Terabyte storage suggestions?
 

Anyone using a terabyte(or more) NAS storage system? How do they like it? Easy to set up?

I have 5 external firewire drives already and am thinking maybe I need to start thinking bigger.
(like: http://www.buy.com/prod/Buffalo_Tera.../10396259.html)

Or should I start looking at tape backups?

any advice from teh video heads!?

Yeah, get that thingo on the link. Then, if you don't like it, you can donate it me. :)

Hmmm.... that *is* tempting. ;)

I had 5 externals...
down to 3 (@ 250G) now...
the two older maxtors failed.
i'm left with a newer maxtor 1 touch, and two WD Combos...

Not sure if I could trust all that shit in one place.

Yeah, I hear ya. I was attracted to the RAID setup with the terrabyte system So 500 gigs, actually. But much safer (I hope)

I have Seagates and Western Digitals currently.

No matter what you do, ALWAYS backup your stuff on tape. THey are dirt cheap and you can back hours of footage and final products.

Then keep them in a safe dry place and they will last you years! (always keep them in their case of course)

I know its a bitch to back up, but at least your covering your ass forever. Ya never know when your HD can die out on you

do you mean DV tape? Or data tape backups? I generally keep all my raw DV tapes, but like to backup my projects, too.

doesn't backing up terrabytes on tape get real expensive

Halcyon,

I have one of the Buffalo products, the larger one, 1.6TB, it's VERY slow but for what we're using it for it works fine, basically contains all the large files of stuff that we transfer to other machines and chop up.

1TB? Damn that's a lot of porn :winkwink:

Kidding :)

DV Tapes bro. If you still have the raw tapes, great. Back up the final products on tapes also.

Then copy all your project files (including titles, extra sounds, etc.) to CDs or DVDs... that should pretty much cover your ass if ever your harddrives die out. Cause with the project files, all you need to do is recapture the footage and everything will be already edited and ready to be re-rendered.

BUT, if you have the final products on DV tape, you won't even need to do that. You'll just have to re-capture the finished clip.

If you're backing up video, onto DV Tapes, it doesn't get expensive at all. A tape can hold 60 minutes of footage. So if you're backing up 15 minute scenes, you can back 4 of them up for 8-10$ per tape... so thats dirt cheap. And you don't lose quality.

Halcyon hit me on icq I have a couple of suggestions for you

i was acutally taking about tapes that are used for backup not dv tapes for video

Ok, well I was talking about DV tapes :) hehe

We're using the ReadyNAS 1.6 TB from Infrant.. it's way faster than the Buffalo... really good

look at the lacie blue site they have a few tb ext drives. Its best to edit the scene then print to tape save the tape. Its a waste to have all that footage sitting on hd that can crap out.

Just remember that you can't use the full 4 x 250Gb capacity with RAID1 or RAID5...

RAID0 - 1Tb total capacity but NO redundancy at all. If even one of the drives fail, you'll lose ALL your data, because it's striped (each tiny block of data is spread over multiple drives)

RAID1 - 500Gb total capacity with redundancy. (Effectively a 500Gb drive that is mirrored. It's probably also striped too.) One drive can fail without losing data, and a further one can fail without data loss if it's from the opposite "side"

RAID5 - 750Gb total capacity with redundancy. One drive can fail without losing data.

With both RAID1 and RAID5 the device should seamlessly be able to rebuild the array once you replace the drive.

The only prob I see with building arrays is that replacement drives may be difficult to obtain in the future. What happens if the first failure is in 5 years time, when the smallest drive you can buy is 700Gb?

BTW does that price for the Buffalo include the drives? If so then that's a damn good price! I wonder if they ship to Australia. :winkwink:

:thumbsup

http://www.tomsnetworking.com/Review...dID-H2H5-1.php

Get a netapp man! That's the way to go for fast redundant mass storage.

Lacie makes a nice 1 tb unit if its for local storage, if your looking to online storage we us some nice sata nas servers. You can buy the cases and install the hardware you like.

The easynas looks like a better product, hmm...

I just set up a 900Gb RAID5 array on my desktop workstation, but now I need some way to back it up. :thumbsup

netapp? link?

I've got 1.5T of Lacie hard drives on my desk and while they're fast they are loud, run very hot and when one crashed they would never answer the phone. (3 calls and over 2+ hours totals).

My next drive upgrade will not include Lacie but as mentioned above a case that I'll fill with SATA drives. I probably won't use more the 4 drives per array with RAID 5. To me that provides a good trade off of redundency and easy replacement if a single drive fails.

Halcyon

You need to fix the elli link on the pinkaid.org web site! It's spelled wrong.

Brad

dude call me anytime can get you all hooked up

Try La Cie drives they have 1 terabyte and 1.6 terabyte drives at reasonable prices. I have 6 of there 1 TB drives firewired to my Macs as back up storage and so far no problems.

you don't want a netapp. well, you do, but you more than likely cannot afford them. Or know how to take care of them. No slight to you, mind you.

if you insist:
http://www.networkappliance.com/prod...e/r200_ds.html

would more than likely be ideal for what you want. I've played with several over the last couple years, solid machines.

That Buffalo TeraStation is 1TB raw. Once you RAID it, format it you will lose storage. RAID5 will be your best bet for redundancy. Do you have a price you are trying to stay around? If you have a machine already that has additional bays for harddrives and possibly a large power supply (which can be upgraded) then you can just buy some 250GB drives and a 3ware RAID controller and use that. Or if you have a cheap machine laying around get the 3ware card with whatever ports you want and just add drives then use this to make your own NAS very simply.

http://www.serverelements.com/naslite.php

This can be run on a Pentium 200Mhz if needed.

All depends on if you want to be able to grow it later. I have a 3TB (2.8TB formatted) setup.

Hit my up on ICQ if you need any help or answers. I manage many large types of storage.

Brad

I'll agree I certainly wouldn;t know how to take care of them.

So, is netapp a brand? Or does that mean its online storage as opposed to on your network?

Get a SATA II raid card that support 8 units and RAID 5, buy 8 500GB SATA II discs. That would be 3.5TB storage and pretty safe. Just remember to make sure the server has alot of fans, most harddrives fail because of heat.