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Which External Hard Drive Backup?


mitchell

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Bill

 

Am I understanding correctly that your LaCie enclosure had a drive fail. So you bought a replacement LaCie drive which didn't work. LaCie's explanation was you needed to buy the replacement drive at the time you bought the original unit for it to work. If this is about right that does sound awful odd.

 

It could be what LJ suggested the drives needing to be the same. Most likely literally the same as in the same brand. Brand to Brand when the same size drives are formated the actual usable amount of space can vary. This could cause a problem.

 

The question then are the drives the same brand that came in the unit?

 

I didn't realize LaCie had so many different storage interface configuration's now. Firewire USB and external SATA.

 

Sorry for your storage problems.

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Bill

 

Am I understanding correctly that your LaCie enclosure had a drive fail. So you bought a replacement LaCie drive which didn't work. LaCie's explanation was you needed to buy the replacement drive at the time you bought the original unit for it to work. If this is about right that does sound awful odd.

 

It could be what LJ suggested the drives needing to be the same. Most likely literally the same as in the same brand. Brand to Brand when the same size drives are formated the actual usable amount of space can vary. This could cause a problem.

 

The question then are the drives the same brand that came in the unit?

 

I didn't realize LaCie had so many different storage interface configuration's now. Firewire USB and external SATA.

 

Sorry for your storage problems.

 

Gepetto and Bill,

Sorry for introducing any confusion. My question about the replacement drive was not flippant. What I was referring to was are the original drives from your unit ATA or SATA, and was the replacement drive ATA or SATA. Secondly, the size of the drive has to be exactly the same for some of these RAID configurations, or things will not work. I realize you said that it was a LaCie replacement for that unit, but if they (LaCie) had switched over to SATA drives from the original ATA drives, there may have been a problem.

 

Bill, I really do not know enough about the drives and the unit you speak about. Also, there are dip switches on some of the drives that could have been out of sync with what was needed in that deployment. In other words, if LaCie had set one drive to act as a "slave" drive to the other, the position on the switches would be different, and if you replaced with one that was not set up identically, it would not work in the RAID array as LaCie had designed things. This is all a bit of speculation on my part here, as I really do not have enough information on your configuration or on the specific devices used. Also, several drives from different manufacturers had undergone some firmware changes to address compatibility and usage issues. It is possible that the replacment drive had not been upgraded. Lots of variables here, even if the product was being sold as a replacement drive for your specific unit. Technologies can change a lot from time of deployment to time of packaging and storage to time of purchase for use.

 

Sorry for any confusion. On another follow-on question you had, my RAID array units do not care about drive brand, though I tend to keep them identical. If one fails and I have to use my back-up, the new back-up will get formatted in the RAID unit before it set it as a spare. This is done by removing the other drives from the array and first, and doing the formatting with a single drive in the unit. Then putting back the drives in proper position and letting the unit rebuild things with the new drive. That is not spelled out in any instructions I have seen, but I got the recommendations from the engineers that actually make the products (Infrant Technologies for the ReadyNAS, and HighPoint Technology that makes the RocketRAID X4 unit and PCI card).

 

LJ

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  • 2 years later...
Bill

 

Am I understanding correctly that your LaCie enclosure had a drive fail. So you bought a replacement LaCie drive which didn't work. LaCie's explanation was you needed to buy the replacement drive at the time you bought the original unit for it to work. If this is about right that does sound awful odd.

 

It could be what LJ suggested the drives needing to be the same. Most likely literally the same as in the same brand. Brand to Brand when the same size drives are formated the actual usable amount of space can vary. This could cause a problem.

 

The question then are the drives the same brand that came in the unit?

 

I didn't realize LaCie had so many different storage interface configuration's now. Firewire USB and external SATA.

 

Sorry for your storage problems.

 

I missed this question.

 

So, to recap --

 

I am still a LaCie customer, usually buying a refurbished item.

I make 3 copies of my images and store one copy offsite.

While I have had one LaCie drive (actually a Maxtor) die, in every other case a failure has been of the electronics in the case and an inexpensive replacement case has restored the drive to functioning state.

My incoherent ramblings about the failed LaCie were intended to convey that I usually buy refurbished drives from them because the savings from the list price pay for the replacement case and electronics if I need them.

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I'm sure a lot of people will consider this overkill, but here goes. My backup scheme consists of:

 

Mac Pro with 4 1TB drives marked: PRIMARY, AUDIO, PHOTO, VIDEO

 

Drobo One holds clones of each of the above drives, updated nightly.

 

Drobo Two holds a TimeMachine backup of the same drives.

 

I have a 1TB external drive that uses SuperDuper to clone my startup drive, updated nightly.

 

I have an external WiebeTech housing that allows you to pop drives in and out; on a weekly basis I clone each of my MacPro drives to a corresponding drive and store these 4 clones in a fire-proof safe. Though it's in the same building as my computer, it's substituting for off-site storage. I believe the combination of secure (and hidden) location, plus the waterproof/fireproof safe, are an adequate substitute for off-site storage.

 

Don't ask what happened to push me towards this much redundancy! :eek:

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That seems like a very thoughtful solution. What kind of firesafe did you end up using? The reason I ask is that some are only good for retardation about 10 mins, which may end up not being enough.

 

I would probably replace the firesafe part for an offsite like mozy, amazon s3, etc.

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That seems like a very thoughtful solution. What kind of firesafe did you end up using? The reason I ask is that some are only good for retardation about 10 mins, which may end up not being enough.

 

I would probably replace the firesafe part for an offsite like mozy, amazon s3, etc.

My fire safe is 2-hour rated; it's small and will only hold about 6 bare hard drives in cases. My fire department is recommending 3-hour fire safes, so I might upgrade that at some point.

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I use Apple since 1986. The most reliable drives were the original ones of the computers. With external drives - meant as backups - I sometimes had losses. They were of different brands.

But in December 2009 a built-in SSD-"disc" crashed.

Since then I back up with time-machine/time-capsule. This works fine.

Jan

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