Apple photos dataset

[xames]

I want to put the file of apple photos application on a dataset, and use that file on my two computers, imac and macbookpro, is it possible? i see on past posts about nfs better than afp, but i don't understand why, and something about case insensitive. Anyone do it before?

Thanks.

 

[sretalla]

I want to put the file of apple photos application on a dataset, and use that file on my two computers, imac and macbookpro, is it possible? i see on past posts about nfs better than afp, but i don't understand why, and something about case insensitive. Anyone do it before?

It's a terrible idea...

The NFS being better story would be about file locking, which is handled better (or handled compared to not handled) by NFS.

That said, I don't imagine that Apple envisages it being done that way and probably will try to lock parts of (or the whole) database from the computer that connects first, rendering trouble for the second one that connects and maybe even some consequences for them both if use continues in parallel.

I wouldn't even try to do that.

If you don't care and think you know better, go ahead and see how it goes (I have not tested it, so maybe it will work great... but you've been warned). You should be able to mount the NFS volume and either do it to the location of the database directly (having duly copied it to the FreeNAS NFS server in the right place) or mount it elsewhere and use a symbolic/hard link (ln -s) to replace the file where it is expected. Of course you can just go in the setting of the photos app and tell it where to look too. If you do go down this road, make very sure you have a known good backup before you start.

 

[danb35]

Why would you use NFS? Apple's moving away from AFP to SMB; NFS isn't really in the picture. And it's not like SMB doesn't have file locking.

 

[sretalla]

Why would you use NFS? Apple's moving away from AFP to SMB; NFS isn't really in the picture. And it's not like SMB doesn't have file locking.

Also a valid point on top of what I mentioned.

 

[xames]

Ok i decided to make two folders on nas one for every mac, and every mac with his photolibrary file, all with afp, now when i try to full the photo library with some photos say me error on many of them about invalid format, when if i open photos is good, the original photos are in the nextcloud folder on the mac, downloaded directly from the jail of the nas too.

 

[garm]

If you do this, remember it’s not a backup, it’s your primary storage. Meaning if you intend to adhere to the 1-2-3 rule you need a second copy at home and a third offsite. While if you just kept the photos database on you Mac and set up time machine to back up on your NAS, and switch in iCloud, you are all set according to 1-2-3

 

[xames]

I want only the photolibrarys outside of MACS because no space there, and putting this files on Freenas then i can do snapshots, replication, etc... security is covered, but the problem is i need one photolibrary for every mac, because only one, its failing, i put 2 files one for every mac, ok, but then when its time to put photos inside the photos apple aplication, error too i don't know why.

 

[peter_cd.cn]

@xames Have you found a good solution for this? I have a 200+ GB Photos library and it saves locally on my iMac. It is an 2014 old iMac toward the end of life. I want my next laptop to be a 250GB macbook pro.

This 200+ GB library gotta live on Freenas. I currently moved the library to Freenas via Nextcloud upload.

Next I want my Macbook pro to have read/read access to this Photos.library file.

How should I do this? Open a SMB share and have the share location pointed to Dataset where I used to save Nextcloud data?

 

[Wartooth]

@peter_cd.cn The solution I came up with is to create a sparse bundle disk image (APFS format) on an AFP share. I forget how I came to settle on AFP given Apple is deprecating it, but I remember trying SMB at the time of setting it up a few years ago but with no success - might be worth a try now though. I also had tried placing the libraries direct on an AFP share and SMB but the library and app have some incompatibilities with shares, possibly file locking?

Then, either copy your existing library onto that disk image in Finder and open it or, if you are using iCloud Photo Library, you can create a new library from scratch.

If you want this to be synced to iCloud, you will have to tell Photos.app this is your System Library, and "Download originals to this Mac" in preferences of Photos.app if you want it to keep a copy of everything in this Library.

This should work well enough if you are NOT using iCloud. If you are using iCloud the problem I have is keeping this (and my wife's) library synced to the iCloud Library. For me it isn't too bad, I don't take many photos. But my wife has >120K and without opening her library everyday it gets out of sync very quickly. That isn't itself a problem, just let it sync up, but iCloud syncing is incredibly slow. As in, leave it open for week or so for ~70K photos synced. I can only guess it is because it is checking a lot of hashes and maybe some deduplication on the iCloud end. The end result is my wife's library is out of sync and I haven't been able to get it in sync again, so there is only one complete copy of it in iCloud as I write this.

You may also come across 'Library Updating' from time to time, as I did just now when I opened my library, which also can be a slow process.

I also take snapshots and replicate to a secondary NAS, effectively meeting 3-2-1, if the library is in sync.