a device that allows network connections using the AC power lines (220/240 or 110 V, depending on where you are). So you avoid having to use WIFI or dedicated network cabling.

 

Sandy

[CheshireCat]

Plug the HD into your faster I/O port. NAS sucks.

 

Get another "el-cheapo" HD or USB-stick for family sharing.

Edited October 13, 2015 by CheshireCat

[ymc226]

Thanks for all of your responses.  I see that the NAS option will always be slow given the physical limitations of my setup. 

 

I'll plan on getting an external HD, preferably USB 3 or TB but even if TB is faster, isn't the limitation of speed still due to spinning drives in those enclosures?  Would there be appreciable difference in a external HD based on multiple SATA drives with either a USB 3 or TB. 

 

My system is a late 2012 Mac Mini with upgraded 16GB RAM with the internal drive replaced to a 480GB SSD (OWC's Mercury Extreme Pro 6G) http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/Mercury_Extreme_Pro_6G/  and run Yosemite and won't upgrade to El Capitan as Imageprint 9 is not compatible with the new OSX.  The display port is a TB port which I believe is only TB 1, not TB2.  I have NEC PA 27 and 24 inch monitors calibrated with Spectraview II. 

Edited October 14, 2015 by ymc226

[philipus]

I would always use a wired connection for an external backup. Wireless seems great but I've just read too many stories over the years at Apple Discussions where wireless Time Machine backups fail or are too slow. The one exception to wired backup is powerline adapters. I've tried them and found that they don't work. Not only don't they give the speed advertised, but they are very difficult to get to work at all. 

 

But I wouldn't use Time Machine at all. For me the easiest and fastest is a simple Super Duper "smart backup" clone scheduled at regular intervals. I tried Time Machine for a long time but found the snapshot function unnecessary for my needs (ymmv). Plus it was unreliable as I quite regularly had to start all over again because the Time Machine messed up the symlinks or whatever it's called so the whole backup had to be ditched. Simplicity is key for a good backup routine.

 

If you want to share files with others on the network then 1) either keep your computer on always (Macs are pretty much designed to be always on, though it should be possible to set it to wake up from sleep if accessed) and share a folder - easy and safe, or 2) attach a drive via USB to the Extreme and transfer jpgs of the photos you want to share (making an extra "share jpg" is a quick step and can be automated). 

 

I'm not sure why you'd need another external enclosure. The Drobo has a gigabit ethernet port so just plug it into your late 2012 Mini for a very fast and reliable connection.

 

If you do want another enclosure a TB, TB2 or USB 3 model won't give any difference in terms of reliability or speed of the backups. Nevertheless if you do want to use these interfaces there are for instance the OWC Thunderbay models. They're around 500€ here in Europe I believe. Anything with TB costs more than the equivalent eSata/USB/FW models. Without TB (and with a suitable adapter) you should be able to use the OWC Mercury Elite Pro. I personally won't ever buy OWC again after several failed SSDs and RAM sticks; I just don't trust that brand. If you feel the same you could consider cheaper RAID/JBOD boxes like IcyBox (good as per reviews but poor cooling apparently (need to leave the door open or drill holes in it), about 150€) or more expensive pro models like the (350-400€) Sonnet Fusion QR or G-Tech models. These latter brands are more expensive as they make their own hardware, research etc not just rebrand other makers' equipment, but they're good. But as I said, if you own a Drobo with ethernet I'm not sure I see the need.

 

I also don't think you should get hung up about spinning drives for backup purposes. Their input/output capacity is in most situations not going to be saturated by a backup which can just run in the background at any time of the day. HDDs weak point vis-a-vis SSDs is of course random access but for backup that's pretty much a non issue. A SATA-600 (and even a SATA-300) drive will just take a little longer to complete the backup but that's for most situations fine as the backup can be run any time. 

[CheshireCat]

After several issues with different kinds of RAID, I would discourage using them for backup purposes. The hassles and cost of RAID5 are only worth if mass storage downtime is a problem.

 

Also, if you are ok with the cost and storage space of a reliable SSD, refrain from using mechanical drives.