Gemini Edit

content/posts/2025-01-04-nas.md

@@ -5,73 +5,71 @@ tags: [photography, nas, jococruise]
 categories: [Photography]
 slug: considering-a-nas
 ---
-
-I'm thinking of building a [NAS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network-attached_storage).
+I'm considering building a NAS (Network Attached Storage), primarily for photo
+backup.
 
 <!--more-->
 
-Primarily for photo backup purposes.
-
-Over the last few years, I got into photography, but ultimately I've been
-stalled in improving.
+Over the last few years, I've gotten into photography, but I've been stalled in
+my progress.
 
-The root issue, is while I like taking pictures, composing, framing them, I don't seem
-to enjoy editing them as much.
+The root issue is that while I enjoy taking pictures – composing and framing
+them – I don't enjoy editing them nearly as much.
 
-It's ultimately a problem of organization. I don't have space.
+It's ultimately a problem of organization; I simply don't have enough storage
+space.
 
-Once I get going on culling them, it's not so bad, but I'm not quick about it.
-So the problem recurs.
+Once I get going on culling my photos, it's not so bad, but I'm not quick about
+it. So the problem recurs.
 
-In effect, I need to be more ruthless in that regard, in getting the pictures 
-off of the SD cards and onto one of my computers' harddrives. But ultimately, I
-don't delete the bad photos quickly enough, which makes them accumulate on the 
-active hard drives.
+Effectively, I need to be more ruthless in getting the pictures off the SD cards
+and onto one of my computers' hard drives. But I don't delete the bad photos
+quickly enough, which causes them to accumulate on the active hard drives.
 
-This sort of came to a head on the 2024 JoCoCruise. I once again too too many
-photos, and then they fill up the harddrive, which means I can't take pictures
-off the cards anymore.
+This issue came to a head on the 2024 JoCoCruise. I once again took far too many
+photos, and they filled up my hard drive, which meant I couldn't transfer any
+more pictures from the SD cards.
 
-And then I become concerned with not losing pictures, both those I've culled and
-edited, and those I haven't looked at yet.
+I then became concerned about losing pictures, both those I'd culled and edited,
+ and those I hadn't looked at yet.
 
-Then I ultimately lose track of what I've processed and not.
+Eventually, I lost track of what I had processed and what I hadn't.
 
-So I need a better way.
+So, I need a better system.
 
-But I can't do that without space.
+But I can't implement that without more storage space.
 
-Hence, a NAS.
+Hence, the NAS.
 
-I could get an off the shelf unit, but I didn't love the price profiles for them
-despite the advanced organization features they provide. I've never been amazing
-at adhering to someone else's organizational principals, and it requires a bunch
-of additional research to get going.
+I could buy an off-the-shelf unit, but I wasn't thrilled with their price
+points, despite the advanced organization features they offer. I've never been
+great at adhering to someone else's organizational principles, and it would
+require a bunch of additional research to get started.
 
-So I'm building one myself, and probably throwing TrueNAS or HexOS onto it.
+So, I'm building one myself and will likely install TrueNAS or HexOS.
 
-I just want something that can expand if I need to, and not have to work on
-the cloud primarily. Ultimately, anything truly worth keeping would also be
-archived in the cloud, but I hope to keep that set of data to be minimal.
+I just want something that I can expand if needed, without having to rely
+primarily on the cloud. Ultimately, anything truly worth keeping will also be
+archived in the cloud, but I hope to keep that dataset minimal.
 
-I'd be more tempted to buy something pre-made but I've heard tales that they
-don't put good CPUs in there, and I have a 3700X just laying around since I
-upgraded my gaming PC.
+I'd be more tempted to buy something pre-made, but I've heard that they often
+don't include powerful CPUs. I happen to have a 3700X just lying around since
+I upgraded my gaming PC.
 
-Overall, I'm looking at some refurbished 20TB drives, and the
-[JONSBO N4](https://www.jonsbo.com/en/products/N4Black.html) as a case.
-That'll plenty of space for additional drives upgrades, but still compact.
-It won't be too tough a build, since without a GPU, the power and
-airflow needs should be minimal. I'll need a different low profile CPU cooler,
-but everything is dwarfed by the drive costs anyway so that's fine.
+Overall, I'm looking at some refurbished 20TB drives and the JONSBO N4 case.
+That will provide plenty of space for additional drive upgrades while still
+being compact. It shouldn't be too tough a build; without a GPU, the power and
+airflow needs should be minimal. I'll need a different low-profile CPU cooler,
+but everything else is dwarfed by the drive costs anyway, so that's fine.
 
-I'm looking at using a double parity set up for the drives, and with 4 drives,
-that'll mostly be swallowed by overhead. But each additional drive should let
-me get nearly the full capacity. I don't anticipate needing it that soon at
-least.
+I'm planning to use a double-parity setup for the drives. With four drives,
+much of the capacity will be used for overhead, but each additional drive should
+provide nearly its full capacity. I don't anticipate needing that anytime soon,
+at least.
 
-But with ~120MB for each raw + Fine JPGs, it'll take a long age for me to hit
-that capacity, so I'm feeling pretty safe with rebuild risks.
+Considering each RAW + Fine JPG pair takes up around 120MB, it will take me a
+long time to reach that capacity, so I'm feeling pretty confident about having
+minimal rebuild risks.
 
-And with that, I should be able to unblock myself from clearing out my existing
-cards, and set up a proper workflow to process my dang photos.
+With this setup, I should be able to unblock myself from clearing out my
+existing SD cards and establish a proper workflow to finally process my photos.