Software RAID

[celestialguy]

Hello Everyone,

Recently my father's backup drive (WD 2TB caviar green) crap out on him and we had to take it to a data recovery centre to get the data back. Now I'm tasked with planning a backup solution for my father. He is a photographer so almost all the data is going to be photos.

I'm thinking of using RAID 1 on the backup drives (eg. 4 2TB Caviar Green) on an external chassis (Drobo External storage). Would it be a good idea to do this? Are there any other alternatives?

[Jake_HT]

Caviar greens spin down which can cause issues in raid arrays, google it for more info. They seem to be quite hit or miss in raid configurations

[celestialguy]

Originally Posted by Jake_HT

Caviar greens spin down which can cause issues in raid arrays, google it for more info. They seem to be quite hit or miss in raid configurations

Thank you for reminding me about that issue. I completely forgot about that. Would using WD Caviar Black be better?

[lcdguy]

actually if your serious about building a raided storage solution you would be better to look at something from the WD RE line or the Seagate Constellation ES Series.

[enaberif]

You can fix the spin down time on the Greens so it doesn't happen.

[JD]

If data security is important, then buy the RAID edition drives and run RAID1 or RAID5. Always have a spare drive on hand so you can swap it in immediately if one fails. Better yet, if your RAID controller allows a hot-spare use that. Then it'll automatically failover.

And ideally, if Internet bandwidth caps isn't an issue, I'd purchase some cloud-storage as well to upload anything absolutely critical so that it's secure in case there's any environmental disasters. Alternatively you could just use an external HDD, copy things to that once a month, and take it to somebody else's house, or your bank's security deposit box, etc.

Definitely keep the RAID array on a UPS too. Then it can gracefully power down should the power go out and helps condition the power if it's dirty.

[francisw19]

+1 to JD's suggestion...RAID1 is good for recovery from hardware failure, but the advantage of backing up to an external drive/cloud storage is you have protection from things like accidentally deleting files, malware, etc...

In my case, I have an external enclosure that keeps a pair of drives in RAID1...so, it's like a backup of my backup. Hope this helps. :)

[celestialguy]

Thanks for the info. I never knew Seagate and WD makes server grade HDDs. Would the drobo storage array be sufficient for my needs? It will only be used for backup and nothing more.

Here's my plan:
Buy an external storage array (eg. drobo)
A few server grade HDDs (eg. seagate / WD)
RAID 1 or 5
Backup data to external storage array
shut it off once backup is done
only turn it only when needed
buy another HDD (eg. WD caviar green)
backup another copy to it and store it elsewhere

PS: My father operates a very small photography business, and those client photos (wedding, events, family) are very important so doing something like this isn't overkill right? I did thought about using cloud storage but it's just too expensive for us (one photo shoot takes up around 10GB each).

[JD]

Definitely not overkill, especially when your income relies upon it.

I'd even consider buying a Bluray burner (if you don't already have one) and using that for doing backups after a complete shoot, or using DVD's if it's only ~10GB/per shoot.

The main thing is keeping up with your backups ;) Do them weekly at the very least, but ideally every day.

[celestialguy]

Originally Posted by JD

Definitely not overkill, especially when your income relies upon it.

I'd even consider buying a Bluray burner (if you don't already have one) and using that for doing backups after a complete shoot, or using DVD's if it's only ~10GB/per shoot.

The main thing is keeping up with your backups ;) Do them weekly at the very least, but ideally every day.

Good idea! I think I'll go grab a blue ray player when it comes down in price. For now I'll use DVD DL more cost effective.

Thanks!