I’m considering setting up a NAS to backup my stuff and replace Google Photos. Currently I’m looking at Asustor AS6704T and Synology DS923+, with the former having more powerful hardware and hardware encoding, and the latter having a better first party software experience.

Some quick comparisons show me that Synology Photos is infinitely better than Asustor Photo Gallery. AI face recognition, content tagging, and reverse Geocoding are features I’ve gotten used to in Google photos, which Synology has and Asustor doesn’t.
I’m also aware of but not really familiar with other photo backup/management solutions, namely Immich, Photoprism, Piwigo, and Lychee. Immich would probably fit me the best, but Piwigo with plugins would support Photosphere photos that I occasionally take with my Pixel.

So I guess I’m asking you guys what your preferred photo backup solution is? I probably should mention that I personally take photos with a Pixel (jpg and MP4 files), but my family uses iPhones (heic and mov files). No RAW photos for now, but for those who do and would edit photos, how would you manage them?

  • ShertsonEnglish
    3•1 year ago

    I have a Synology NAS and use the Photos/Memories app from Synology to back up my photos from my phone. It works pretty well. Every so often the app will stop syncing unless you open it. I haven’t had that problem in a few months, so it may be solved.

    I just recently set up Immich and haven’t tested syncing from phone yet. I did upload a bunch of photos through the web interface to play around. Face recognition “mostly” works. If for some reason it doesn’t see two pictures of the same person as being the same person there is no way to forcibly merge. Likewise, if it sees two people as being the same person, there is no way to forcibly split them.

    I do have Piwigo setup to host other images. Didn’t know about plugins for syncing; I’ll have to try that out.

    • falkerie71OPEnglish
      1•1 year ago

      Thanks for the input! Do setting up multiple apps mean having to set up different photo databases/folders? Or can they share the same folders and photos?

      • ShertsonEnglish
        2•1 year ago

        I don’t run the immich server on my Synology. That is my safe back up of files before going to could storage. If hate for a glitch in immich to wipe out my local backup.So I really can’t say for sure.