I do have a 4*320gb disk RAID 6 dataserver system set up. It is definely slower than a RAID 5. Sofar i have not lost a single bit, but then again, i have not lost a single bit of the RAID 5 system i had either. For speed i would stick to a RAID 5 system, if you're data is important enough to get a fail-operational rather then fail-safe hard-disk system, you could go for a 6
If you looking for speed, stay away from RAID 5. The delay of writing the parity affects you.
RAID 1+0 (Mirror / Stripe) is quicker in writes (No Parity) and much faster in reads (Reads of two disks) Drawback is 50% capacity loss.
All our servers high volume servers use that. Despite the bean counters complaining of cost
Just revisiting this thread. I see conversation has gone from "what are you going to do" to "best way to do it". If I had the money and power at home Id certainly do raid 1+0 (raid 5/6/10 controllers start getting rather pricey for home use) with some decent sata drives on 2 machines. That is more or less what we do at my workplace, one NAS system (along the lines of 10tb, one monster of a system for power and heat) and tape which goes offsite once a week. Id still have a local copy on my workstation, and when I wasnt lazy burn DVD's, but the 2 system way I have 2 live backups that i dont have to search for and its fairly easy to keep them synched with each other and my workstation.
More realistically my 1 raid 5 box (I know r5 isnt a backup, and I've seen enough 2 drive failures to have more than that as a backup) and one offsite machine have worked well for me for a very long time. Now with less expensive SATA components I can do for ~1500 or so what would have been a few thousand dollars not that long ago. Luckily work currently covers my second machine, so all I use is space on that one and I dont have to worry about managing that one.
As an aside I back up a heck of a lot more than just my photo stuff, going back to about 1999, so my backups are very important to me. though I find smugmug doing 2.5tb interesting for a single customer in a technical sense, Id still not consider them as a backup source personally. what it boils down to in the end is what meets your needs for the price, but I do hope everyone out there pays enough attention to this thread to indeed take the time and trouble to back up.
Is there an easy way to organize backups to DVDs? My problem is that I may go back to edit an image that I already backed up months earlier, and when it's time for the next backup, I need to go searching through my directories finding those orphan files that were not saved in the original backup. How can I do this easily?
Is there an easy way to organize backups to DVDs? My problem is that I may go back to edit an image that I already backed up months earlier, and when it's time for the next backup, I need to go searching through my directories finding those orphan files that were not saved in the original backup. How can I do this easily?
Thanks,
Jim
The simpliest way would be to use some form of backup software. It will do a complete backup for you then do incrementals. You will then end up with your orignal on disk 1 and your edited version on say disk 20.
When restoring, it will restore your original then when you get to your incremental, it'll overwrite your orignal with your edited one.
Is there an easy way to organize backups to DVDs? My problem is that I may go back to edit an image that I already backed up months earlier, and when it's time for the next backup, I need to go searching through my directories finding those orphan files that were not saved in the original backup. How can I do this easily?
Most any backup software can do that. I really like ArchiveCreator www.rawworkflow.com
Comments
If you looking for speed, stay away from RAID 5. The delay of writing the parity affects you.
RAID 1+0 (Mirror / Stripe) is quicker in writes (No Parity) and much faster in reads (Reads of two disks) Drawback is 50% capacity loss.
All our servers high volume servers use that. Despite the bean counters complaining of cost
Crispin
http://crispin.smugmug.com
SQL Mechanic
More realistically my 1 raid 5 box (I know r5 isnt a backup, and I've seen enough 2 drive failures to have more than that as a backup) and one offsite machine have worked well for me for a very long time. Now with less expensive SATA components I can do for ~1500 or so what would have been a few thousand dollars not that long ago. Luckily work currently covers my second machine, so all I use is space on that one and I dont have to worry about managing that one.
As an aside I back up a heck of a lot more than just my photo stuff, going back to about 1999, so my backups are very important to me. though I find smugmug doing 2.5tb interesting for a single customer in a technical sense, Id still not consider them as a backup source personally. what it boils down to in the end is what meets your needs for the price, but I do hope everyone out there pays enough attention to this thread to indeed take the time and trouble to back up.
Hey all-
Is there an easy way to organize backups to DVDs? My problem is that I may go back to edit an image that I already backed up months earlier, and when it's time for the next backup, I need to go searching through my directories finding those orphan files that were not saved in the original backup. How can I do this easily?
Thanks,
Jim
The simpliest way would be to use some form of backup software. It will do a complete backup for you then do incrementals. You will then end up with your orignal on disk 1 and your edited version on say disk 20.
When restoring, it will restore your original then when you get to your incremental, it'll overwrite your orignal with your edited one.
That's about the simpliest way I use...
Crispin
http://crispin.smugmug.com
SQL Mechanic
Most any backup software can do that. I really like ArchiveCreator www.rawworkflow.com
Lee