ConnectDrive
Ok, I’m about to start posting an 11-month backlog of pictures and videos. By way of explanation: I usually am off by about three months, maximum, on posting stuff we have captured with our phones. But, last fall everything came together for us to invest in a Synology DS1517+, a network-attached file server. It took me months to set the entire thing up to my liking, including storing our Photos and iTunes libraries on sparse bundles. In the meantime, posting here was on hold as those libraries were in flux.
I actually ended up writing an app (README here) to automatically mount and unmount these disk images on demand.
Why take all this time? Ok, well Apple devices no longer have upgradeable storage, and the company knows their customers are accumulating vast quantities of pictures and videos, generated by phones. Every computer you have is filling up with your precious memories. So, you have two options if you want to stick with Apple (which I do; their stuff is nice): (1) pay a hilarious premium for large on-device storage or (2) pay monthly for cloud storage. Well I despise the rent-seeking going on in the tech industry so that takes out (2) and I refuse to feel like a sucker and go with (1). So, secret option (3) is to roll your own giant, network attached, locally available storage. Synology, ahoy!
So, that’s all set up now. Resuming picture posting… now.