can someone help with RAID? nearly lost all my data :(
Discussion
helloo all,
yesterday i almost had a cardiac episode. why i hear you ask? currently i have all my photos held on two mirrored usb drives. software mirroring from mac OSX and one disk is a lacie usb disk, the other is an old PC disk in a usb enclosure.
the pc disk in a usb enclosure started making some fatal clicks of death about a week ago so i unplugged that and powered down the lacie usb disk. i had some photos to add yesterday so i powered both back on and the clicks of death returned. no big deal i though. i've still got the data on the lacie disk. however that wouldn't spin up at all. the light came on but no spinning of the disk and no mounting. B****ger!!!
i thought i'd lost all my photos!! so after a significant panic and once my heart rate had come back down and i'd had a large glass of rouge, i set about canibalising various disks and enclosures. this is the second lacie disk that's failed on me. i don't think i'll be buying lacie again. both times it was the enclosure.
long story short, i took the lacie usb disk from it's enclosure and put it into another usb enclosure. it attempted to spin up a few times and then finally fired up and mounted. i've pulled all the data onto another disk and left it mounted and it still appears to be working - for now.
i've been toying with the idea of getting a network gigabit RAID enclosure. does anyone have any experince of these?
the two i'm thinking about are
hydra
thecus
the other idea is to get a drobo but i'd have to get another adaptor to allow it to be accessed via the network
i know raid isn't the same as backup and that raid only protects against disk failure but that's what i want right now. i've just been really unfortunate in that two mirrored disks of different brands failed at once. fortunately i could recover one. at least i get to dissasemble the other and have a looky inside. i sense another photo project in that
my main query is one of reliability. both of my lacie disks have failed due to hardware in the enclosures and not the disks so if my raid harware fails i'm really stuck. i know i would still need to do a full backup onto another meduim in case of a raid hardware failure. what do you suggest for that? tape? another group of large disks? DVDs are going to take forever for the initial backup and restore...
thanks again for all your help
yesterday i almost had a cardiac episode. why i hear you ask? currently i have all my photos held on two mirrored usb drives. software mirroring from mac OSX and one disk is a lacie usb disk, the other is an old PC disk in a usb enclosure.
the pc disk in a usb enclosure started making some fatal clicks of death about a week ago so i unplugged that and powered down the lacie usb disk. i had some photos to add yesterday so i powered both back on and the clicks of death returned. no big deal i though. i've still got the data on the lacie disk. however that wouldn't spin up at all. the light came on but no spinning of the disk and no mounting. B****ger!!!
i thought i'd lost all my photos!! so after a significant panic and once my heart rate had come back down and i'd had a large glass of rouge, i set about canibalising various disks and enclosures. this is the second lacie disk that's failed on me. i don't think i'll be buying lacie again. both times it was the enclosure.
long story short, i took the lacie usb disk from it's enclosure and put it into another usb enclosure. it attempted to spin up a few times and then finally fired up and mounted. i've pulled all the data onto another disk and left it mounted and it still appears to be working - for now.
i've been toying with the idea of getting a network gigabit RAID enclosure. does anyone have any experince of these?
the two i'm thinking about are
hydra
thecus
the other idea is to get a drobo but i'd have to get another adaptor to allow it to be accessed via the network
i know raid isn't the same as backup and that raid only protects against disk failure but that's what i want right now. i've just been really unfortunate in that two mirrored disks of different brands failed at once. fortunately i could recover one. at least i get to dissasemble the other and have a looky inside. i sense another photo project in that
my main query is one of reliability. both of my lacie disks have failed due to hardware in the enclosures and not the disks so if my raid harware fails i'm really stuck. i know i would still need to do a full backup onto another meduim in case of a raid hardware failure. what do you suggest for that? tape? another group of large disks? DVDs are going to take forever for the initial backup and restore...
thanks again for all your help
I use the following for redundancy on 320gb of photos as an amateur photographer:
Main iMac (320gb) for work in progress
Drobo with 3.5tb (shared via the mac on the home network)
Buffalo 1tb as an onsite backup (syncs to Drobo) to 1 regular backup automatically + 1 manual backup every few months (with random checks for corruption)
One offsite 500gb USB drive (monthly cycle)
Really important stuff (eg my wedding photos + portfolio) on a series of DVDs, onsite and offsite + 20gb on Mobile Me.
Yes, I'm paranoid!
I like the drobo. Would highly recommend it. Very solid construction, good software including email warnings. Flexible drive usage up to 2tb per bay. Takes a while to recover from a failed disk, but most RAID does. Havce used it in anger when a 6 month old 1tb drive died; replaced and was synced after about 6 hrs.
Main iMac (320gb) for work in progress
Drobo with 3.5tb (shared via the mac on the home network)
Buffalo 1tb as an onsite backup (syncs to Drobo) to 1 regular backup automatically + 1 manual backup every few months (with random checks for corruption)
One offsite 500gb USB drive (monthly cycle)
Really important stuff (eg my wedding photos + portfolio) on a series of DVDs, onsite and offsite + 20gb on Mobile Me.
Yes, I'm paranoid!
I like the drobo. Would highly recommend it. Very solid construction, good software including email warnings. Flexible drive usage up to 2tb per bay. Takes a while to recover from a failed disk, but most RAID does. Havce used it in anger when a 6 month old 1tb drive died; replaced and was synced after about 6 hrs.
thanks for the info. i did seriously consider the drobo, especially as you don't need drives of the same size so i could use some of my old drives and replace them with larger drives in the future so the initial cost is reduced. however i want to centralise all of the data in my hose and that includes a mac mini that i use as a digital video recorder which has about 500GB of tv shows on it and to use it as an itunes server. so i really need something that has fast access over a wired gigabit network. can the drobo be used over a gigabit LAN or just a regular slower 100mb lan?
thanks
thanks
I have a Qnap TS-209 at home and have nothing but good stuff to say about it.
It's got onboard gigabit and other useful things like an FTB server and media server.
In terms of reliability I think I've powered off about twice in the 4 years I've owned it.
You can buy them in 2 or 4 drive configs depending on how much space you need. Mine is a 2 drive system with 2x500gb drives that are mirrored. I think it's been replaced by the TS-219 now but some 209s are on eBay but will only go to 1.5TB (I think). Units with the TS-4xx (xx = either 09 or 19) designation are the 4 drive bays. All the drives are hot swappable too, which could be handy.
Sorry I can't advise on the ones you linked to, but if you need anymore details about the Qnap drop me a line.
It's got onboard gigabit and other useful things like an FTB server and media server.
In terms of reliability I think I've powered off about twice in the 4 years I've owned it.
You can buy them in 2 or 4 drive configs depending on how much space you need. Mine is a 2 drive system with 2x500gb drives that are mirrored. I think it's been replaced by the TS-219 now but some 209s are on eBay but will only go to 1.5TB (I think). Units with the TS-4xx (xx = either 09 or 19) designation are the 4 drive bays. All the drives are hot swappable too, which could be handy.
Sorry I can't advise on the ones you linked to, but if you need anymore details about the Qnap drop me a line.
mojitomax said:
thanks for the info. i did seriously consider the drobo, especially as you don't need drives of the same size so i could use some of my old drives and replace them with larger drives in the future so the initial cost is reduced. however i want to centralise all of the data in my hose and that includes a mac mini that i use as a digital video recorder which has about 500GB of tv shows on it and to use it as an itunes server. so i really need something that has fast access over a wired gigabit network. can the drobo be used over a gigabit LAN or just a regular slower 100mb lan?
thanks
I use mine over 100mb powerline around the house to xbox and ps3 with no issues.thanks
we use a few drobos at work - theyve proved quite reliable for us. They're pricey for what they are, but they just sort themselves out, and you dont have to worry about buying exactly the same drives.
I would never rely on hard drives as a backup solution- as youve discovered, in the long term, theyre not reliable. I think of hard drives as an 'archive', but not 'backup'. Even with raid, that just protects you from hd failure- What if theres a fire? Or a technical fault with the raid unit? or your burgled? What if you move the unit and drop it?
At home, i have an external HD thats a short term back up - using mac's own time machine nonsense, and i back up really important stuff, to DVDs. I use roxios toast to burn, as it'll span anything large onto multiple discs, and it also includes the unarchive utility on each disc, so its easy to restore the data. Each disc is also verified after burn. I back up each backup disc twice, to two different makes of blank dvd. One is kept at home, the other off site.
Can be a little time consuming initially to do, but i think worth it. To me, my photos are worth more than anything- a computer i can replace, but the photos are each one of a kind.
DVDs seem to offer good value for money, and reasonable longevity, for backing up.
I would never rely on hard drives as a backup solution- as youve discovered, in the long term, theyre not reliable. I think of hard drives as an 'archive', but not 'backup'. Even with raid, that just protects you from hd failure- What if theres a fire? Or a technical fault with the raid unit? or your burgled? What if you move the unit and drop it?
At home, i have an external HD thats a short term back up - using mac's own time machine nonsense, and i back up really important stuff, to DVDs. I use roxios toast to burn, as it'll span anything large onto multiple discs, and it also includes the unarchive utility on each disc, so its easy to restore the data. Each disc is also verified after burn. I back up each backup disc twice, to two different makes of blank dvd. One is kept at home, the other off site.
Can be a little time consuming initially to do, but i think worth it. To me, my photos are worth more than anything- a computer i can replace, but the photos are each one of a kind.
DVDs seem to offer good value for money, and reasonable longevity, for backing up.
Edited by Fordo on Tuesday 16th February 08:28
Anyone tried Blueray for backup? I was thinking that as an infrequent additional archive, 320gb of photos would span too many DVDs, but only 12-15 Blueray discs?
Only I have seen very few external blue ray drives - have an iMac so would need to be external...
Only I have seen very few external blue ray drives - have an iMac so would need to be external...
Edited by plg101 on Tuesday 16th February 08:31
thanks for all your help chaps. i think i'm going to go for this raid server
qnap
i can get a pair of 1.5tb drives to get me started and then add more drives later and the raid will auto-upgrade the raid level. or if the price of 2tb drives comes down i can upgrade to four 2tb drives and the raid will sort itself out.
qnap
i can get a pair of 1.5tb drives to get me started and then add more drives later and the raid will auto-upgrade the raid level. or if the price of 2tb drives comes down i can upgrade to four 2tb drives and the raid will sort itself out.
This is going to sound preachy RAID is protection against disk failure, it's meant to enable you to continue working or minimize the downtime caused by a disk failure.
RAID is not backup.
That's the problem these days - 1.5tb HDD £100, tape drive that will squeeze 1tb (ish) on a £30 tape - £1500 so most people skimp and then panic when all their data is gone.
RAID is not backup.
That's the problem these days - 1.5tb HDD £100, tape drive that will squeeze 1tb (ish) on a £30 tape - £1500 so most people skimp and then panic when all their data is gone.
Edited by paddyhasneeds on Tuesday 16th February 19:37
plg101 said:
Anyone tried Blueray for backup? I was thinking that as an infrequent additional archive, 320gb of photos would span too many DVDs, but only 12-15 Blueray discs?
Only I have seen very few external blue ray drives - have an iMac so would need to be external...
Do Macs now suppor. BluRay and BluRay burners? I thought I'd read that they didn't. Would be interested to know. Only I have seen very few external blue ray drives - have an iMac so would need to be external...
Edited by plg101 on Tuesday 16th February 08:31
plg101 said:
Anyone tried Blueray for backup? I was thinking that as an infrequent additional archive, 320gb of photos would span too many DVDs, but only 12-15 Blueray discs?
Only I have seen very few external blue ray drives - have an iMac so would need to be external...
Do Macs now support. BluRay and BluRay burners? I thought I'd read that they didn't. Would be interested to know. Only I have seen very few external blue ray drives - have an iMac so would need to be external...
Edited by plg101 on Tuesday 16th February 08:31
Toast Titanium does, and with a USB 2.0 external, OS X will see it as a USB connected device - so no issues there.
I've run a FireWire 400 drive daily for the past 5 years (at the least) as my iTunes drive on one partition, and the other for storage of various files, with the same Samsung HDD.
So I don't subscribe to the notion HDD's are a poor choice of backup/storage medium.
A 4/5 disc setup running RAID 10 (1+0), 5 should provide you enough redundancy if/when the discs go down.
LaCie really seem to be giving themselves a bad rep with their external enclosures this past good while now.
I've run a FireWire 400 drive daily for the past 5 years (at the least) as my iTunes drive on one partition, and the other for storage of various files, with the same Samsung HDD.
So I don't subscribe to the notion HDD's are a poor choice of backup/storage medium.
A 4/5 disc setup running RAID 10 (1+0), 5 should provide you enough redundancy if/when the discs go down.
LaCie really seem to be giving themselves a bad rep with their external enclosures this past good while now.
theboyfold said:
plg101 said:
Anyone tried Blueray for backup? I was thinking that as an infrequent additional archive, 320gb of photos would span too many DVDs, but only 12-15 Blueray discs?
Only I have seen very few external blue ray drives - have an iMac so would need to be external...
Do Macs now support. BluRay and BluRay burners? I thought I'd read that they didn't. Would be interested to know. Only I have seen very few external blue ray drives - have an iMac so would need to be external...
Edited by plg101 on Tuesday 16th February 08:31
Roop said:
Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ is all the RAID NAS you will ever need. Excellent kit but not that cheap.
^^ Have to agree with this. I've now got a third ReadyNAS NV+ rapidly filling up - so that's now a notional 10TB of RAID storage on the home network. Have not had any problems with them whatsoever. Would, however, strongly recommend a proper UPS to go alongside any serious RAID array you invest in. Power failures were a source of disk failures for me until I invested in the UPS. Since then (touch wood) no problems.I share the OPs experience with LaCie drives - I also had the controller in the enclosure fail (one of those drives the same size and shape as a Mac Mini). Lesson for us all, don't always assume when your eternal hard drive fails that it is the disk inside that has died.
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