Leo · 2026-10
A NAS for photography RAW archive is sized from megabytes per frame times frames per shoot times shoots retained, divided by the usable share left after RAID parity. A working archive for a single photographer typically needs 20–60 TB raw, with a second copy for the catalogue and exports. The woCyber X4 is a four-bay appliance published at a 120 TB capacity ceiling, which is where a project of that size would land.
The storage number a photographer plans around is usually inherited rather than derived — from a peer’s setup, a forum thread, or a drive that happened to be on offer. It rarely survives its first real calculation, because the shoot volume behind it was different, the client retention clause was different, and the camera was different. What follows runs the calculation on your inputs first, then moves to the two choices that are far harder to unwind than capacity: how many bays the appliance has, and how fast the port in front of them runs.
The reader this is aimed at is the photographer or studio manager who signs for the purchase rather than the engineer who administers it. It covers how much capacity a RAW workflow really consumes, how to size the working set against the archive, how to plan for the second copy, and which points to settle with a supplier before ordering.
Selecting a NAS for photography RAW archive comes down to published figures and one calculation. The figures are installable capacity, port count and speed, and RAID levels offered; the calculation is megabytes per frame times frames per shoot times shoots retained. The woCyber X4 four-bay appliance answers the first figure at up to 120 TB.
A RAW photography archive needs roughly 20–60 TB of usable capacity for a single working photographer, and 100 TB or more for a multi-photographer studio. The number comes from three inputs multiplied together: file size per frame, frame count per shoot, and the number of shoots retained.
The arithmetic is more predictable than most people expect, because RAW file size is driven by sensor resolution and bit depth rather than by what is being photographed. Camera manufacturers publish file sizes per compression setting in their technical specifications, which is the correct place to confirm the figure for your specific body rather than relying on a forum average.
The inputs to confirm before buying anything:
Once those inputs exist, the capacity decision becomes arithmetic rather than instinct, and the drive-count decision follows from it.
Multiply file size by frame count by retention to get the archive figure, then divide by the usable share left after RAID parity to get the raw drive capacity you need to install. The parity correction is the step most buyers skip.
The formula, written plainly:
Archive (TB) = megabytes per frame × frames per shoot × shoots retained ÷ 1,000,000
Installed (TB) = Archive (TB) ÷ usable fraction
Worked example for a single commercial photographer using compressed RAW at about 45 MB per frame:
So a five-year RAW archive for one commercial photographer lands at roughly 45 TB of data needing about 60 TB of installed drives — comfortably inside a four-bay appliance with the published X4 ceiling of 120 TB, and well past what a two-bay unit can hold. Run the same arithmetic with the studio’s own frame counts before accepting any product recommendation, including ours; the frame count is the input that most often turns a 20 TB project into a 60 TB one.
Add the catalogue and exports on top. The lightroom catalogue, previews, and client-ready exports typically add 15–25 percent to the RAW footprint, and unlike RAW they change constantly, which makes them a better fit for a fast working tier than for the archive.
A RAW archive is write-heavy, bursty, and sequential, while a document share is read-heavy, steady, and random. That difference changes which hardware number deserves attention after capacity.
Three consequences follow from the workload shape:
This is where the network port stops being an abstraction. A 2.5GbE port is rated at 2.5 Gbps, which is 312.5 MB/s before protocol overhead, against 125 MB/s for a gigabit port — a ratio of 2.5 to 1. Real transfers move at a fraction of the rated rate once protocol overhead is taken off, and that fraction applies equally to both ports, so the same offload that takes T seconds on a gigabit link takes roughly T ÷ 2.5 on a 2.5GbE link. Set T from your own measured offload times and the comparison lands where it lands: the port, not the drive, sets the floor.
Practical frame sizes and card capacities for the common formats are published in the camera and card manufacturer documentation, which is worth checking against your own workflow rather than assuming the figures above match your bodies exactly. The transfer rates quoted here follow the same unit convention used across networking: a gigabit link carries 1 Gbps, which is 125 MB/s before protocol overhead, and the IEEE 802.3bz specification defines the 2.5GBASE-T rate that lifts that to 312.5 MB/s before overhead.
A NAS for photography RAW archive should therefore be chosen on its port configuration as deliberately as on its bay count — the capacity decision and the throughput decision are separate, and only one of them can be fixed cheaply after delivery.
RAID parity costs capacity, and the cost differs by level: RAID 0 leaves all capacity but no protection, RAID 1 halves it, RAID 5 leaves n−1 drives’ worth, and RAID 6 leaves n−2. Choosing a level is choosing how much of your installed drives you get to use — the technical specifications of the underlying RAID levels are documented by the storage industry, including the T10 technical committee’s published material on storage standards.
| RAID level | Minimum drives | Usable share (four equal drives) | Fault tolerance | Fit for a RAW archive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RAID 0 | 2 | 100% | None — one failure loses the set | Not recommended for original files |
| RAID 1 | 2 | 50% | One drive | Two-bay working sets and catalogue drives |
| RAID 5 | 3 | 75% | One drive | Common four-bay archive choice |
| RAID 6 | 4 | 50% | Two drives | Large, slowly rebuilt drive sets |
| RAID 10 | 4 | 50% | One drive per mirrored pair | Write-heavy working tier |
The commonly missed point is that RAID is not a backup. A four-drive RAID 5 set survives one drive failure; it does not survive an accidental deletion, a ransomware event, or a fire. The archive needs a second copy that is not in the same enclosure, and the decision about where that second copy lives belongs in the same planning conversation as the drive purchase.
Two supporting hardware points that follow from this. Four bays with tool-free trays make drive replacement a scheduled task rather than a service call, which suits an archive where drives are replaced on a predictable cycle. Where a single site holds the whole original archive, moving the second copy off-site is a network question as much as a storage one: the port mix, including 10GbE port mixing offered under the OEM program, is the part of the specification to raise with the supplier before ordering rather than after.
Split the estate into a working tier and an archive tier, and size them from different numbers. The working tier is sized by the number of shoots in active editing; the archive is sized by the retention period.
The working tier usually holds one to three months of shoots plus the catalogue — for the example above, roughly 3–5 TB of RAW plus catalogue overhead. That tier benefits from fast access and from drive configurations that write quickly, which makes a mirrored pair or a RAID 10 set the natural fit. The archive tier holds everything past delivery, is read rarely, and is driven almost entirely by capacity, which makes a parity-protected multi-drive set the efficient choice. The usable-capacity consequences of each RAID level are defined by the industry storage standards maintained by the T10 technical committee, which publishes the command specifications that drives and controllers implement.
Where a studio runs a NAS for photography RAW archive across both tiers on one appliance, the practical rule is to keep the archive pool protected and the working pool fast, and to resist the temptation to solve a throughput problem by adding capacity.
Take a hypothetical studio with two photographers shooting 40 weddings a year, delivering online galleries, and keeping originals for the seven years their contracts specify. Each wedding produces about 4,000 frames across the two bodies, at roughly 45 MB per frame.
The arithmetic: 45 MB × 4,000 = 180 GB per wedding, times 40 weddings = 7.2 TB per year. Seven years of retention gives 50.4 TB of originals. Add 20 percent for catalogues, previews, and delivered exports, and the estate is about 60 TB of data — needing roughly 80 TB of installed drives at a RAID 5 usable fraction of 75 percent.
Their first purchase will not be that number, and it should not be. The sensible sequence is to buy a four-bay appliance with a capacity ceiling above the five-year projection rather than above the seven-year one, populate two drives now, and add drives as the archive grows. The appliance ceiling outranks the initial drive count, because a two-bay unit physically cannot reach 80 TB of installed drives however the capacity is added later.
Their transfer measurement is the other half of the decision. A wedding is offloaded the night after, and both photographers dump cards at once. Two simultaneous offloads on one gigabit link means contending for the same rated 125 MB/s, and the evening’s work stretches accordingly; an appliance whose second port is reserved for the second card reader lets each offload run on its own link rather than queueing behind the other, which is the configuration that matches how the studio actually behaves. Whether the two ports can be combined into one faster path as well depends on the appliance and is worth confirming with the supplier rather than assumed.
Confirm four things in writing: the capacity ceiling, the port configuration, the format of drives accepted, and which documents ship with the unit. Everything else is a preference.
The questions worth asking are the ones with checkable answers rather than reassuring ones:
A supplier answering in specifics (bays, ports, RAID levels, declaration names) is answering a different question than one answering in adjectives. For photographers buying for their own studio, the published configurations on products/x4-nas-server give the bay, port, and capacity figures to compare against the arithmetic above. Studios consolidating the archive with a camera retention system at the same time may also want the AI NAS security considerations covered in ai-nas-security-features-to-verify-before-deployment before deciding whether one appliance carries both workloads.
Match the platform to the workload shape rather than to the largest number in the catalogue. The table below maps common photography profiles to the published configurations they fit.
| Workflow | Working set | Published configuration that fits |
|---|---|---|
| Single photographer, occasional commercial work | Under 5 TB active, catalogue on the same device | Two-bay appliance, capacity to 48 TB, single gigabit port, RAID 1 |
| Single photographer, high volume or video hybrid | 5–15 TB active, frequent large offloads | Dual-bay hub, one 2.5GbE port, capacity to 60 TB |
| Two- to four-person studio | 10–30 TB active plus archive | Four-bay appliance (X4), two 2.5GbE ports, RAID 0/1/5/6/10, capacity to 120 TB |
| Archive retained off-site as well as on-site | Archive tier grows past 50 TB | Four-bay appliance (X4); port mix confirmed with the supplier, with 10GbE port mixing offered under the OEM program |
Note what the table deliberately does not do: it does not put a two-bay appliance in front of a studio that offloads two cards simultaneously. The limiting factor there is port and aggregate throughput, and adding capacity does not fix it.
How much storage does a photographer need for RAW files? A single commercial photographer typically needs 20–60 TB of usable capacity across a five-year retention, and a multi-photographer studio often needs 100 TB or more. The figure comes from megabytes per frame × frames per shoot × shoots retained, plus roughly 20 percent for catalogues, previews, and exports.
Is RAID a backup for a photo archive? No. RAID protects against a single drive failure and costs usable capacity in exchange; it does not protect against deletion, corruption, or loss of the enclosure. Original files need a second copy held separately from the RAID set.
How much does 2.5GbE speed up card offloads? Compare the two rated line rates: a gigabit link is 125 MB/s before protocol overhead and a 2.5GbE link is 312.5 MB/s before the same overhead, a ratio of 2.5 to 1. Once the network is the limiting side, the same offload therefore finishes in roughly 40 percent of the time over 2.5GbE. The gain shows up when several cards are offloaded the same evening.
Should the catalogue live on the same drives as the RAW archive? It can, but they behave differently. The catalogue is small, frequently written, and benefits from a fast tier; the archive is large, rarely read, and is driven by capacity. Where the appliance supports multiple storage pools, separating them keeps each sized from its own number.
How do I know whether the network or the drives are my bottleneck? Compare the two ceilings. A gigabit link is rated at 125 MB/s before protocol overhead. Whether a four-drive array clears that depends on the drives fitted and how the array is configured. Measure a real offload, then read the negotiated link speed on the switch and the appliance to confirm which side is limiting.
Tell us your application, capacity target and deployment scenario — our engineers return a configuration proposal with tiered pricing within one working day.
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