I learned early on to NOT jump at whatever is bright new and shiny in the computer world. I like to let things "season" for at least a year while they work out the bugs, realize it's garbage or gold, and in the meantime, the price usually drops :broccoli:
Jim, if you're going to go RAID, I would go with RAID-5. If you have a good quality hardware RAID controller (just a lil add-in board to your computer), it's probably as quick or quicker than RAID-0, but with full redundancy, and doesn't waste as much disk space as RAID 10.
Bec, I VERY highly recommend a simple external RAID solution. The simplest, no-brainer solution is the Buffalo Terastation. They make a 1TB and 2TB model (and you can sometimes find the older .6 TB model on clearance) and they start at about $600. It's a plug-and-play RAID-5 solution (can be configured in other ways as well), which means even if one of the drives dies completely, you don't lose any data - just replace the drive, start it up, and it will rebuild the new drive, and you can even continue to work while it's rebuilding.
The only downside to the Terastation is it's a software-based RAID, which means if you're rendering video to and from it, it will be sorta slow. If you're working mostly with still or other content, you won't notice any lag.
We have Terastations for all our HTML and still content and documents, and a large hardware RAID box that we custom built for video file storage. It houses 8 - 750 gig drives on a hardware RAID card, and runs Linux (which was much faster as a file server than Windows, which we first tried and which sucked.) The custom RAID box can handle multiple computers using it to read and render video simultaneously, and even though it's a Linux box, it appears to be a Windows box to all the other machines that access it.
It might be overkill, but we backup all of the RAID boxes to SDLT tape, both in case the RAID gets hit by lightning, the building burns down, or whatever, and so we can archive to tape any video that we aren't currently using.
A good piece of Backup software that we use is called Genie Backup Manager Pro. You can backup folder or full drives to external drives. The software will even allow you to backup your data to a FTP site (for better off site security), It is also VERY simple to use and can even do scheduling.
go to: http://www.genie-soft.com/ they do have a trial version.
P.S. We only use Raid 5 for all data on our systems.
Chris
Chris
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I don't think Bec will need a Terastation. Aren't those network drives? A hard drive connected directly to your computer via firwire is a MUCH more affordable solution. From what I've seen, network drives are nearly twice the cost per gig than a local drive would be.
A networked terastation is most definitely more expensive than a firewire or USB external drive, but that's comparing a Rolls Royce with a Yugo (remember those?) But they aren't that bad... here's a 1TB for $500
http://www.buy.com/prod/buffalo-tera...204853789.html
and if you don't have a network, you can simply buy a reversing Ethernet cable and plug it directly into the Ethernet port on your computer, or buy a $29 switch and plug it and your computer into the switch.
Most single external hard drives don't have fans or other effective cooling, so they run hot, and we have had a lot of failures (about 10 drives over the past 5 years). If your external drive fails, you're fucked, because there's no backup or redundancy. If a drive in your Terastation fails, you replace it and keep on going without a hitch.
The other issue is, there's an obscure bug in Windows that occasionally causes corruption of the directory in Firewire and USB drives (making the drive unreadable) if you are simultaneously reading and writing large files, and we've run afoul of that problem as well.
No question an external drive is cheaper, but I guess I look at it as insurance... what's it worth to you if your drive fails and you lose your data?
My new Maxtor (firewire drive) 1 TB has a built in fan as does my 500GB Buffalo Linkstation (network). I just seems to me that the ethernet connection is so much slower than firewire.Originally Posted by gaybucks_chip
A side note, it looks like maxtor was acquired by Seagate.
Oh really?? I've always liked seagate drives, maxtor was my second choice and western digital always the last option when shopping. Not sure why other than the drives, in that order, gave me the least pain when trying to format them and get them going.
Now that's interesting, as I was just reading a tech page on an external drive case, and it stated that it didn't have fans because it was an aluminum case and didn't need one! I'd think the drive would still be "hot" no matter what it was encased in.Most single external hard drives don't have fans or other effective cooling, so they run hot, and we have had a lot of failures (about 10 drives over the past 5 years).
I read the page about the terastation Chip, and it mentions it comes with the Memeo Autobackup software. Found this: http://www.memeo.com/memeo.htm -- costs like 29 bucks. Is this what came with your system and did you find it easy to setup? They also have the online storage system with a free trial, but I can't find anywhere what it'd cost once the trial ends.
Maxtor is now Seagate's "value" line. We've had more Maxtor failures than any other single brand (except for a run of bad Western Digitals several years ago), but everyone I talk to has a different experience, so I think they're all about the same... except that Seagate has a 5 year warranty, so I always try and buy those now.
As for the heat issue, yes, the drives do heat up, but, for example, in either our custom RAID enclosure or in the Terastations, there's a gigantic fan mounted right in front of the drives, so with constant air blowing across them, they stay remarkably cool, probably 20 degrees cooler than they do in the external cases, even the ones with the aluminum heat sink things.
And Jim, I hadn't thought about it, but if you're running a 100Mbit network, then networked drives would definitely be slower... we upgraded the entire network to gigabit, so the network actually runs faster than what the drives can put out (which is about ~800Mbit from the RAID, and roughly the same from Firewire 800 or USB 2.) but that did involve replacing our switches and routers.
... I just remembered why they went to the bottom of my shopping list ... I must of bought most of those LOL -- got a stack of dead ones in the computer pieces parts room that I'll have to haul out to the garbage one of these days.(except for a run of bad Western Digitals several years ago)
Bumping this in hopes Chip reads it!
Thanks Bec for the reminder to back my shit up. I went to the Apple Store this AM and got a 320 GB external hard drive for $150. Tonight I back my shit up!
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:whip:
Glad this thread got some others thinking about doing just that! I won't lie - I was totally freaked at the idea of what my life miseries were going to be if that drive hadn't come back up.
For those of us that work online, that data we rely on is simply irreplacable at any price, and drives are cheap these days, so I (and everyone else in this biz) really have no excuse for not taking care of some very basic business maintenance/insurance.
For those that have met me you can add the sound of my voice whining over and over ... "my entire LIFE is on that drive !!!!!!!!"
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