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Main Segment: – Big news from Nikon.. and not much from Canon
- Flagship D5 now available for pre-order $6,496.95
- specs – available in duel CF or XQD
- 20.8MP FX-Format CMOS Sensor
- EXPEED 5 Image Processor
- 3.2″ 2.36m-Dot Touchscreen LCD Monitor
- 4K UHD Video Recording at 30 fps
- Multi-CAM 20K 153-Point AF System 99 cross-type
- Native ISO 102400, Extend to ISO 3280000
- 12 fps Shooting for 200 Shots with AE/AF 14fps in jpeg
- 180k-Pixel RGB Sensor and Group Area AF
- 14-Bit Raw Files and 12-Bit Raw S Format
- 1000 Base-T Gigabit Wired LAN Support
- D500 also available soon $1,996.95
- specs
- 20.9MP DX-Format CMOS Sensor
- EXPEED 5 Image Processor
- 3.2″ 2,539k-Dot Tilting Touchscreen LCD
- 4K UHD Video Recording at 30 fps
- Multi-CAM 20K 153-Point AF System 99 cross type
- Native ISO 51200, Extend to ISO 1640000
- 10 fps Shooting for Up to 200 Frames
- Built-In Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and NFC (snapbridge)
- Jim: This is the first Nikon camera to contain the SnapBridge technology in-camera. Basically, this creates an always-on Bluetooth connection (Nikon calls this “Smart Ready Bluetooth” just to make sure there are enough marketing terms in this release) between a cell phone and the camera to allow the photographer to push a photo from the camera to a connected cell phone. For me? I’ll believe it when I see it. I’ve tested the wifi from every camera manufacturer and it never works how it’s supposed to.
- Ooooh. And if “SnapBridge” and “Smart Ready Bluetooth” didn’t already fill your need for silly marketing terms, Nikon is also using the term “Advanced Smart Device Compatibility.” Nice.
- 180k-Pixel RGB Sensor and Group Area AF
- In-Camera Time Lapse, Up to 9999 Frames
Nick’s storage woes, and keeping your files organized with room for growth
- DAS (direct attached storage) vs NAS (network attached storage)
- Raid storage vs single hard drives
Doodads of the Week!
- Nick – Spotify – Deep Focus playlist
- Jeff: – SanDisk 128GB micro SD card
Jeff:
Couple things:
1. 100Base-T Ethernet is pretty old technology. I run 1000Base-T (aka Gigabit) and NAS is pretty quick, though not as fast as something directly connected to a computers hard drive controller. 10GBase-T (aka 10Gigabit) standard is probably just around the corner.
2. Drobo doesn’t use RAID standard. It’s proprietary. It also isn’t limited by largest hard drive in array. It also redundant so you can swap out a drive and it will rebuild.
3. Most NASs can use different RAID types out of the box, so they can be set up as striped (0) or redundant (1) as well as the hybrid RAID types (5, 6, 10, etc.) Also, if you use a striped type RAID, it doesn’t store one file here and 2nd file on another drive. It spreads the data at a block level.
4. The physical size of the SD card (micro vs full) aren’t too much of a limiting factor these days with high-end exceptions, of course. The adapters are passive so if the specs are the same, speed should be equal. Also, I recently got a 200GB microSD for $99 which I put in my Surface Pro 3.
5. You guys really need to add a Nikon member to your team. It’s like have a general computer podcast with only people that have Macs LOL.
Anyways, I enjoy the podcast. It’s my fav. Keep up the good work!
@Doug, yes you are of course very right on all fronts, by how many of the audience would have understood that? I doubt many. Trying to keep the really technical parts out of the podcast. I will be happy if people just don’t try to connect to NAS over WiFi 🙂
Jeff: Totally understand Jeff. Just wanted to clarify a few things.
@Doug – Thanks for your comment. Just wanted to say something about the Nikon comment. I have owned and spent significant time with every Nikon camera in the lineup. I have a D3200 on the table right now. I’ve owned a D5200, D4s, D800, D810, D7000, and D7100. I have not owned but have spent significant time shooting the D300s, D90, and many other older Nikon models. So I feel pretty confident in being able to comment about the Nikon stuff.
I do however think we need someone better versed in Sony and Micro 4/3 on the show.
@Jeff: No doubt Jim, but that will change over time. ‘Course, at the rate Nikon releases new products, your expertise may last a long time. ;-D
Guys, I think its only fair to make a note on storage. Not ALL hard drives should be RAIDed together. Some drives will not spin up and talk to the raid controller in the minimum amount of time required and the system will think the drive has failed. then it see’s the drive come online and it starts rebuilding the RAID array. This puts your array in a degraded state which will cut your speeds and put a huge amount of load on the drive that the system though had failed as it will rewrite ALL the data back to the drive. When you remove and use drives from external enclosures that are mass produced you should really check the drives model number first and google it to see if it is a drive that should be in a RAID.
Just wanted to clarify that!
Jeff
Rigby, ID
@Jeff Tomchak – I definitely agree that there are some drives that are just not suited at all to a RAID. Good point.
But while it’s not ideal, I’ve run many WD Green (not the red for NAS) drives in RAID and never had an issue.
If you’re buying new, you should certainly get the right drive for a RAID, but I wouldn’t agree that regular consumer drives should not be used in a RAID if you already have them. Most drives will work fine, just may not be as reliable since they aren’t made for constant use. That’s what backups are for 🙂
Just drove through Rigby a few hours ago!
Jim’s experience mirrors mine own. I’ve run drives in RAIDs for decades and never had an issue. In the old days the controller was the most problematic piece. I’ve always felt the whole “red” moniker was more marketing than reality, but now I’ve probably jinxed myself LOL.
You talked about backups and RAID configurations. However, your implementation seems to ignore the case of disaster or drive failure.
If I understood correctly, you archive your files on external hard drives. But what if one of those drives fails? Or what if you get robbed? Or there is a fire? Do you have a backup for your backup?
Moreover, RAID only offers protection from drive failure, not file corruption. If, for any reason a file gets corrupted, it will be mirrored in both drives.
I apologise if I missed something in the podcast, but if I haven’t, I am afraid your setup has many pitfalls….
@George, 100% correct. A RAID system is not a replacement for a backup. We strongly recommend the 3-2-1 backup system where you have 3 copies of your photos on 2 different local mediums (e.g. internal drive and NAS) and one offsite (cloud if you can get it there). All of that is discussed in my storage workflow article:
https://improvephotography.com/33562/how-to-manage-storage-storage-workflow/
In the podcast we were just talking about the NAS setup portion of that plan. All drives will fail, they are ticking time bombs. Best to proactively replace them in 3 years. But better to use a NAS for long-term storage than 6 external hard drives.
I really enjoyed this episode – one of the best. I don’t know much about computers, so I got a lot of value out of hearing this stuff in layman’s terms. Thanks.
You don’t mention cloud storage.
As a hobbyist, I am comfortably able to upload my rawfiles and finished work as I go along: they go to Amazon S3 storage, and then automatically copy to Google Cloud Storage every night, so my eggs are in two baskets. It’s a little fiddly to set up, but once done it’s all automatic.
For a pro like Nick, you could mail a disk to Amazon each year with your deep storage pictures, they’ll load it locally and they’re then available for you to download if needed.
Interesting discussion on NAS.
When consumer grade NAS units first came on the market the only RAID rated drives you could buy where enterprise ones and these just weren’t an option for home users. Over there years the companies have come out with their RAID/NAS spec drives and it can be said these are a better option if you are starting from nothing.
However as long as all your eggs aren’t in one basket for most people the NAS has started as an option to use your older smaller drives to give you a larger storage solution. Having multiple external drives isn’t a good idea as other time if not use (spun up) these will fail.
It is worth keeping an eye on BackBlaze disk stats https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-q3-2015/ these list how they are finding drives last and fail.
As Jim says the 3,2,1, rule is a standard in back-up. For me cloud backup is difficult with only a 3Mbs down and 0.5Mbs up UK broadband. This is something that most people seem to forget that there is a lot of the world still suffering a slow internet. If your looking to backup online then a company which lets you seed you data on a hard drive to start is a great benefit.
As Doug mentioned network speeds here we are for one probably mainly talking to home users. For the UK most supplied routers only offer 100Base-T built in switch. So unless you have some idea about networks I would say most listeners possible/probably don’t run a Gigabit network and in fact when looking to add a NAS it will be plugged into the router and accessed over wifi.
I have seen all these and more over my time in both Photography and also as a system admin. If I mention Thinnet some people might realise just how long I’ve been in the industry.