Everybody needs RAID! please do so today!

[etegration]

It's a sad thing that has happen to a friend of mine and i just cannot imagine being in his shoes. I'll snap and may just committ sucide if i were him. He just lost 10 years of photos he painstakingly took, photoshopped and even converted from film into digital and now, it all crashed. I'll preach this again, please do yourself a favour, build a raid machine. Harddisk are so darn cheap nowadays, it's well worth it. The argument here is not that "luckily he still have his films or film scans, it's he has since gone digital for a while now and lost everything. no DVD or CD archive for the past 5 years at least. Imagine if there was your first new born, photos all gone. Your newborn's first step caputured beautifully in digital photos, call gone. I'll really die.

I've recently upgrade this machine I wrote about and built another exact same one recently to a full RAID 5 machine. Software raid or onboard raid chip whatever, it works and it has proven fine for a long time. I've even tried purposely failing it, rebuilding it is peanuts.

So please! Build a raid machine, it won't cost you much and the benefits are just beyond money can buy.

[djork]

saw your article. that's a pretty nice removable harddisk rack you have there, the vortex branded one. where did you get it, and how much?

[Deadpoet]

Actually, it's NOT RAID that you or anyone needs, it's BACK UP.

You really have to be very careful about RAID. Did you buy the HDD from the same batch? If you did, you are at risk. RAID is one way to back up, but bach up is what everyone must do.

For your friend, I hope he did not try anything heroic with the failed HDD. A lot of files can still be recovered, but please tell your friend, goto a true data recovery specialist. If he is interested, ask him to contact me.

[bonobo]

No need RAID machine lah, just periodically back up files to an external disk can alredi.

[megaweb]

2 HDDs ? Raid 1 ?

Try this NAS

QNAP TS-201
http://www.qnap.com.tw/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=74
Cost around $599 w/o HD

Synology DS-207
http://www.synology.com/enu/products/DS207/index.php
Costs around $610 w/o HD

Smaller size, built-in application like ftp and web server, easy to install


Currently I m using a cheapo NAS called V-gear Landisk and DVD backup

[sloth]

RAID sucks.. I have had entire arrays go at once. Or worse, controller failures that wipe out the entire array and make it unrecoverable even when you 'break' (separate) the array and mount the individual drives for recovery work.

I tend to put more faith in network-attached storage (NAS) systems. Or for home users, external HDs *AND* DVD-R backups. Multiple layers of backup are your best defense.

Also, offsite backups are helpful. Burn another set of DVD's and store them in a dry box at your parents/relatives home.

[AJ23]

Haha, think one have not heard of my Ultra320 SCSI RAID5 setup on a $100k server that failed. (2 of the expensive HDD died at the same time, how lucky can that be?)

I think TS is getting a little too excited. As previous poster has said, it's BACKUP, and regular scheduled backup if one think the the pictures are important to be archived.

Also, dun need to build a RAID5 machine, it's not cheap and easy especially for the IT uninitiated. A RAID1 (mirror) would probably suffice.

[djork]

Originally Posted by megaweb 2 HDDs ? Raid 1 ? Currently I m using a cheapo NAS called V-gear Landisk and DVD backup

does performance increase when using a gigabit connector?

[arpinkor]

RAID arrays do not protect you against everything, eg. accidental deletion or corruption. They only protect against physical hard-disk hardware failures. If you work with Raid arrays long enough, you will know of horror stories where entire racks of disks are wiped out, because the controller went crazy.
That's why it's always prudent to have regular off-line backup as well, like DVD-R.

[Sonus]

Just get a dvd burner and burn all the photos to it. Cheap and fast.

[AJ23]

Originally Posted by djork does performance increase when using a gigabit connector?

the gigabit connector is only the link between the external box and PC, and more than often, this network link can transport much much more bandwidth than the max output read/write from the hdd itself.

So the answer is, no, the performance increase lies more on the hdd itself and the technology used. (PATA vs SATA vs eSATA vs SCSI, etc etc)

[sloth]

Originally Posted by arpinkor RAID arrays do not protect you against everything, eg. accidental deletion or corruption. They only protect against physical hard-disk hardware failures. If you work with Raid arrays long enough, you will know of horror stories where entire racks of disks are wiped out, because the controller went crazy. That's why it's always prudent to have regular off-line backup as well, like DVD-R.

Amen brother, tell it like it is

(you work in IT too? )

[melnjes]

DVDs can degrade too over time.

I store mine over DVDs and a few hard disks. Harddisks are located at separate physical locations, in case of fire.

[ExplorerZ]

Originally Posted by Sonus Just get a dvd burner and burn all the photos to it. Cheap and fast.

@ the price of Seagate FreeAgent 500GB (<$300) I rather get this then burning DVD... imaging 500GB worth of DVD, thats 100discs...

[Isaiahfortythirtyone]

err...tape drive anyone? fujitsu MO?

[CYRN]

Originally Posted by arpinkor RAID arrays do not protect you against everything, eg. accidental deletion or corruption. They only protect against physical hard-disk hardware failures. If you work with Raid arrays long enough, you will know of horror stories where entire racks of disks are wiped out, because the controller went crazy. That's why it's always prudent to have regular off-line backup as well, like DVD-R.

tat's why must setup RAID 1+5.

[Hacker]

NetApp/EMC all very good. Go for all fiber, even better .

RAID bad? Not sure why it's bad if it is RAID 10/50/6 etc. Backup/recovery strategy is very important, but no use if the storage device gets destroyed and RAID disks are in the same enclosure.

[MadCat90t]

My advise is to buy 3 HDD of the same size and a RAID1 controller card. Yes it cost, but small price compared to your years of photography images, and most probably a fraction of your photo equipment. Act now!

RAID1 for 2 HDD. Don't bother with RAID5 or RAID0+1 unless your RAID controller is business series used in commercial servers. The cheap variant (less than S$500) found in SLS mainboard/card is not that reliable and once corrupted - all data is gone. RAID1 is pretty reliable. This helps to protect your data instantly, as you may not backup every now and then.

The third HDD is for backup of whatever you have in the RAID1. This copy protects against virus attack as well as accidental deletion in the main copy. I've known of a virus years back, that replaces all your image files into 1KB text files. You don't want to be caught anytime in the future.

[Hacker]

Originally Posted by MadCat90t Don't bother with RAID5

Why not? If you are using 2 disks for RAID 1, failure of 1 disk is acceptable and no different from you using RAID 5, say, with 3-4 disks? If you are using a total of 4 disks to mirror, then 2 disks can fail if not in the same mirror.

[CYRN]

Originally Posted by Hacker Why not? If you are using 2 disks for RAID 1, failure of 1 disk is acceptable and no different from you using RAID 5, say, with 3-4 disks? If you are using a total of 4 disks to mirror, then 2 disks can fail if not in the same mirror.

cuz raid5 critical failure point is the controller.

aniway RAID 5 would onli be useful if you have 5 disk or more.. else for those budget constrained wif a 3 disk setup... better off wif 2 disk raid 1.