09 MP drive and backup configuration

[raymondh]

I’m having a horrible time trying to figure out a good storage and
backup system for my files. I’m a wedding photographer so I have a
lot of images in a Lightroom catalog. Currently I have two 1.5tb
drives in an internal stripped set that has all of my images on it.
It’s currently at about 65% full. I also have my DVDs all an internal
1tb drive that is 80% full. My system drive is a 500gb drive that has
about 150gb on it.

I use two external 1tb drives for backing up the RAID0. One is used
for TM and backs up my “working images” folder as well as my Documents
folder and the other one is used for CCC and backs up the rest of the
images. I also have a clone of my boot drive.

This seems like a haphazard setup and one that I would like to
optimize. Here are my thoughts and I would love to have input from
others.

I like the speed of the stripped set for Lightroom so I would like to
keep that. I would also like to have offsite backup as well as an
easy (as possible) way to recover from drive failures while protecting
“in process” work.

I was looking into the OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 to use in spanning
mode for TM. I would be able to fill it with the few unused drives
that I have on the shelf and get about 3.5tb of storage on it. I
could then set TM to backup everything on the machine except the
movies since I have the DVDs as the backup for that.

I would still have my clone of the boot disk and can keep that
offsite. I can also use my webhost server (offsite) to backup my
documents using rsync.

For offsite image backup, I would buy a 2tb external drive and set it
up at a friend’s house to backup the RAID0 using CrashPlan software.

How does this sound? I’m open to all ideas for improvement!

 

[ncc1701d]

Hi. I use a drobopro for my TM back ups. Huge expandability. They have a section on their web page just for photographers

I haven't researched the droboelite, but it came out after the drobopro. There is also a smaller one, but limits future expandability.

http://www.drobo.com/

This would allow you to keep whatever array you have internally. And it is very easy to set up.

 

[raymondh]

Hi. I use a drobopro for my TM back ups. Huge expandability. They have a section on their web page just for photographers

I haven't researched the droboelite, but it came out after the drobopro. There is also a smaller one, but limits future expandability.

http://www.drobo.com/

This would allow you to keep whatever array you have internally. And it is very easy to set up.

I've looked at the DROBO but I don't see an advantage over the OWC unit for what I want to do.

One other thing I didn't mention in my post was my fear of backing up corrupted files over good files on my backup drive thus losing all copies. This happened to me in the past where I had software set to automatically backup my image drive when I plugged an external drive in and there were many images that had been corrupted on my live drive that I didn't know about. I noticed the backup was taking longer than I expected and I saw that it was backing up files that shouldn't have changed. I really want to avoid that happening again.

 

[kellen]

Do a search for reviews on the OWC unit, from my memory they weren't that good. That said I like and trust OWC stuff, so it could have been some early production flukes.

With drobo you get the added ability of losing a drive and keeping info. I know the Qx2 can do raid 5, but you said you were just going to use it for spanning/jbod. However with the drobo if the unit itself fails, then you must buy a drobo, no popping it in a different computer as it is written in drobo language.

I have the e-sata only 2 drive version ($60) bucks through OWC. Makes back ups easy and super quick. e-sata is definitely a plus for the OWC unit.

 

[nanofrog]

I've looked at the DROBO but I don't see an advantage over the OWC unit for what I want to do.

One other thing I didn't mention in my post was my fear of backing up corrupted files over good files on my backup drive thus losing all copies. This happened to me in the past where I had software set to automatically backup my image drive when I plugged an external drive in and there were many images that had been corrupted on my live drive that I didn't know about. I noticed the backup was taking longer than I expected and I saw that it was backing up files that shouldn't have changed. I really want to avoid that happening again.

What were you running for the primary data? RAID5 in a software method (Fake RAID card or off of the logic board)?

 

[raymondh]

What were you running for the primary data? RAID5 in a software method (Fake RAID card or off of the logic board)?

My primary data is currently RAID0 (not RAID I know) setup through disk utility. I don't currently run any RAID (true or software). When I lost my data to corruption, it was a single drive in my system and a USB drive as the backup. I had ran a EXIF editor that corrupted the files without me knowing.