Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

ericksgotmac

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 22, 2008
120
0
Okay so here's the story, two nights ago I left my 1TB HDD on my bed and with my MBP reading from it. Next thing I know I hear a BOOM! I look over the bed and find my HDD laying on the wood floor. Now it's making all sort of grinding noises and blah, I know it's dead but I filed with WD to replace the drive so that shouldn't be a problem.

Now my situation is this, I had all my information on that drive including movies, music, photos, software copies, etc. I don't want to bother retrieving them since it'll just be a pain in my side but I do want to look into a larger array for my data protection needs. I was thinking something like Drobo or does anyone know of something similar for cheaper?

My goal is to have a "Data Vault" where I can keep all my digital files but also expand the capacity by adding more HDDs. I'd like the array to have FW800, USB2, and perhaps eSata and Ethernet. Anyone have any ideas of where I can find something like this?
 

JG271

macrumors 6502a
Dec 17, 2007
784
1
UK
Ouch! I guess you won't be leaving it on the bed again!

Maybe a drobo
is what you are looking for? A bit pricey though.

EDIT: Didn't read your post properly. :eek: Doh! There was a thread about drobo alternatives a while ago.
In short: it seems like the only option to get true server style storage. The other option is to hook hard drives up to a time capsule or something, maybe even a mac mini w/ hard drives attached? There also was a hp home media server with mac compatibility... but again very expensive!

A lazy solution could be simply a dual bay hard drive enclosure.
 

blodwyn

macrumors 65816
Jul 28, 2004
1,147
1
Portland, Oregon
If you can hold off until Snow Leopard, or don't mind messing with the current builds, then ZFS will be a great solution for those who want to have a storage pool they can grow by adding bigger drives. I've got a vanilla 4 drive storage enclosure and have three of the drives mapped as a ZFS RAID-Z pool. I've been running it for several months now with no problems at all. This would be a much cheaper solution than a Drobo, as ZFS is free.

If you've never heard of ZFS then check this out. Apple are porting it to Snow Leopard, but the current build is running fine on Leopard. It's was developed by Sun for their servers and is about the most bullet proof filesystem out there.
 

Angelo95210

macrumors 6502a
Jan 7, 2009
972
15
Paris, France
My condoleances for your hard drive...

You can also set up a linux box stuffed with hard drives for a few dollars... connect it to your network and you get a NAS. Look at FreeNAS.
 

ericksgotmac

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 22, 2008
120
0
I was thinking about server type storage, although I have no idea how to create something like that. I really only have two computers that I would be using, my Macbook Pro and my brother has a Black Macbook. I need a simple way to upload files onto that server in order to have peace of mind, I do own a Time Capsule but the transfer speeds via wireless are horrible. The following solutions I have been able to find are the following

Drobo
-Four Bays
-Detects failing HDD
-USB2 and FW800 (FW400)

[ULaCie Biggest Quadra[/U]
-Four Bays
-USB2, FW800, FW400, eSata

As well as something called "Aluratek Cavalry CyClone" does anyone have any of these products? Any recommendations?
 

ericksgotmac

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 22, 2008
120
0
Thanks to everyone who is helping me. What I'm looking for is a HDD array with either one or no HDD installed that way it'll be cheaper and I can add more storage as my needs increase. No need to buy 4TB of storage when I don't even have 1TB or information right? ;)
 

wizzracer

macrumors 6502
Sep 17, 2007
281
0
Dallas, Texas
Thanks to everyone who is helping me. What I'm looking for is a HDD array with either one or no HDD installed that way it'll be cheaper and I can add more storage as my needs increase. No need to buy 4TB of storage when I don't even have 1TB or information right? ;)

Most come with only one drive installed, Most the new ones give you a single 500gig and take up to four. But its best to match at least Two at a time.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.