This is my solution, but honestly there's a lot to be desired, especially with regard to photos. Storing Aperture, iPhoto, or Lightroom databases on the networ

This is my solution, but honestly there's a lot to be desired, especially with regard to photos. Storing Aperture, iPhoto, or Lightroom databases on the network is not ideal. Wifi, even 802.11ac, is barely usable. Gigabit means you're wired and also has issues. Apple frequently has implementation bugs on both AFP and SMB which slow things down way below gigabit speeds, and your NAS's processor also becomes a factor. Forget about using this setup if you're not actually on the local network (i.e. VPN). The result is having to manually manage your photo databases (which one's are on my laptop? which ones are on my NAS?) which works ok in Lightroom but Aperture and iPhoto are not very good at. This also creates backup stress (um, can I delete this?) and means I have to decide in advance if I want to look at those photos from two weeks ago before I leave the house. If so, grab a cup of coffee while they copy. Ideally you would have a system where a) your photos are automatically stored in the cloud b) you can select which albums are stored locally and c) there is some sort of cloud backup option that you control (computer with more storage, NAS, or other cloud provider that archives your cloud data).