RAID Arrays and backup

[hankg]

I am soon going to run out of space on my RAID 5 NAS and my Mac G4 is about at the end of it's useful life. I'm looking at PC's (Puget Custom Computers, America's Custom Computer Leader) and Mac workstations to find a reasonably fast machine with a Terrabyte of secure storage without having to rob a bank. The Mac rackmounted RAID + a MAC workstation would be ideal but its way to expensive -for a TB of RAID plus a new Mac pro you would be looking at $9,000+ ! I need the storage and the workstation to come in at $5,000 or less. So I am figuring a box with 5 internal discs: a system disc and 4x1TB configured as a RAID level 5 or stripped and mirrored.

For off site backup: PhotoShelter. No one comes close for a TB of storage plus you have all the other services as icing on the cake. No matter how redundant your local storage is here in Miami you are always just one hurricane away from a data wipeout.

For the local data. Any informed opinions on Raid 5 versus a striped and mirrored config? I'd like to use the primary disc for OS and applications and work off of the RAID so while data integrity is 1st priority, speed is also an issue. As to PC versus MAC I don't care much which OS. If there is no great price or configuration advantage I'll stick with MAC but let's not start a PC v. MAC thread. I'm more interested in users experience with secure, redundant archiving and off site backup.

[woodda]

I notice you are suggesting 1tb of storage using the photshelter service. Is that not $499.99 per month for 1TB. That seems very expensive. I can buy a 1Tb drive for $300

[hankg]

Originally Posted by woodda

I notice you are suggesting 1tb of storage using the photshelter service. Is that not $499.99 per month for 1TB. That seems very expensive. I can buy a 1Tb drive for $300

No it's $1000 a year for a TB, $600 a year for 500GB (it's not easy to find the pricing). A 1TB drive is pretty useless as backup - as if it crashes you are out of luck. A RAID 5 array or mirrored array would survive a disc crash with your data intact but you still need an offsite solution to back that up. A flood, fire, etc could still wipe out your entire business and a lifetime of work unless you have off site backup at a service that is redundant and secure. Finally it has to be in some way automated and easy or it's won't be practical time wise.

Every service I have seen is geared towards document storage and storage sizes are pathetically small or super expensive. Photoshelter is the first service I have found that is not totally cost prohibitive. For $84 a month you can have a TB of images stored by Photoshelter on secure RAIDs at 2 redundant secure locations. Try duplicating that yourself for $1,000. a year. I have to give the free trial a spin and see how it ties into DAM software and workflow.

[brucek]

I presently have a 1TB RAID 5 networked drive that I use for local backup. I then bought two 350GB Western Digital My Book drives that I use for off site backup. There is no way in the world that I would want to have 1TB of data stored somewhere on the Internet. Especially not at a k-buck a year...