[JustinD]

So I found I'm in need of a nice fat RAID in my G5. To start, I'm going for dual 400GB drives config'd in a RAID-1.

'Course then it occurred to me - how the heck can I back that up? Even if I'm only using 400GB at the moment, that's a whole lotta storage space, say I wanted to expand the RAID or use Carbon Copy Cloner to move to a new system down the line - see my dilemma?

My servers at work don't use more than 250GB each, and our budgets allows for plenty of 250GB hotswap drives for backup.

But this is for my personal system, and I'm not made of money or time. Obviously I could go for an external SATA-based RAID enclosure with enough drive space to backup to, but that's kinda pricey.

Anyone have any good advice? New tape technology coming out soon (have VXA at work too but it's way too small, even compressed. Argh!)

[Nugget]

Originally Posted by JustinD

So I found I'm in need of a nice fat RAID in my G5. To start, I'm going for dual 400GB drives config'd in a RAID-1.

Just to clarify, two 400GB drives in RAID1 (also called mirroring) would yield one redundant 400GB volume where the two drives mirrored each other for redundancy. RAID0, or striping, is where the aggregate capacity of the drives is combined for a single 800GB volume which dies if either of the two hard drives fails.

Sadly, I don't have a solution to the dilemma. You'd think that by now the marketplace would have devised a reasonable backup solution. Considering that backups are a universal need for all computer users it's a little bit disappointing that all that's available are either too expensive, too brittle, or both.

[d.fine]

You can try a third party solution to add more HD's to the G5, like f.e. a 400GB drive, or 2, to backup your 800GB drive. It has been posted here somewhere and discussed, but I can't seem to find it. It adds three HD bays to the front of the G5, that being in front of the intake fans. I'll update this post if I find the thread.

[jfobart]

D.Fine is referring to the g5drivebracket which is found at www.g5drivebracket.com


I'm in the same situation myself. I need to add a large storage solution- presumably a RAID of some sort, but I need a complimentary backup solution. The only thing I've come up with so far is a 2nd RAID that is backed up to each evening by Retrospect. I know it's not ideal since your data & backup are on the same type of media, but I no idea what the current state of tape backups are (assuming that would be the best backup solution, which it might not be).

The marketplace does need a good backup solution for a RAID- I just haven't found it yet!

[JustinD]

Yeah, after more research the state of tape is definitely lousy for anything over 250GB.

Nugget - you're right, I had specified the wrong RAID type - I did mean 2x 400GB drives in a RAID-0 yielding 800GB total storage.

Looks like the best solution at the moment is a second RAID. A few companies make external SATA-based 2- to 8-drive enclosures. Combine that with an SATA PCI controller and you're set, but it definitely isn't as cheap as tape or optical media.

Makes me really want those 300GB hologram-based storage cards I saw on Engadget.com a few weeks back!

[chris v]

Originally Posted by JustinD

Looks like the best solution at the moment is a second RAID. A few companies make external SATA-based 2- to 8-drive enclosures. Combine that with an SATA PCI controller and you're set, but it definitely isn't as cheap as tape or optical media.

One of these might be cheaper:

http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10504

[jfobart]

Originally Posted by chris v

One of these might be cheaper:

http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10504

Yeah, but those Lacie Big Disks have a TERRIBLE reputation. They're not cooled, so you get 4 big drives churning away in there, and it doesn't take long for all that heat to take it's toll and you start to have a failure. And of course, it's a RAID 0 so when 1 disk dies, the whole RAID is gone.

Stay away from those Lacie Big Disks if you value your data. (a friend of mine lost a lot of images when his Lacie BD went down only a few weeks after he'd had it- and he didn't have a backup because he thought the Lacie would be stable enough to not need one- ?!?!?)

I think I'm going to go with these (http://www.cooldrives.com/saqudrretrtu.html, not the prettiest, but a great value compared to other 4 or 8bay SATA enclosures) attached to my G5 via Sonnet Tempo 8 port SATA card. Have one 4bay as the backup to the other... with 200GB Maxtor's @ newegg.com at $100 each (or $126 for 250GB), that gives me 800GB-1TB for about $1500- the same price as the Lacie Big Disk, but seriously faster and much higher reliability.

(I might even add a G5drivebracket, w/2 extra drives attached as parity drives inside the G5 on a 2nd Sonnet card- if I get a bootable 4port card, then I can run all my internal drives off of it [which barefeats showed to be faster than using the stock SATA channels], and I have a RAID 5 for my work, so I have some fault tolerance built-in due to the RAID 5, but it's redundant because of the 2nd set. Plus the speed of SATA.... only adds a few hundred extra to go that route, it's probably worth it in my book.

[d.fine]

Originally Posted by jfobart

D.Fine is referring to the g5drivebracket which is found at www.g5drivebracket.com

Yea, that's it! Thanks!

[zwiebel_]

Originally Posted by chris v

One of these might be cheaper:

http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10504

I have one of those bad boys, and I can vouch that they do have cooling fans inside (I am listening to them spinning up right now). I had this drive for about six months and it works flawlessly. Of course, your milage may vary, as with everything in life.

[jfobart]

Maybe they've changed the design then and included fans??

[CatOne]

Originally Posted by JustinD

So I found I'm in need of a nice fat RAID in my G5. To start, I'm going for dual 400GB drives config'd in a RAID-1.

'Course then it occurred to me - how the heck can I back that up? Even if I'm only using 400GB at the moment, that's a whole lotta storage space, say I wanted to expand the RAID or use Carbon Copy Cloner to move to a new system down the line - see my dilemma?

My servers at work don't use more than 250GB each, and our budgets allows for plenty of 250GB hotswap drives for backup.

But this is for my personal system, and I'm not made of money or time. Obviously I could go for an external SATA-based RAID enclosure with enough drive space to backup to, but that's kinda pricey.

Anyone have any good advice? New tape technology coming out soon (have VXA at work too but it's way too small, even compressed. Argh!)

If you're going to back up that much data, you should REALLY do it to an external drive. You spill your beer (er, coke) on the computer, and it can get stuff on all 4 drives in there, should you stuff it like that.

[otheronenorehto]

There is a $250 SATA x8 card for PCI-x that you can hook up to 8 extra drives. you can get a 2 bay enclosure pretty cheap on www.newegg.com plus you would need 2 more 400gb drives...

The lowest you will get away with is about $1k

This solution would allow you to have 0+1 raid and will back up much much faster than a lacie firewire.

[OreoCookie]

I don't think you can get a backup solution for less than $1000-$2000. Probably a second RAID with four 400 gig drives (e. g. as RAID5 or RAID3) and incremental backups would be the cheapest option. A while ago, someone posted a link to a website which offers cheap external SATA RAID kits.

AIT4 streamers (to name a second solution) start at ~ €2200, and their native capacity is in the 200 GB range. DDS drives are a bit cheaper, but their native capacity is only half (120 GB). The largest capacities offered by streamers today are around 500 GB per tape, but let's just say, they are not in your (or my) price range.

[jfobart]

Justin:

Here you go (mostly from Newegg.com)
1. Sonnet TempoX8 $250
2. 4 shielded SATA external cables $19
3. 4xSeagate Barracuda SATA 7200.8 400GB drives $1072
4. shipping ~$45
5. 1x http://www.cooldrives.com/saqudrretrtu.html 4bay enclosure $169+s/h

You're out the door for $1555 (plus a few dollars s/h on the enclosure). Set up 2 RAID 0's in the enclosure, giving you 800GB of storage, plus a backup copy of that 800GB. And with the 8port SATA card, you've got room to expand to a 2nd enclosure if you decided to add to your RAID in the future.

[JustinD]

Thanks for all the good ideas everyone!

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by jfobart

Justin:

Here you go (mostly from Newegg.com)
1. Sonnet TempoX8 $250
2. 4 shielded SATA external cables $19
3. 4xSeagate Barracuda SATA 7200.8 400GB drives $1072
4. shipping ~$45
5. 1x http://www.cooldrives.com/saqudrretrtu.html 4bay enclosure $169+s/h

You're out the door for $1555 (plus a few dollars s/h on the enclosure). Set up 2 RAID 0's in the enclosure, giving you 800GB of storage, plus a backup copy of that 800GB. And with the 8port SATA card, you've got room to expand to a 2nd enclosure if you decided to add to your RAID in the future.

Although I wouldn't recommend RAID0 for safety concerns … especially not with backup drives.

[wulf]

Originally Posted by zwiebel_

I have one of those bad boys, and I can vouch that they do have cooling fans inside (I am listening to them spinning up right now). I had this drive for about six months and it works flawlessly. Of course, your milage may vary, as with everything in life.

The really big ones (1TB+, with the grille down the front) do have fans, but the smaller 500GB Big Disk Extremes don't. Where I work we've bought four in the last eighteen months, two of which have failed. The last one failed less than a month after we got it.

Much as I like the design for convenience, I cannot recommend them for reliability and will not be buying any more. Though I'm willing to be persuaded about the larger ones if they are more reliable.

[OreoCookie]

Maybe you'll find this thread of help.

[hypnognosis]

I think you should really look at your data in groups of value. Then use a tape back-up or similar solution to periodically backup these groups ass needed.

I use a DDS1 and DDS2 tape drives to backup my powerbook. Every night my OpenBSD server runs a script that rsyncs my home directory to it's raid 1 array and then uses dump to archive to a tape. This way I know all my papers will be nice and safe. My MP3's are archived similarly with tar on my DDS2 but I only update those tapes once a month. Everything else I just let reside on the raid array.

I will pick up a HP DAT72 soon though. I love my DDS1 and DDS2 drives but the DDS2 is about dead and the 2/4gb capacity of the DDS1 is a bit low.

[R!K]

Seriously thinking about a Buffalo Terastation myself.

Got a friend who uses them at work and he speaks very highly of them.

http://www.buffalotech.com/products/...&categoryid=19

[wulf]

Originally Posted by R!K

Seriously thinking about a Buffalo Terastation myself.

Got a friend who uses them at work and he speaks very highly of them.

http://www.buffalotech.com/products/...&categoryid=19

They look interesting. Does anyone know whether it's possible to use Gigabit ethernet for sustained read/write, such as high-bandwidth video? This would be as a dedicated per-workstation thing rather than on a network.

I know that generally ethernet is not used for video environments but we're interested in doing RAID5 on the cheap (well, on a budget anyway), so I'm interested in all the options.

PS. R!K, I take it you are RiK of yakyak fame?

[samash]

I've been using a Hewlett Packard HP Q1520A Tape Backup for 9 months now to backup my RAID. It holds 200gb/400gb (compressed) on a $50 tape. HP doesn't qualify the drive for use with a Mac, but Retrospect for the Mac does. It works great with Retrospect and is a relatively inexpensive solution to massive backups. You need an additional SCSI PCI card to interface it with the mac, but I can't recommend this solution enough.

[OreoCookie]

How much was the drive?

[Scotttheking]

Originally Posted by samash

I've been using a Hewlett Packard HP Q1520A Tape Backup for 9 months now to backup my RAID. It holds 200gb/400gb (compressed) on a $50 tape. HP doesn't qualify the drive for use with a Mac, but Retrospect for the Mac does. It works great with Retrospect and is a relatively inexpensive solution to massive backups. You need an additional SCSI PCI card to interface it with the mac, but I can't recommend this solution enough.

A quick search for that drive also turned up this one: http://coastalmicrosupply.com/produc...cd6dc16b18451d

[dantewaters]

Well... I too own a BD and it's working flawless.
There are cooling fans in them, but a good rule of thumb is to always back things up.
I'm in the process of doing so as soon as I get my powermac.

[samash]

The drive is about $3200.