About twelve months or so ago, I got really into photography. As is the case with many people infatuated by their hobbies, I thought I needed the latest and greatest equipment. Knowing myself and my impulsive behavior, I managed to keep costs low by not spending money on fancy equipment I’d never use.
I do, however, have the feeling that I wasted a lot of money on my NAS.
We all know it’s important to have back-ups of important files. And sometimes, back-ups of those backups. That’s why I figured that investing in a NAS was a good idea. I could use it to keep all my photos. It’s a NAS! What can go wrong!
Well, for once I’m fortunate in being impatient, because I always stored my pictures to my computer first, then made a back-up to my NAS if I felt like it.
That might sound like a bad idea, but since buying it my NAS practically “died” on three separate occasions. Each time, the useless black brick that was supposed to keep my pictures safe said “You know what? I can’t read those hard drives anymore. I’m just going to ask you to wipe them.”
This happened for the third time this weekend, after I got back from France. Disk 1 and Disk 2 no longer exist. Want to format disk 3 and disk 4 and start over?
A back-up of the back-up
Fortunately, I’ve got a back-up of my back-up. I bought a €99 external HDD after I got tired of the shenanigans. I’m considering buying a second HDD, because compared to the plastic brick sitting in my “nerd corner”, it’s got the following advantages:
- It costs a fifth of a new NAS.
- It doesn’t take forever to boot, despite being as empty as the Sahara desert.
- It doesn’t MAKE AN AWFUL LOUD NOISE when it’s sitting there, doing nothing.
Fingers crossed that I can still get my money back.