Forums | MacLife

jayster · 2006-07-23 5:12 pm

Ok here is my dilemma. We have 3 macs and 4 external hard drives. 1 HD is used to back up the imac the other 3 external HD's contain video's we have shot, I want to keep the raw footage in that we have captured in iMovie. Between every thing we have about 1.3 terabytes data.

So 2 400 GB drives are full and the other 250 GB drive is almost full. If one of these dies we are going to loose a lot of data. And the data is only going to continue to grow as I just bought a sony HD camcorder but can't yet Burn HD DVD's

I'm trying to find the least expensive way to store these with some sort of redundancy so there would be no need to back them up and also be able to back up my machines via the network. I guess a Nas with Raid is what I'm looking for, but do I use OSX server, 2003 server or Linux? I want to use 4 400 GB drives in a raid 5 and be able to add more later that way I can use 2 of the drives I already have. I also want to be able to use gigabit on the Nas.

1. I would like to use OSX server but the Xserve raid is out of my price range, I could buy an older 1.8 G5 power mac but the case only hold 2 drives.

2. I could easily set up a 2003 server with raid but I'm just not comfortable storing a ton of mac data files on a NTFS volume.

3. I'm not too familiar with Linux, I have used it and installed it a few times but that's it.

I tried the Buffalo terabyte Nas but it was way to slow when using raid 5 and was only 750 GB.

Any one got any ideas on a good solution? I'm leaning toward the Win 2003 box but I'm just not sure about it.

pottymouth · 2006-07-23 5:54 pm

3 Macs really isn't a big deal. I'd say stick with the Firewire drives. They're relatively cheap compared to the other options you've mentioned; about $0.50/GB for the big drives. What would your server cost per GB? And don't forget that your redundancy will only help in the case of hardware failure. RAID won't make a lick of difference when it comes to theft or fire. You need a mobile backup to take and keep off-site regularly. Tapes work, but they're expensive, slow, and not very big. I've got a half dozen macs at home and between my web, photo, and music servers I've got almost a full TB used. I back it up to firewires and bring them to my office.

...oh and you can't rule out the G5 just because "it only holds 2 drives." 10 drives in a G5. Tho that's just a tad ridiculous. I see no purpose besides bragging rights.

jayster · 2006-07-23 6:25 pm

your right about the fire and theft, but the data only resides on the Firewire drives currently so I would need to copy the drives from one to another and it's just a pain in the neck. And to try to keep over a terabyte of data backed up and moved off site would be to much money beacuse I would need another terabyte to move off site.

Thanks for the info on the multiple HD's in the powermac I think that might fix my problem, just get a cheap 1.6-1.8 single CPU power mac and load it with a few drives and a sata raid card. Just wondering if I need to load it with OSX server or if the standard OS X 10.4 would work fine

Last edited by jayster (2006-07-23 6:26 pm)

jayster · 2006-07-23 6:34 pm

on a side note it just amazes me that I actually have over a terabyte of data, I can remember my first 1 GB hard drive and thinking I could never fill it. I pick up 400 GB drives under $180 and my first 1 GB drive set me back close to $600 10 years ago. And now they have 750 GB drives - just amazing

aarrgghh · 2006-07-29 5:25 am

"I can remember my first 1 GB hard drive and thinking I could never fill it."

yes, i remember thinking the very same thing not too long ago when i got my mac plus and one of the first external 20mb hard drives.

and i still have them both.

Funkey Monkey · 2006-07-29 7:25 am

My last mac, (which I used from 1993-2001) had a whopping 80 MB of HD space!

(It was a performa 550, if you're wondering.)

Pariah · 2006-07-29 8:13 am

If you just need a file server go pick up an old G4 for $200, drop a decent sata controler in it and fill it with four 500gig drives.

l0ki · 2006-07-30 1:33 pm

Just get one of http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi … tegory=414 those. We have the 2TB drive and it works amazingly. This will solve the need for having a backup and being able to take it off site.

The Cynic · 2006-07-31 1:03 am

Pariah wrote:
If you just need a file server go pick up an old G4 for $200, drop a decent sata controler in it and fill it with four 500gig drives.

Yeah, it worked for me, and it'll work for you!
big_smile

(except mine only has 2x 120GB + 1x 180GB under it's dropdown door)

Blandford Fly · 2006-07-31 1:49 am

The Cynic wrote:
Pariah wrote:
If you just need a file server go pick up an old G4 for $200, drop a decent sata controler in it and fill it with four 500gig drives.
Yeah, it worked for me, and it'll work for you!

(except mine only has 2x 120GB + 1x 180GB under it's dropdown door)

My G4, made redundant by the arrival of my Intel Core Duo Mac mini, will soon be my file and music server. With two 160GB SATA drive, and 2 IDE drives (about 100GB), I should be fine for a while - oh, and it has a Pioneer DVR-111 so I can burn any important stuff...

Keflex · 2006-07-31 10:46 am

I may be wrong about this, but why get SATA for a NAS box? You'll never see the speed benefit while moving files over a 10/100 network. Just stick with the built-in ATA100. Heck, ATA/66 on an old G3 would probably work fine.

Andrew

davecrist · 2006-07-31 1:26 pm

Do you just want to make safetys of stuff that you already have or are you looking for a 'solution?'

If you just want to make a safety, but one of those terabyte/ 2 terabyte drives and back everything up.... or if you want a little more sanity, buy 3 and stripe them. Not cheap.

What is going to kill you is the wait... do you already have a gigabit router/hub or at least plan to buy them in the future?

I have a friend (seriously, *not* me... honest... no kidding.. no wink wink nudge nudge) who... uh.... 'experiments' with bittorrent and he has a terabyte raid fileserver in his apartment and I can tell you first hand that copying over his fiber-backed gigabit ethernet network in his house was smokin': about 1-2 gigaBYTES of data a minute...sustained ... over multiple users. Blows Firewire 400 out of the water. I could, literally, download another copy of a large file off of his network FASTER than I could dupe it on my local hard drive... smile

I dunno if that helps you but perhaps it'll give you something to think about.... if you are going to be shuffing hundreds of megs around all the time you might want to think about a high-speed backbone and an intelligent, active router/hub in your purchase as well...

When I was doing a lot of audio work, a new project included a purchase of a firewire drive to backup to everyday. If the client wanted one as well s/he had to buy their own. We did daily work locally, backup up to firewire disk while cleaning up at night and then took the backup home with us, everyday.... after the project was done we erased the local copy and shelved the backup drive.... Again, the client provided their own 'sanity' drive for their own use. Future quick changes (trim this, volume up here, new mix, yadda) could be simply unpacked and plugged in.... once base path was established we could work from the backup with little fuss.

Worked great and WAY better than any proprietary solution (tapes break, melt, tape drive die, companies go out of business) DVDs were slllllloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwww.

Last edited by davecrist (2006-07-31 1:36 pm)

The Cynic · 2006-07-31 2:34 pm

A 320GB Seagate SATA drive is just about $100 on newegg.

Seems cheap enough to me.

320GB x 3 = 960GB @ $300+tax
320GB x 4 = 1,280GB @ $400+tax
320GB x 5 = 1,600GB @ $500+tax
320GB x 6 = 1,920GB @ $600+tax
320GB x 7 = 2,240GB @ $700+tax
320GB x 8 = 2,560GB @ $800+tax

Roughly, keep in mind as always that formatted space is less.

31�/GB doesn't sound too bad either.

davecrist · 2006-07-31 4:11 pm

The Cynic wrote:
A 320GB Seagate SATA drive is just about $100 on newegg.

Seems cheap enough to me.

320GB x 3 = 960GB @ $300+tax
320GB x 4 = 1,280GB @ $400+tax
320GB x 5 = 1,600GB @ $500+tax
320GB x 6 = 1,920GB @ $600+tax
320GB x 7 = 2,240GB @ $700+tax
320GB x 8 = 2,560GB @ $800+tax

Roughly, keep in mind as always that formatted space is less.

31�/GB doesn't sound too bad either.

Unless you ALSO want to RAID them at those capacities... which significantly increase the prices depending on the raid style... natch...

The Cynic · 2006-07-31 5:05 pm

davecrist · 2006-08-01 2:31 pm

...wait.. you post talking about the price of hard drives in the context of cheap and then peg *me* for being obvious?

Pot.. meet kettle....

Why be such an ass?

Forums | MacLife

#1 2006-07-23 5:12 pm

How to back up huge amounts of data??

#2 2006-07-23 5:54 pm

Re: How to back up huge amounts of data??

#3 2006-07-23 6:25 pm

Re: How to back up huge amounts of data??

#4 2006-07-23 6:34 pm

Re: How to back up huge amounts of data??

#5 2006-07-29 5:25 am

Re: How to back up huge amounts of data??

#6 2006-07-29 7:25 am

Re: How to back up huge amounts of data??

#7 2006-07-29 8:13 am

Re: How to back up huge amounts of data??

#8 2006-07-30 1:33 pm

Re: How to back up huge amounts of data??

#9 2006-07-31 1:03 am

Re: How to back up huge amounts of data??

Pariah wrote:

#10 2006-07-31 1:49 am

Re: How to back up huge amounts of data??

The Cynic wrote:

Pariah wrote:

#11 2006-07-31 10:46 am

Re: How to back up huge amounts of data??

#12 2006-07-31 1:26 pm

Re: How to back up huge amounts of data??

#13 2006-07-31 2:34 pm

Re: How to back up huge amounts of data??

#14 2006-07-31 4:11 pm

Re: How to back up huge amounts of data??

The Cynic wrote:

#15 2006-07-31 5:05 pm

Re: How to back up huge amounts of data??

#16 2006-08-01 2:31 pm

Re: How to back up huge amounts of data??

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