Brian

As for which one to buy.... That WD is probably the easiest one to use for the "average" user. I'm sure there are setup wizards that will configure things for you. The downside is that this unit is a glorified external HD and your Mac will need to be powered on in order to access the data. The QNAP though...it allows more flexibility. If you wanted to create a home media server, the Ethernet Ports are a bonus as it will act as it's own device. Streaming in house isn't going to be anywhere near 100Mb / second, unless you are streaming 4K HD over your network. If you didn't want to use the Ethernet ports, it does have USB 3.0 ports to use, as well as a eSATA. It all boils down to budget.

So now we come to the part of even more redundancy and cloud storage. With 6TB or more of Data, you will be uploading forever. It's best to find a Cloud Vendor that accepts Hard Drives being sent to them with your data. You could send two or three 4TB HDs, one for client data, one one for personal data and one for misc. stuff (or overflow from one of the other two hard drives.) Investigate the Cloud Vendor thoroughly. Often they will delete files after a month if they aren't available on your computer. Not all Cloud vendors are the same, so read the fine print. It's not a "Set it and forget it" type of thing. Don't ever assume that it's okay to delete any file on your HD to free up space, because it's in "The Cloud." It may not be. As you can see, the prices are starting to add up. Hopefully you'll have about $2000+ to spend on this project, because this stuff isn't cheap. You'll probably want two of the NAS systems, one as a primary, the other as a backup / secondary. You would copy NAS #1 to NAS #2 on a weekly / monthly basis. Then upload the files from either NAS #1 or NAS #2 (Probably NAS #2) to the Cloud. Of course, after you do your initial data-dump. Most ISPs have data caps and I'd hate for you to get penalized for going over 250GB of data. You might not want to purchase a second NAS, and that's fine. Just purchase a bunch of 4TB to 6TB hard drives to copy stuff to. Then backup your NAS to the Cloud. I know that you are trying to get away from having a bunch of HDs floating around, but the truth is to do that, it's gonna cost money. So before you do anything, have a realistic budget set. If you did go with the QNAP, I think you can configure two hard Drives as RAID0, then mirror those HDs to the other two. Check the manual.

Now for your selections. The manufacturers are finally releasing new NAS systems with larger HDs. This Western Digital Unit caught my eye. I've had very good luck with the WD Caviar Black Line of HDs. It's what I usually recommend when it comes to Western Digital's products. I highly recommend that you reconfigure that HD as a RAID1, of course, you will have only 6TB available if you configure it that way. I think 8TB hard drives are the largest at this point, but I haven't really checked lately, they could be bigger, but I'm thinking 8TB is the largest as I type this. QNAP's products are highly regarded in the industry. This QNAP TS-431 unit allows you to have the ability to create a RAID5. If you use all 4 hard drives as a RAID 5, after formatting, you should get close to 10TB total storage capcity, give or take. In addition, this unit has an Gigabit Ethernet Port, so all you have to do is hook it up to your router / switch and it acts like it's own server. If you configure it as a RAID5 with three HDs and one hot-spare with 4TB HDs, you'll get about 7TB or so of usable space, give or take. Your dream of having 12TB of storage space is still a bit early, unless you want to use RAID0. (Again, not recommended.) The hard drives aren't that big...yet. Still, 6TB is 6TB!! You will just need to cull and hack your images. Saving everything isn't a good idea anyway. Those images that will never see the light of day will continue to just sit there, taking up space.

Part 2: OK, there are a few things to keep in mind. These unit's HDs are configured as a RAID. RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent Disks. Huh? What that means is two or more Hard Drives act either in unison or towards the same goal. There are different Levels of RAID: RAID0 - Two Hard Drives act as one large Hard Drive. So if you put two 6GB HDs and configure them as a RAID 0, you'll have a 12GB HD. The reason is that the data is spread between both hard drives. Pros: RAID0 is FAST. It's great for cache files when you are editing video, as it just soaks up the data so effortlessly. Cons: If one HD fails, the whole thing goes ka-plooey. I wouldn't recommend RAID0 for ANY type of long-term storage. You might as well keep using your 6 1TB EHDs. RAID1 - One hard drive is mirrored automatically onto a second hard drive. So if one hard drive fails, you can replace the failed HD and the data will mirror itself back automatically, or from a prompt of software. Pros: The simplest form of redundancy. One hard drive is automatically copied over to the other in real time. Cons: Storage Capacity is cut in half. If you have two 6TB HDs in a RAID1 configuration, you'll have 6TB available, not 12TB. The other con is there is no discrimination of the data from one hard drive to the other. So if you have corrupted data on one HD, that corrupted file is automatically copied over in real time. RAID5 - Three or more Hard Drives act in unison. If one HD fails, the other two pickup the slack and keep going. Your data is accessible. If two hard drives fail in a RAID5, the whole RAID Array is blown away, in which you lose all your data. Pros: RAID5 is like the combination of RAID0 & RAID1. It's faster than RAID1 and you get the benefit of the data being spread over multiple HDs, so if one fails, it's not a big issue. Many of my Servers that I configure have a RAID5 for storage of their critical data and database files. Cons: Cost. It's expensive to implement a RAID5 Array. You will need 3 identical HDs to start with, plus have a hardware controller or software package support RAID5, which is also not cheap. To whom it may concern: Yes, I'm well aware that there are more RAID levels out there, but I'm keeping things simple with just these three. With any RAID Array, the data is controlled by either a Software Package or Hardware Controller. It's better to get a Hardware Based RAID Controller. As with any software, if any data corruption happens, i.e. if that code-book gets corrupted, your data is GONE. Of course your data isn't available if the controller dies on you, but out of the two of them, a Hardware Based RAID is the best option in my humble opinion. Always go with a Hardware Based Device if you have a choice. To give you an example, I had a customer of mine who had a server with a RAID5. One of the drives was down and there was a second that was about to fail. Since this was a big and fancy server, with hot-swap Hard Drives (meaning I didn't have to power down the server, just unlock and remove the HDs,) I pulled the failed drive, and installed the new one. The controller said, "Thanks! I will take care of this for you!" A few hours later, the new drive was implemented into the Array. I then pulled the 2nd flaky HD and let it rebuild. (I also did the 3rd one, just in case that was going to die, since they were all installed at the same time.) So after a few hours, the RAID5 Array was stable and the only thing my customer noticed was a slight performance slow-down while the RAID rebuilt itself, which is totally expected.

Sorry, you have to do any moving / exporting from within iPhoto. You see, it imports the photos into its own catalog file, kinda like LR, but MUCH MUCH worse. Instead of leaving the photos on the HD and have their locations indexed like Lightroom does, iPhoto sucks your photos into itself. It takes them hostage and I think deletes the Raw file and only keeps the JPEG. So you'll have to work with the jumbled mess that is iPhoto. Good Luck. iPhoto and Photos are evil-evil programs.

You do not need to blow $3000+ then. Look at the Canon 7D Mark II. It will be a big step up from your 400D and the is the affordable option in your case (vs. going full frame.)

I'm going to address the three sides of your question in different comment boxes. When using a mechanical (traditional) HD, that's where the bottleneck is with transferring data. So it's not a Thunderbolt problem, per se. Thunderbolt is still meant for 10Gbps /second (or 20Gbps with Thunderbolt II,) while USB 3.0 caps out at 5Gbps. Of course, real-world speeds are usually slower, but again...it all depends on what drive is being used. If you are using a Thunderbolt SSD drive, read/write speeds will be WAY faster than a SSD on a USB 3.0 port. I personally still like Thunderbolt for a main backup drive for hosting photos. El Capitan has an interesting quirk, on some Macs, it likes spinning USB EHDs down and doesn't always wake them up. This is kinda important for things like a Time Machine drive. Even if you tell the power settings to never spin down hard drives. No, there isn't a fix. It's an El Capitan quirk. Bonus: Like the Black Boxes issue in PS, it's random. It doesn't affect all Macs. Part 2 and 3 will be answered after I have my coffee.

Whenever someone messes with the command line in the Mac OS or Linux / Unix, I put in the disclaimer warning people that this is a serious set of instructions that need to be followed to the letter.

Ah, Photos. The Demon Spawn of Apple's Aperture and iPhoto. It is such a nuisance that really gets in the way, MUCH MORE than iPhoto ever did. Now I've heard the "Default / Easy Way" to disable Photos doesn't always stick, and you have to do this each and every time you hook up your camera. Even if you have used the same cards. Once you format them, Photos treats them as brand new devices. Oh, speaking of which, please...I beg you, use a card reader when importing with a Mac!!! Life is so much easier when you use a card reader. I know it's tempting and "I've always used my camera, blah-blah-blah..." USE A CARD READER WITH A MAC. PERIOD. First things first... What you should also do, turn on the various devices to appear on the desktop when inserted / mounted. This makes importing images a breeze, since your CF / SD cards will appear like EHDs on the desktop. Open the Finder Program Next to the Apple Menu at the top should be the Finder Menu. Click the Finder Menu and look for Preferences. Look for "Show these items on the desktop" and make sure that Hard Disks, External Disks, CDs, DVDs and iPods are ALL CHECKED. Click the red circle to close out the window. Now things like Memory Cards, External Hard Drives and the like will appear on your desktop. Then all you have to do is double click on the icon, find your photos and COPY them to their ultimate location. Then use Bridge and go find the files that you just imported. NOW LET'S BEGIN!! Disable Photos - Method #1: Insert the card into the reader or hook up your camera to the computer. Open the Photos App and click the Import Tab. You should see the device name, if you don't see your Canon 7D listed, again...use a card reader. Uncheck the box next to where it says "Open Photos for this device..." Click the red circle and that should save your changes. Now, I've heard through the Grapevine that you must do this procedure each and every that you insert a new / formatted card or hook up your camera. Turning Photos off this way doesn't stick. You need to do it all the time. *Sigh* Apple REALLY wants you to use their software, they are convinced that it's the BEST-EST!! So it doesn't surprise me one bit that they weren't much help. They are instructed to make sure that Photos is left installed and running. WARNING!! THE FOLLOWING ARE ADVANCED TECHNICAL INSTRUCTIONS!!! PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK!!! FOLLOW THEM TO THE LETTER!!! Disable Photos - Method #2: THESE SET OF INSTRUCTIONS ONLY WORK FOR YOSEMITE!! Head to your Applications folder. Look in your Utilities Folder then look for a program called Terminal. It should be a square looking black icon. Click on it. Now a command box will appear. Some people might argue that this step isn't necessary, but I'm a tech and like doing things at a "root" or "#" (Pound Prompt, not hashtag in this case.) Type the following command: SUDO SU It will prompt you for the password for the profile that you are logged in as. For most people, type in your Mac's normal password. Press Enter. If everything works out, you should see something like sh-3.2#: The numbers and letters don't matter, what does is you are at a POUND PROMPT. Type the following at the command prompt, or better yet...copy and paste this command: defaults -currentHost write com.apple.ImageCapture disableHotPlug -bool NO Press Enter. Type exit (lower case) & press enter. Type exit again (lower case) & press enter. Close the Terminal Box. Reboot. Disable Photos - Method #3: THESE SET OF INSTRUCTIONS ONLY WORK FOR EL CAPITAN!! Head to the Apple Menu and select Restart Wait a few seconds and the screen should go completely Black Before the G Major Chord Chimes, press and hold the Command + R Keys and hold them until the Apple Logo Appears. Release the Command + R Keys when you see the status bar appear below the Apple Logo. I'd wait about 5-10 seconds. The Utilities Menu should appear. Select the Applications Menu from the top and head to Utilities. The choose Terminal. You should be at a Pound Prompt, "#" with some letters and numbers near it. For example, -bash- 3.2#: (or something similar.) Again, the numbers and letters do not matter, what does is you are at the Pound Prompt. Hit enter a few times. It should add a few lines which makes things easier to see. Type: CSRUTIL disable and press Enter. (Yes, this is Case-Sensitive. Big CSRUTIL and small disable.) Type exit, (lower case,) press enter, and close the Terminal Window. Head over to the OSX Utilities Menu, which is next to the Apple Menu in the upper left corner. Select Quit OSX Utilities. A pop-up box will appear. Click on Restart. Let your Mac boot as normal and Login with your main profile. Head to your Applications Folder, then select Utilities and then choose Terminal. Type the following command: SUDO SU You should be prompted for your profile's password type it in and press enter. If everything works, you should be at a Pound Prompt. "#" Copy and paste this command into the terminal window: mv /System/Library/Image\ Capture/Devices/MassStorageCamera.app /System/Library/Image\ Capture/Devices/MassStorageCameraOff.app Press Enter. What this command is doing is renaming the MassStorageCamera.app to MassStorageCameraOff.app. This way the Mac OS doesn't know where the App is. If you need to restore it, we can just copy it back to its original name. Now we are almost done! Type exit and press enter... do this twice. You should see [Process Completed] appear. Close the Terminal Window. Restart your Mac. When the screen finally goes black and before the G Major Chord Chimes, press and hold the Command + R Keys. Yes, we have to go back into the Apple System Utilities Menu to turn the csrutil back on. It's important to do this. Keep holding them until the Apple Logo Appears. You should see the status bar below the logo. Release the keys after 5-10 seconds. The Utilities Screen should Appear. Look for the Applications Menu at the top, then click Utilities and select Terminal. You should be at a Pound Prompt. "#" Type CSRUTIL enable and press enter. (Yes, this is Case-Sensitive. Big CSRUTIL and small disable.) Type exit and close the Terminal Window. Head to the OSX Utilities Menu and select Quit OSX Utilities. When prompted, click Restart. That's it! You are done!! Let your Mac reboot as normal and Photos should be completely disabled from auto-loading.

What are you planning on doing with this computer? If you are producing videos, encoding things and rendering graphics, the i7-5820K is a better choice vs. the i7-6700. If you are looking to play games, the i7-6700k is what you want. As far as Xeon, personally...I've really only seen them used in servers, running databases, used for a terminal server and such. The thing with Xeon, is software needs to be written to take advantage of the Xeon's architecture, otherwise it is simply ignored. If I had to flip a coin, my vote is for a i7-6700. It will give you the best all-around experience, UNLESS you are really editing serious video and doing 3D stuff. In fact, when I priced out stuff for my "Brian Computer," I chose a Intel i7-6700 for the CPU. So that's what I'm buying. LOL!!

It boils down to shooting style. If her 50 1.8 lives on her camera, then she could make the 100mm f/2.0 work. If she is used to zooming in and out, then the 24-105 f/4 L is in her future at the very least.

I wouldn't worry about the pop-up flash that much. Yes, they are convenient, but generally don't produce quality light. In most cases, they are frowned upon. A Canon 430 EX II is way better than a pop-up. You could also go the cheap route, as Christina suggested, with what I call the "Kung-Pow!!" Flashes. Now for the camera body. A 6D is on sale now at $1399. You could get a Canon 24-105 f/4L for $999 to replace your 18-55. Or go for broke and get a 24-70 f/2.8 L Version II for $1799. Wow, that price has dropped. It used to be $2400. Oh, don't EVER buy the version one of the Canon 24-70 lens. Way too many problems with it. Anyway... If you are a prime shooter, you could use the EF 50 1.8 and pickup a Canon 100mm f/2.0 lens (Not the Macro Lens, the Portrait Lens) for $499. This way you would have something with a little more reach and has a wide Aperture. Why not the Canon 85 1.8? Because of the stupid Chromatic Aberration. The 100 f/2.0 is MUCH better in this dept. Right now you need more than just a camera body if you were to go full frame. You need better glass. Period. I wouldn't even bother going to full frame at the moment unless your budget is seriously going to increase. I would get a 24-105 f/4L, a 70-200 f/4L IS to replace your 18-55 & 75-300. The f/4 lenses are cheaper than their f/2.8 counterparts. Both those lenses combined will run you $2148. Now add the $1399 6D and we are at $3547. See how I say the average cost is $4000? If we added a 430 EX III Flash, we are close to that number. So what body? How about a 7D Mark II? It's a body that's more robust than what you have, and you could use all your current lenses. i wouldn't bother repairing a 400D.

You are correct @Samantha LaRue. The more crap you have on the Mac Desktop, the slower the thing runs. The Mac OS treats every file and folder on the desktop as an open window. In fact, the fastest way to speed your Mac up is to clear the desktop.

What is your current lens lineup? The problem with upgrading from a crop to full frame sensor, is that the majority of crop users have crop only lenses. With Canon, only "EF" are recommended to be used with full frame bodies. If you have any "EF-S" lenses, they are designed to be used with Canon Crop Bodies ONLY. This is why we need to know what your lens lineup looks like, because if you don't have full frame lenses lined up, the average cost to upgrade to full frame is around $4000 - $4500. Give or take.

Now with your ART lens, are you on the latest firmware? I remember seeing a few firmware updates fixed some focus issues. If you have a Sigma 70-200, you will have to send it in and it's too late for that.

"As long as you get a good copy..." Agreed. That's the key statement. While Sigma has gotten much better over the years, especially with their ART series, they still have QC issues. It used to be my standard phrase, "Often you will go through 3-4 lenses before you get a good copy with Sigma and 4-5 lenses with Tamron..." Of course, perception is reality. I'm sure there are plenty of people reading this thread foaming at the mouth and want to scream at me that I'm wrong. That "Their Lenses" are fine Sam, you just did it yourself. Here is my defense. In a little over a week, this person is about to photograph a wedding. The type of event that you can't redo. If her two lenses are acting up, a wedding gig is not the place to "test" your new AF settings. Because those settings aren't bulletproof. The lens could still be acting up. So if you think, "OK...I set my lenses to +4 and my test shots at home seem to be fine, it's not front-focusing as much..." and then go shoot the gig, come home only to discover at home that the lens is back-focusing, I'm trying to stop her from going down that road. To not have the situation the day after the Wedding when looking at the freshly downloaded images for the 1st time... "OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG!!! No-No-No-No!!!! F*CK!!! These photos are all out of focus!! The group shots, none of them are in focus!! The first kiss!! F*CK MY LIFE!!!! Blurry!! What am I'm going to do?!?!! I'm gonna get sued!! The bride is going to be pissed. I wonder if Damien can help?!?!! Great, he's asleep since he's on the other side of the world..." I'm trying to stop this situation from happening at all. Now, it's true that I'm an OEM Snob. I will never have 3rd party lenses mounted on my camera, but the main reason I'm recommending her to rent OEM glass is simply this: Reliability. Since rental gear is "Used & Abused," she has a higher chance of getting a OEM rental lens that actually works. It used to be that OEM stuff had higher build quality and lasted longer, and that's still mostly true, both Canon & Nikon have been slipping in recent years. I often now wait for the first recall before considering buying anything new. That said, when it comes to renting, im going straight for the Nikon or Canon glass. The rental places will have more OEM lenses in stock, due to higher demand and my chances of getting a good copy are increased.

I'd like to add one thing to this thread, for interested parties. The reason I do not recommend adding a 512GB SSD (Apple calls it a "Flash Drive") is due to the cost and size limitations. As camera sensors get larger, Raw file sizes are increasing. Which means space becomes a premium. I have enough problems with laptop users that are constantly running out of room with 500GB drives, (e.g. My scratch disk is full...) so there is no way that about to recommend blowing an additional $500 on top of the $1800 to have half the capacity of a 1TB drive. Even though some might be convinced that SSD Drives are the "Bee's Knees." Of course, there are more reasons, and those will be addressed in a future article that will be posted in the Knowledge Base on Damien's website.

I'd skip this computer. What really sticks out is the "Integrated Graphics." With today's Adobe Software, it's MUCH better to get a computer that has a separate video card, with it's own dedicated Video Memory. You should be able to get a decent computer for around £600. (Which is about $1200 US, give or take.) Take a look at this Dell, from a big-box store here in the US: Dell XPS 8900 While it's not Earth-shattering, it will do the job for a smaller budget. Keep in mind, you could always add a 2nd SATA HD or even a SSD drive, so it being 1TB isn't that bad. See how it lists "Separate Dedicated Video?" if you see something along the lines of "Intel HD Graphics," or "Intel Integrated Graphics," stay clear of the machine. Or else budget for adding a video card to be installed into your new computer. Why am I making a big deal about this? Adobe's current software is utilizing the Video Graphics Processor and Video Memory for a performance boost. You'll see the performance increase when you use things like the liquefy tool and general usage. Gone are the days of just having a fast CPU making the biggest difference. In fact, when it comes to Photoshop, there is only a 5%-10% speed increase with an Intel i7 over a i5. Why? Because software code needs to be written to take advantage of the architecture of the i7. If it's not programmed to use it, the software ignores the extra features. Photoshop is one of those programs. So here is what to look for as a reference: i5 or i7 CPU 1TB HD 7200 RPM 8GB RAM / 16GB Preferred Separate Dedicated Video Graphics Chip with it's own memory. 1GB Video RAM is fine for the "average" person. Keep in mind, that you can never have enough RAM, Hard Drive Space or CPU speed. That hasn't changed, but for the lower-budgets my 4 key things work for the majority. As soon as you start adding SSD Drives and better video cards and better power supplies, the price goes up. For giggles, I priced-out a "Brian Computer." I stopped at $2700 just for the computer. When I'm done, I'm sure I will be around the $3500 mark. Of course, this "Bitchin' Speed Demon" will be obsolete in a few years.

Oh, if you seriously can not trust your gear with something as important as a wedding, please rent some glass. Preferably OEM lenses. I would hate for you do blow focus on important shots only to end up here in Ask Damien begging for help because the "Bride is gonna be pissed, and I'm ready to puke..." threads are so heart-wrenching. In addition, what camera body are you shooting with?

Are they both Sigma lenses?

Those spots on the lower left are usually caused by dust on the sensor. Though it could be particles in the lens, my gut is telling my you need to use a Rocket Blower and clean that sensor. For the crack, content aware could work. So could cloning. I've used the patch tool in the past to remove telephone lines in my landscape photos. That diagonal line isn't that much different. It's all the same theory. What lens are you using in this photo? If you need replacement recommendations, be sure to post your question in "The DSLR Bistro" forum in "Ask Brian."

If you are looking for a laptop, I'd use this one for photo editing: Asus 15.6" Laptop If you look on the main page, you'll see the 4 things to look for. 8GB RAM Minimum / 16GB Preferred 1TB HD at a Minimum A separate Graphics Processor with its own dedicated Video RAM IPS Based Screen The CPU chip isn't a huge consideration these days, unless you are doing lots and lots of batching with a bunch of open photos, or are editing video. Today's i5 CPUs or equivalent work just fine. You also have been working on a slow laptop for so long, you have no idea just how small 4GB is these days, let alone 6GB.

Keep in mind, both of those lenses are variable aperture lenses. As you zoom out, the lens automatically stops down to f/5.6. The only time you will get it's wide aperture is when you are at 18mm or 55mm. You still might need to invest in a prime or a flash for tricky lighting situations.

Just so you know, that 70-300 lens in that eBay kit is the Non-VR 70-300 lens, and is regarded as one of Nikon's WORST lenses. They can't give them away. I SERIOUSLY WOULDN'T BUY THOSE ALL-IN-ONE KITS FROM EBAY! I know your budget is tight, but you are throwing money away. If you do purchase the eBay stuff, I wish you well.

Most of those "Free Stuff" items in eBay are Gray Market items. Meaning NIKON WILL NOT TOUCH THEM IF SENT IN FOR REPAIR. Basically, those items become paperweights if they break. I'm very concerned for this Wedding you are about to shoot. I would NEVER shoot one with a 18-55 kit lens. If I were a guest and these photos were just keepsakes, fine. As the main photographer providing the official photos? Forget it. $800 is a tight budget. It's not going to get you much. Chances are at that price point, you will be renting gear. You could get a used D7100 and rent a Nikon 17-55 f/2.8G DX lens. Add a SB-910 flash and you could do a whole wedding with that combo. You could also rent a Nikon 24-120 f/4 VR lens. That would also work. My 1st Digital Wedding that I did, I had the body but ended up renting lenses. After my costs, I made $50 that day. But you know what? I needed the photos. Those photos allowed me to book another wedding, in which I was able to purchase new gear. A 50 1.8 is used by crop cameras for portraits due to the Angle of View change. If you were shooting on a full frame body, you would need a 85 1.8 to produce similar results. If you had to, you could use a D7100 and a 35mm f/1.8G DX, that is equivalent to a film SLR with a 50 1.8. Then I would add a 85 1.8 for a little more reach. Something "normal" and something "long." The 35mm runs about $197 new. The 85 is $497 new. That's $700 in lenses rounded up and is the bare minimum...there goes your budget. If you must shoot this wedding, you will need to add to the budget. The $800 should cover lenses and some SD cards, but you will have to finance the body yourself.