Data Storage/protection

rwells

Hey guys/gals,

I've hopefully lost photos for the last time...

I had been using several external hard drives for photo storage, mirroring the data. Well, I got lazy & it bit me hard!

I had been working on a new project for over a month (Art), and I had once again run low of external drive space. Not feeling particularly pressed for time to get another drive to complete the mirror of this WD 500Gb external drive. Most was mirrored, about 100Gb not.

Well, guess where my "project" was residing? Yep, in the "not" area. Sure enough I went to start the drive to do some more processing and "click-click" The drive read/write arm decided it has had enough. I was in the IT industry for several years and still do consulting on occasion, so I know the ins-n-outs of this issue.

To my point:

I decided to solve this issue; I have now purchased external units (2) that have the ability to run RAID5. These units (ea.) have 4 hard-drives in them. When running RAID5, you loose about 30% total capacity, but any drive can fail and you won't loose any data!

You can & should do a google search for info on RAID5. It's what most data centers use on their storage devices.

Anyway, here is a link to the units I decided to use. I have no affiliation with this company. I now have a 1TB Buffalo TeraStation running RAID5 and a 2TB TeraStation also running RAID5. This link will give you other options.

I purchased the first from a dgrin member, the second I just purchased from Buffalo as a refurbished unit. Unbelievable price!

NOTE: These units are NETWORK units. In other words, you need an Ethernet network to use them.

That's easy enough to accomplish. Just plug it in to your router/wireless router (which by default settings will issue an IP address to the unit) & your good to go.

I've read several threads here about backup, and most have pitfalls. Single external hard-drives can fail, loosing data. You can of course mirror your data between drives, but you loose 50% capacity that way, and as I've eluded to, can take it's toll if you get complacent. CD's & DVD's are NOT, NOT, NOT reliable long term storage.

Anyway, I'm not selling anything here, just thought I'd share my misfortune and resolution to not repeat it again.

Hope that helps...


PS: Tech issues can cause in-depth questions. I'm not really in the market to delve into the complete disclosure of these issues. (Hence the "do a google search" statement above)

pathfinder

Randy,

Sorry about your experience, but it is something we all need to keep being reminded about.
Reliable b/u becomes more and more important as our digital files become central to our business activities.

Drive prices have fallen so that I can now purchase 1 Tb drives for less than $130 and I suspect they will be near $110 by summer time.

Has anyone had experience with the Drobo units - not exactly RAID 5 but similar I think in performance. The price has come down enough on these that they look very interesting and they will hold a total of 4 drives or 16 TB whichever is larger. The drives are all hot swappable, and they can be purchased as network or Firewire and USB I believe. A 4Tb Drobo unit can be had for about $1K

But then Mozy is selling unlimited on line storage/back up for $4.95 a month. Is this better, worse, different or what?

Or do we maybe need both?

RogersDA

Have you used Mozy? Reliable? Fast?

pathfinder

I know nothing about Mozy other than the price which seems inexpensive for unlimited storage.

Sounds almost too good to be true, that is why I was asking if anyone else has had any experience with it.

RogersDA

pathfinder wrote:

I know nothing about Mozy other than the price which seems inexpensive for unlimited storage.

Sounds almost too good to be true, that is why I was asking if anyone else has had any experience with it.

Interesting blog read on Mozy. Granted, people are more than likely to complain than praise, but some of the comments are interesting.

Art Scott

I have a system of 6 drives for photos...as I have stated many times before and with all finished jpgs coming to SM for storage and also some going to galleries for sale and a port. gallery I cannot see needing another website, if SM is actually backed as the SM gods say it is....isn't SM spread across 6 states od is it 6 server centers in 3 states...can't remember......I just can't see paying rent for more online storage.....unless MOZY lets you upload DNG or RAW FILES....then it would be worth it.

Rather than wade thru all the printed pages on MOZY....I am awaiting an answer to my question on raw and dng files.

pathfinder

RogersDA wrote:

Interesting blog read on Mozy. Granted, people are more than likely to complain than praise, but some of the comments are interesting.

Like I said, it sounded almost to good to be true.

I have concerns with b/u software that runs continuously in the background also.

ian408

The Drobo allows you to add and subtract drives of dissimilar sizes. Most RAID configurations require consistent drive types. That's a nice feature since you may not need to fill the drive bays all at once. Some other features include support for a file system you are using--this could be NTFS or any of the Linux file systems. Many storage systems force you into NTFS which isn't bad but may not be what is most efficient for the OS you are using. Lastly, it's a device that can be direct attach, like some of the Maxtor products, or network attach. It can grow to meet your requirements. Overall, it's a very feature rich device.

Regarding RAID 5. One thing you have to keep in mind is that while you can lose 1 drive in the array, you cannot lose 2. Loss of the second is loss of the volume. A mirrored configuration is OK but data corruption will be mirrored to your backup. This would be true whether you ran something like a sync mirror where data is mirrored as it changes or when you run the backup software.

I like to think of RAID and RAID like devices as one component of a bigger storage management picture.
You might choose tape or even another, larger, disk to preform a backup that you do not keep on-line and is preferably kept offsite.

Each of the various backup schemes has advantages and disadvantages. What you need is to evaluate what it is you need and purchase something that meets those.

Panfoto

rwells wrote:

I now have a 1TB Buffalo TeraStation running RAID5 and a 2TB TeraStation also running RAID5.

I have a bit of experience with a 4tb terastation at work, and I must say I was less than impressed. The setup utility could not find the unit on our network no matter what we tried. We eventually got it online (was a while ago, I don't remember all the details) but one of the drives failed shortly thereafter. Now a drive failure isn't a big deal, but I had to pull teeth to get a replacement.

The first time they said they'd send a replacement it never went through. Next I got an RMA after insisting that we needed the drive shipped to us first. Then I got an authorization for them to ship an entire new unit to us and we'd ship back the one with the bad drive. But then we would lose all the data. After about a week and a half of back and forth I finally got them to ship us a replacement drive.

I don't have a replacement product in mind, but I don't plan on buying any more from Buffalo.