How to store TERABYTES of photos and videos, and more
I recently migrated all my raw photos and videos from an old Drobo 5DT to a new OWC ThunderBay 8 — a Thunderbolt 3 / USB-C direct attached storage device (DAS) with eight bays for 3.5" SATA and/or 2.5" SSD drives. The enclosure has a maximum storage capacity of 128TB (eight 16TB drives), connects directly to a Mac or PC, and can build protected RAID volumes using SoftRAID XT (license included with the ThunderBay).
I setup my ThunderBay 8 with four 14TB Western Digital NAS drives (luckily snagged for 50% off on Amazon Prime Day), then merged those four drives into a single RAID 5 volume. If one of those drives were to someday fail (which spinning disks have a tendency to do), I could replace it without losing any data.
How is it so far? Pretty good! Compared to my old Thunderbolt 2 Drobo, the ThunderBay 8 is nearly four times faster with plenty of throughput for editing raw images in Lightroom and editing 4K video projects directly off the ThunderBay.
But there are some things I don't like about the ThunderBay 8, including one major difference from the Drobo that's important to know if you own a Drobo and are thinking of upgrading (which might be a smart thing to do considering the company recently filed for bankruptcy protection).
Check out my full written review and video of the OWC ThunderBay 8 for more.
How to move Lightroom catalog images to a different drive
Migrating all my photos and videos from one DAS to another inspired me to write a tutorial explaining how to move Lightroom catalog images without losing edits, settings, or metadata. Good stuff to know if you don't already!
10 things I've learned creating YouTube videos
Recently I rebuilt and redesigned my website. During that process, I came across 10 things I've learned creating videos for YouTube. I cringed opening it, thinking my recommendations from three years ago would be woefully outdated, but was surprised to see everything remained absolutely relevant and true.
Would I add anything new today? Absolutely.
Kill your darlings — Edit, then edit again. Cut the moments when you repeat yourself. Cut the added context and explanations the majority of viewers don't care about. Be ruthless when editing.
Write everything down — For videos with a lot of information (eg, reviews), write down everything you intend to cover ahead of time. This could be a full blog post, or even just a simple bullet-point outline. The point is getting a framework in place to visualize structure, spot missing content, and guide your edit.
Show, don't tell — This one I struggle with all the time. Instead of saying, "...and what happens when you press this button is...", just press the button! It's more actionable, and most audiences would rather see that anyway.
Favorite things this week
• Loving Ilford's beautifully produced Processing Black & White Film video on YouTube. If this doesn't make you want to setup your own darkroom, I don't know what will.
• Photographer Gregory Crewdson has started a Substack where he's sharing production notes and behind-the-scenes images from his elaborate, cinematic photographs. I'm fascinated by Crewdson's blend of reality and fantasy, and the fact he creates photographic moments instead of waiting for them.
• NASA's Perseverance continues to beam-back incredible landscape images of Mars, including this and this. How I'd love to take a tripod there.
• Wild three-propeller, triangular DJI "HiTop" concept drone. Looks real, but sadly it's not.
• Independent film studio A24 knows how to make merch. Beautifully designed apparel, books, zines, and weird one of a kind accessories inspired by their films.