Photos stored on NAS

You can store your photos in a Photos Library. The Photos .app can be used with a local library, it is not necessary to use iCloud with Photos.

See: What is Photos?

If the internal drive on your MacBook Pro does not have enough free storage for your photos collection, you can create the System Photos Library on an external drive. See: https://help.apple.com/photos/mac/1.0/?lang=en#/pht211de786

Or use multiple libraries - a small internal System Photos Library, and a second library with the bulk of your photos on an external drive:

Use multiple libraries

The Apple documents do not say if Photos will work with the library on a NAS, but we have seen many reports from users who tried, where the attempt to work with a Photos Library on a NAS failed.

With iPhoto and Aperture it was not recommended to store the library on NAS:

léonie wrote:

The Apple documents do not say if Photos will work with the library on a NAS, but we have seen many reports from users who tried, where the attempt to work with a Photos Library on a NAS failed.

I think the problem is that a NAS device is actually a computer acting as a dedicated file server, & its operating system may or may not fully support all the network protocols required to serve files properly to OS X based systems or the file system requirements of certain of the apps on those systems. Too many NAS devices still are optimized for Windows, UPnP, & SMB, with UNIX-friendly protocols tacked on as an afterthought & poorly tested.

but we have seen many reports from users who tried, where the attempt to work with a Photos Library on a NAS failed.

In the cases I have seen a NAS fail, the OPs tried to migrate an iPhoto or Aperture library to Photos, that was on the network volume.Then one of three things happened:

1. Photos refused to open the library on the NAS
2. or Photos started to migrate it and crashed
3. or Photos tried to migrate the library but did not create the migrated library on the NAS but in the Pictures folder.

I suspect, the reasons 2 and 3 are causes by incompatible filesystems. Photos needs to create hard links when migrating libraries and not all file systems support them.

I am fairly sure files can be hard linked only if all instances are on the same drive, in the same file system. At least I know that if you move your Photos Library to an external drive, it breaks those links & makes 'real' copies of all the library's contents on the external, & if you later move the library back to the internal one, the hard links are not restored.

I'm not sure if or how this applies to Photos libraries stored on NAS devices but I still think incomplete support of the network protocols Photos & OS X require to work reliably are a likely cause of many of these issues.

I am fairly sure files can be hard linked only if all instances are on the same drive, in the same file system.

And if the file system supports hard links at all. The file system on a NAS is usually not MacOS Extended (Journaled). I am sure, that FAT filesystem does not support hard links, but NTFS does.

I use a Synology NAS and successfully have a Photo database linked to the photos which are only stored on the NAS.

I set Photos not to import the full size photos from the NAS (Only the thumbnails).

On restart of the apple from cold, I have to connect to the NAS, using Go >> Connect to Server and entering the ip address of the NAS On the internal network. 192.168.something. I connect via samba. However, on Go >> connect to Server, it retains my prior setup / connect details, so takes very little.

It needs your username/pass the first time you enter the connect details.

Synology DS211, samba, ip address, separate username / password with appropriate read/write access.

Copy pictures directly to the share drive on import (not local drive).

go>> connect server

Open iphoto / photo and import directly from the shared drive.

this is a referenced library and while it does work it has many future issues so is not recommended - this article is about iPhoto but is still mostly true for Photos too (except Photos does have a way to consolidate the external photos into its library now -- iPhoto and File Management

LN

Just to verify since I have read that what you describe above is not possible in the current version of the Photos App.

You are receiving similar functionality with the Photos app regarding original files and copies by using a NAS instead of iCloud? That is, you are storing your original photos on the NAS and only have smaller copies on your local Photos databas. Those smaller copies may have been edited and are good enough to show on a computer screen. Have I understood you correctly?

If thats the case it will really solve my problem:

I would like to avoid using cloud-services for storage of photos and other memories that I would like to last for a lifetime or even more. I have no control if the cloud-service would be shut down or if they are going to increase the price to an extent that is no longer affordable. By using a set of NAS:es I can secure the long time storage by myself.

Further on, I have a MacBook Air where the SSD is almost full of photos. I have a lot of pictures and video memories that I would like to be able to cary with me in a format that is good enough to show the pictures to friends on a computer screen on a TV. The large raw-formatted originals only needs to be stored to be available when I need to do some editing or print some photos. The process must be automated in order to avoid misstakes, the originals are stored to the NAS and smaller copies are synched back to my MacBook.

Of course, I would also like to have a way to secure the originals, for instance by use RAID and storage of incremental backups to different storage locations.

Hi,

i use iPhoto also Photo app with Qnap Nas stored Photos on it. All the fails on top are true. But there is a solution. Create on mac a sparse image with is formatted HFS. Then move it to NAS mount it and copy the library to the touted sparse image. That works 3 years here without problems. The only thing you have to to is before you open Photo app you have to mount your sparse image.

Hope it helps

that is a brilliant solution. I was thinking of setting up a standalone drive, connected to the NAS that was HFS+ formatted. That way I could get the network ability - but that is much cooler.

The only thing you have to to is before you open Photo app you have to mount your sparse image.

What happens if the sparse-image is not mounted first? Can the sparse-image be auto / always mounted, or must it be done by manually 2x-clicking it, every time the Photos app is opened?

Except that accessing the Photos library over a network is not recommended and is likely to create problems and possible lose data - Photos is a single user system that needs a local library accessed with a fast wired connection on a volume formatted Mac OS extended (journaled)

If you access it over a network you are very likely to have major problems

You need to use different software to do what you want to do - Photos is not currently designed to support your needs

LN

Haven't posted too much before (so not sure how the whole Q and A thing works) but after reading the responses to your question it doesn't sound that great. But from my digging I a finding that NAS storage isn't an alien concept and depending on the connection to the NAS it can be a solution for a larger library. What I want to know and I would be happy if you or anyone else on here could answer me is whether I can hook up photos to an old Aperture library stored on my Promise Pegasus NAS that is connected to a Mac mini Server which in turn is networked to my iMac. My attempts so far have proven to be fruitless and it seems that what i am asking is impossible. I am starting to think that my dream of saving space on my iMac and using a 12TB NAS connected through a server that runs the computer network in my home to be is unachievable. for me it seems silly to have all that storage sitting there and no way to properly utilise it !! SOOOO need some help with this.........I even tried to download a trial version Light Room to see if that product could use the Library stored on the NAS , but no go . GRRRRR. Anyone got any ideas ???

I know this is an old thread but I came across it looking for the same answer re Synology and Photos library. However, on further research i found that it IS possible using iSCSI on the NAS. There's a cost implication but figure if you've got a huge library then it's small beans.

(I should point out that I haven't converted my yet as I haven't had time, but I thought I'd pass it on.)

http://www.theghostbit.com/2016/04/using-iscsi-to-store-your-apple-photos.html

Is this solution still working for you? Happen to know if it would work with a btrfs NAS volume containing a sparse image on it?