External Hard Drive Recommendations

[heninger]

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Has anyone on the Mac side just setup software RAID with two drives (i.e. 2 500BG drives)?

 

I've heard this works great without the overhead of a separate RAID box but wanted to hear what you all think.

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[wparsonsgisnet]

As per Bill's rec. above I got a LaCie 600GB USB last night on the refurb section of their site. If it works out I'll get a second one. Plan is to have Mac, 2 external drives and then burn best selects to DVD for safe or off site. Now I just have to remember to do the backing up.

Jonathan Elderfield Photography

 

Jonathan, what a great idea.

 

BTW, I use "Second Copy" for my backups. It wasn't expensive and only backs up new or changed files when doing full backups. It has served me well.

 

The control screen shows the date of the last backup and the backup scripts can be named by you, so you can order them by putting a number at the front, for example. This way, you can see the set of backup processes you regularly follow.

 

I do both photog and video, so the names help a lot.

 

Regards,

[querstrommotor]

Greetings to you all

I recomend strongly the glyph hard drive systems.

Tey are very well built, absolute save and they have a modifies FW bridge, a hot swap system and they use seagate server drives (probably the best of the best...).

Check it out on the web - you will see it is a fantastic and intelligent system.

I have the GT 103 Rack system and 3 500Gb drives.

And I never had any problem with it.

 

As I work as a professional sound engineer, we use these drives also together with our Pro Tools systems every day (the same also for Avid video edeting systems) and had no problems with them - fine quality and not too expensive.

Forget the Ice Cube shit and also La Cie drives - they have problems with their bridge and the quality of the internal drives (Maxtor).

Last year i saw 9 La Cies dying - that is no fun....

Ekki

[ylshih]

For HDs themselves, go for Maxtor (now Seagate) and Hitachi, and WD. There are some differences within some of the lines, such as the Maxtor 500GB Quickview versus the Maxtor 500GB Maxline Pro. The Quickview were designed more for TiVo type applications, while the Maxline Pro are more "enterprise capable". Difference of a few bucks, but it may or may not matter to you.

 

As mentioned, the Quickview drives were designed for Tivo, what that means is that they are optimized to be slightly lower noise and support a continuous data stream better. There is no reason to pay extra for these features for a photo storage application. Maxline drives are designed and tested for greater operating reliability (IIRC 2-3x lower failure rate), so these are worth a few bucks extra, but not enough to rely on a single drive.

[wag]

I hope this is not an inappropriate question. I'm planning to get a new Mac Pro Quad

and they have 4 bays for hard drives. Obviously 2 or 3 of them could be back-up, and purchased from suppliers other than Apple. They also could be configured in a variety of ways. If one goes that route are you more vulnerable to a system breakdown or failure?

Is that not a good way to go?

Thanks for any info.

Brad W

[jfgilbert]

Has anyone on the Mac side just setup software RAID with two drives (i.e. 2 500BG drives)?

 

I've heard this works great without the overhead of a separate RAID box but wanted to hear what you all think.

 

I have done just that. A couple of drives in Acomdata enclosures connected by FW to the iMac that I use as the base for my network. I understand it is not very fast, but I only use it for automatic backups during the night, so it does not matter. I like the fact that you can set the drives to stop when not active, so they are effectively silent and don't heat up throughout the day.

The software RAID never gave me any troubles. The one time that I unplugged a drive without unmounting, it was able to rebuild wthout fuss. Not automatically, but I prefer it that way.

Hope that answers your question, let me know if not.

Jacques

[john_nyc]

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I use a WD MyBook Pro w/ a FW800 card. It's pretty fast and seems pretty solid.

 

I use MS Synctoy in "contribute" mode so deletions have no impact on my online backup copy of my photo directory.

 

I used to make DVD backups, but I found that the inconvenience and growing size of my projects (and especially my laziness) caused me to not make backups. Although a hard drive isn't the most ideal backup medium, it's better than nothing.

 

I have plenty of storage in my PC (3x500 plus a 150 Raptor for my system partitions), but I like that my backup drive is on a seperate power supply, so it's removed from the PC's power supply and internal environment (ie heat).

 

John

[losta]

Go ahead and get SATA drives from another source. I order drives from OWC macsales.com They are so easy to install. It is a user installable part so no worries about it. I am looking at a Mac Pro too to replace my G5 Power Mac, now that I have CS3.

I'm looking at a 8 core, 4 GB RAM, 500GB HD, I have several 500GB SATA drives I could drop in a few. I looked at 750's but they are still too expensive and 500 is a good bang for the buck.

 

I hope this is not an inappropriate question. I'm planning to get a new Mac Pro Quad

and they have 4 bays for hard drives. Obviously 2 or 3 of them could be back-up, and purchased from suppliers other than Apple. They also could be configured in a variety of ways. If one goes that route are you more vulnerable to a system breakdown or failure?

Is that not a good way to go?

Thanks for any info.

Brad W

[pat308]

SATA is the way to go. Check out FirmTek enclosures. USB and FW even FW800 is blown away by SATA drives. You will not regret.

[foolstop]

Hi,

 

After reading lots of backup information from this forum.

Just want to share my recent experience with you guys.

 

=========

I used to "install" my own external harddisks and digital wallets by buying the enclosure and install the harddisks (they all use similar/same electronics, lots of them actually come from the same OEM, be sure to buy one with aluminium casing to enhance heat dissipation). They are not expensive, around USD30. Already very reliable. But most, if not all would only support PATA hard drives rather than the newer SATA drives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA

 

I have three external harddisks on my desk, ranging from 160 to 250G. Recently I found the newest one was running with some weired sound. So I am very scared, what shall I do? I searched thro' the web and looked thro' this forum.

 

My question is how to make "backup" for my photos?

 

Options:-

 

1. DVD backup/archive

2. Harddisk

3. Tape

4. Print them out

 

Burn them into DVDs:-

- this is more like archiving cos you would not overwrite them as someone has mentioned in this thread. But this is not foolproof, some of those DVD (both DVD+R and -R) that I burned with my trustworthy Plextor burner in 2004 can't be read already

 

Obviously, there a lot of knowledge in selecting the burners and the DVDRs, not all of them are borned equal, some of them are more equal than the others.

 

there is a well informed discussion under this blog

http://adterrasperaspera.com/blog/2006/10/30/how-to-choose-cddvd-archival-media/

 

Some discussion said DVD+R disk from good manufacturers like Taiyo Yuden would last longer. Some people suggest to make at least two copies of DVDR at the same time. I doubt about this strategy, cos both disks will age at the same rate, and they will likely reach their end of life more or less at the same time

 

By the way, the workflow of archiving a pair disks (4.7GB) takes over 45 minutes. How to archive, say 500GB of files?

=============

 

Backup into harddisks:-

A friend of mine suggested said the life of a harddisk (the magnetic platter at least) would out last a lot of the DVDR So he suggested to backup the files into harddisk and put them off site as nowadays harddisk are not expensive.

 

Recently, google has published their study on hard drive failure.

http://216.239.37.132/papers/disk_failures.pdf

 

After the initial run in period and less than three yr of service:-

High temp is not the cause of failure, those that use less frequent and running on a lower temperature have a higher chance of failure.

 

Note here, there is an early failure "infant mortality" of harddisks. A local harddisk dealer told me that recently he sold 100 disks to an institution, four dead disks returned within a month. This is not a scientific statistics but "infant mortality" of harddisk do occur, four percents in this case.

 

For our purpose, we would like to trial run the drive before putting all the eggs in that basket

 

Yes, harddisk will die, sooner or later, therefore, people said it is always better to have at least two copies for your backup. So the harddisk solution should at least be run on a pair of disks, right? There are a number of favours for this approach.

 

One may prepare and connect a pair of external harddisk and use software like rsync etc to do incremental backup from your working machine to the pair of "EHD" at the same time. This is a rudimentary construction of a so call RAID1 configuration. Just the two drives are not housed in the single box. Nevertheless, the two disks contain the same data and they "mirror" each other.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

 

Using RAID1 or RAID5 is another favour of building some kind of backup with harddisks. After reading pages and pages of discussion, I get the impression that, for my purpose, RAID 1/5 is not for speed nor cost, but for reliability.

 

RAID looks great, appears reliable but how reliable it is. As all harddisk will die, harddisks in a RAID will die, the only difference is that a RAID1/5 configuration allows ONE hardware disk failure without losing data. Statistically, the more drive you have, the higher chance you will run into a "drive failure" in one of your drives.

 

*** No matter you are using RAID 1 with two disks or RAID 5 with three or four disks, you only have one disk reduntancy.

 

Some people highly advocate a RAID 5 setup. It looks nice, high tech, seems it will not die as easy as a single disk.

 

Nevertheless, a RAID5 is only secure if:-

 

1. It is built with high quality hardware (enclosure and disks), runs with reliable software. I will not build a software RAID5 using Win$ in my PC. (if the software fail, how can I recover the RAID?) It is only as reliable as the weakest link in the setup.

 

2. There is a reasonable recovery plan available if one of the disks failed. i.e. I can replace the failed disk myself.

 

For instance, some NAS+RAID5 solution advise me to join their warranty plan, in case of disk/ enclosure failure, I have to bring back the RAID to the dealer for data recovery and replace the failed disk. I found this solution highly not satisfactory. In case of hardware enclosure failure, don't expect to put the remaining disks to enclosure made by another manufacturer, it won't work.

 

============

 

In summary, there are a few real world options.

 

1. Build a pair of external harddisk boxes, run like a RAID 1 using software like rsync or unison for automatic/incremental backup

http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/index.html

 

2. Find an external RAID 1 box, some belongs to NAS, some connect using eSATA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA

 

NAS is essentially an small PC serves as a file server in your home network connect via ethernet. Some NAS only house one disk.

 

3. Use NAS with RAID 1 or RAID5 capability.

 

========

 

After reading all the informations, I choose to buy an Infrant RAID5 capable enclosure. (Infrant ReadyNAS NV+) as suggested my many members in this forum.

 

I installed three Seagate ES (7x24 working) 320GB drives and still test running it. (otherwise I have no relationship with Infrant or Seagate)

 

It has an attractive option of automatic expansion of total volume after adding new drives into the setup. Most RAID solutions need one to backup the existing data (? by another RAID), add the disk and rebuild the RAID, then putting back the data.

 

Looking back, costwise, I may be better off buying two 500GB drives, running initially with a RAID1, then add a third and a fourth one later when the cost of drive drop (it will convert the RAID 1 to 5 automatically). Moreover, theorectically, I would be benefit by buying drives from different batch of the same manufacturer.

 

========

[Concorde-SST]

There´s something I really can recommend to anyone interested in building a NAS system (I´ve got one). There´s a company called Open-E http://www.open-e.com/ and their solution just works with me.

 

In any case, I backup my data regularly on DVD and external HDD´s. I never use LaCie they´re just looking good, that´s all you can say from them!!

 

best,

 

Concorde-SST

[pfogle]

I have a fairly low-volume throughput, so I haven't invested a lot.

 

I use 2 USB2 250GB Seagates in enclosures, and when they get full, they are exchanged for a new pair and become part of the archive.

 

I toyed with DVD, but ditched it when I realised that there was no way you can check whether they still work without loading all the files and checking them. Far too time consuming. I run a full diskcheck fairly frequently, and swap out any drive that shows any sign of a problem developing. In fact, I've only had one failure, it was Lacie, with a Maxtor HD, which had a reputation for overheating at that time (a couple of years back) - they may well be better now, but I'm still a bit wary of that particular make.

 

The archive drives will get a spin up every month, and a full diskcheck, and again, if one shows any signs of problems (a bad sector, for example) it gets junked and the other provides the image for its replacement. This way, I can also keep up with any technology changes, which tend to happen every 3-5 years. I figure this system should work as long as we get electricity - and after that, it doens't matter anyway

[wparsonsgisnet]

FY, thank you for your thorough and enlightening post.

 

I read the article from Google and plan to change my procedures as a result.

I note that although death as the result of seek failures are typical of only a single manufacturer, they don't name that mfr.

 

Otherwise, in general:

1. Failures are not related to temperatures, until they exceed 115F, and then only double from a 1% rate to a 2% rate. Not serious.

2. Disks of all types fail similarly, except for one mfr with a problem related to seek failures.

3. Failures begin to increase, starting at 3 years of life.

4. Scan errors lead to an increase in failure rates of 3 to 6 times.

5. Power cycles increase failures by 2-plus percent.

 

In reading the Google analysis, I cannot determine if all the drives they are working with are in RAID arrays, but suspect this is so. This makes sense, but may not be true. I do not plan to run RAID arrays, because my drives are not being used by many users and I take care of my own backup -- carefully and religiously.

 

A friend of mine says that there are 2 kinds of people: those that back up, and those that will.

 

I have been buying LaCie drives since 2003. They are fast and attractive (not so shabby).

3 have failed, of 9. I resuscitated 2 of the 3 dead ones with replacement cases containing boards for the same 3-way interface (2 usb's, 1 firewire). So, only one disk failed.

 

Because these drives are not fan-cooled, I theorized that they were failing due to heat and started keeping them powered down when not in use. Coincidentally, this seemed to be a good idea. Another poster buys a pair of 500GB drives each year for his photos, and keeps them powered up all the time.

 

Since the failure rate in the Google study is higher for power cycles than for heat, I plan to keep my drives powered up from now on. Early failures, defined by Google as a common problem, will be taken care of by the warranty.

 

I still plan to buy the drives as refurb from LaCie. Can't beat the price. And, a refurb is essentially a new drive.

 

Another change I plan to make is to put a UPS on the external drives, only. I have not done this, but feel it will make a large difference in protecting the units.

 

Thanks again, FY, for your post. You made my day.

[Guest sirvine]

FWIW-- The typical refresh schedule for disks in corporate IT is 3-4 years, due to studies like Google's and conventional wisdom about the lifespan of storage. Most companies use redundant storage (e.g., RAID), local tape backup and offsite tape backup to protect business critical data.

 

At some point, you could try to reproduce your entire life in two places (second home, second library, second wife...LOL) and you have to draw the line somewhere.

[wparsonsgisnet]

... At some point, you could try to reproduce your entire life in two places (second home, second library, second wife...LOL) and you have to draw the line somewhere.

 

A number of lines in my life have been drawn for me, many by the wife.

[LJL]

Another change I plan to make is to put a UPS on the external drives, only. I have not done this, but feel it will make a large difference in protecting the units.

 

Bill,

I think this is an excellent and important consideration. I run UPS for ALL of my gear. I have a separate unit for the DSL modem/router/switch and phone lines. Another for the portables, one RAID 5 array and one printer. Another for the G5 and its monitors, plus several external HDs, and another for the printers. When the power goes out, everything keeps running for a bit, but lets me shut things down properly. More importantly, the UPS devices protect against power surges better than the simple surge protector outlet strips, and deliver a clean and consistent power flow. I do think this makes a difference on sensitive electronics.

 

LJ

[wparsonsgisnet]

LJ, I have ups/surge protectors on my audio equipment, and surge prot's all all the computer equip. I like your suggestion.

 

I am experiencing power fluctuations several times a week. I can tell because after each one my television set reverts to the horrendous color and brightness settings that the factory chose. So, either my local company is surging/brownouting/discontinuing/etc or the guys running the power grid are practical jokers and are really bored with their regular job.

 

I am adding the ups to the HD's only. The computer can fend for itself. All I can lose is the last change to the image. All this stuff already has surge protectors (actually several in series).

[Albert4321]

Does anyone use iOmega's Rev drives? They have 35g and 70g disc. Expensive but seems to be faster than tape backup and "seems to be" more reliable than regular HD, and easier for off-site storage.

 

I have zip discs and Jazz discs over 10 years old and they are still readable.

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[wparsonsgisnet]

Does anyone use iOmega's Rev drives? They have 35g and 70g disc. Expensive but seems to be faster than tape backup and "seems to be" more reliable than regular HD, and easier for off-site storage.

 

I have zip discs and Jazz discs over 10 years old and they are still readable.

 

But expensive.

[jelderfield]

Bill when you say UPS - is that surge protector? So it seems that it's safer to keep them powered up all the time? The LaCie I bought seems to work fine so far - I'm planning to buy a second 600gb from them refurbed. Jonathan Elderfield Photography