Home NAS as alternative to iCloud Photo Library?

[Dekema2]

As the title says, I am looking for an alternative to iCloud Photo Library. I am on the $1 plan.

While the $2.99 upgrade isn't much, I know that as my library grows, so will the bill, as my storage space will decrease.

I already have an external 1TB hdd with a copy of the library, so it's interconnected to iCloud when I want it to be.

Now I am wondering, if I use an NAS at home, are there easy to use frontend apps that allow for access of my photos at home and abroad? Or is this prevented by Apple's walled garden?

 

[Tech198]

As the title says, I am looking for an alternative to iCloud Photo Library. I am on the $1 plan.

While the $2.99 upgrade isn't much, I know that as my library grows, so will the bill, as my storage space will decrease.

I already have an external 1TB hdd with a copy of the library, so it's interconnected to iCloud when I want it to be.

Now I am wondering, if I use an NAS at home, are there easy to use frontend apps that allow for access of my photos at home and abroad? Or is this prevented by Apple's walled garden?

Yep.. unless u use a Apple device to store them, a NAS would be good...

There are apps you can use both inside and outside your network.. Depending on the NAS (e.g QNAP for example) has QNAS Cloud, so u just enable this, port forward to your NAS from router or auto-confuration with UpnP, then access from your devices from outside.:

https://www.qnap.com/en-au/tutorial/con_show.php?op=showone&cid=81

Many other NAS's are similar . Alternately, u can run your own VPN server, then VPN in from iPad and open the apps u use to connect. TeamViewer is another option.. (and the easyist)

Lots of options to do this,, depends how secure u wanna or weather u have access to router.

 

[lexvo]

Like Tech198 says, you can use a NAS for storing your photos.

I myself have a QNAP NAS and I use the QFile app from QNAP to display photos on my iPad and iPhone. QFile can also stream photos to an AppleTV. By the way, you can use any file browser instead of the QFile app to display photos.
So it is certainly possible.

 

[bopajuice]

Like Tech198 says, you can use a NAS for storing your photos.

I myself have a QNAP NAS and I use the QFile app from QNAP to display photos on my iPad and iPhone. QFile can also stream photos to an AppleTV. By the way, you can use any file browser instead of the QFile app to display photos.
So it is certainly possible.

Question. Do you have your photo library set up as an iPhoto library? Can the NAS app read the library or do you have to store each photo as a jpeg, etc.?

I just set up a Qnap NAS with 8TB or space, and have my music up and running on my network using iTunes and Plex just fine, but I am still trying to figure out the best way to store photos. I have thousands of photos in various iPhoto and photos libraries going back to 2005. Any suggestions?

 

[rhett7660]

Question. Do you have your photo library set up as an iPhoto library? Can the NAS app read the library or do you have to store each photo as a jpeg, etc.?

I just set up a Qnap NAS with 8TB or space, and have my music up and running on my network using iTunes and Plex just fine, but I am still trying to figure out the best way to store photos. I have thousands of photos in various iPhoto and photos libraries going back to 2005. Any suggestions?

I have the QNAP also, and sadly I have been unable to have my iPhoto library reside on the NAS and also be able to access it.

For my photos, I actually purchased a separate USB Hard drive, formatted it, moved a copy of my library to it and use Chronosync to sync my libraries back and forth. So my main sits on my machine and the back up is on an external harddrive. I have setup a second partition on another connected harddrive so I have two backups.

I am assuming with the NAS you are looking to share the photos? Or are you just wanting to make a back up of them?

 

[lexvo]

Question. Do you have your photo library set up as an iPhoto library? Can the NAS app read the library or do you have to store each photo as a jpeg, etc.?

No, I just made directories and stored the photos in there. This was the most simple and I had the most control.

QNAP also has an app called Photo Station. I never used it because I wasn't impressed with it, but that was a few years ago. Maybe newer versions are better.

 

[bopajuice]

I have the QNAP also, and sadly I have been unable to have my iPhoto library reside on the NAS and also be able to access it.

For my photos, I actually purchased a separate USB Hard drive, formatted it, moved a copy of my library to it and use Chronosync to sync my libraries back and forth. So my main sits on my machine and the back up is on an external harddrive. I have setup a second partition on another connected harddrive so I have two backups.

I am assuming with the NAS you are looking to share the photos? Or are you just wanting to make a back up of them?

I want my wife to be able to access them. I started to consolidate libraries, but found when trying to save 1000's of photos the system whether it be my computer or NAS starts to to have trouble handling all the files. Gets laggy.

I may have to take the time and create folders by years or topic and start going through them. There does not seem to be a simple way. Aperture used to work pretty well, but we all know what happened to that program.

 

[rhett7660]

I want my wife to be able to access them. I started to consolidate libraries, but found when trying to save 1000's of photos the system whether it be my computer or NAS starts to to have trouble handling all the files. Gets laggy.

I may have to take the time and create folders by years or topic and start going through them. There does not seem to be a simple way. Aperture used to work pretty well, but we all know what happened to that program.

Is this within iPhoto or the Photos app? The reason I ask is because I have close to 10K photos in one library and have had zero issues accessing it.

You want her to be able to look at them, modify them, and save them correct? Do you want both of you to be able to work on the same document at the same time?

I am assuming she is on another computer, same network, hence the reason for the NAS correct?