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External storage system for a photographer

what kind of photography do you do ?
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I'm an artist. I take incidentally photo's. Usually they're of poor technical quality and they do not need post processing and a lot of storage at all. I work spontaneous, also with photo's.

My wife, she is the photographer. As I told you in my other thread. She needs the storage. Her freelance business is expanding, but not in the amounts you are working in. She works for advertising agencies, architects, government etcetera. She has a lot of work and delivers 1-100 photo's per project to the customer.
 
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ddwit said:
Does anybody knwo how many hard disks I can put in a Mac Pro.
I already have 2 SSD's and 1 hard disk. What room do I have left?

Maybe something like this will help to create space, but I don't knwo If it's possible with connection / speed:
http://www.macupgrade.be/product_info.php/cPath/139/products_id/543
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There are 6 SATA ports available on Mac Pro's. Four are dedicated to internal SATA drive and one attached to an optical drive. You can configure it with five SATA HDD's, or six with no optical, etcetera. Depending on your needs, you could use all four bays (I have one bay as my "Time Machine") and simply use a Blu-Ray burner for long term storage if needed. I'm not certain on off-site storage in case of a fire or such. Is it possible to upload large amounts of data to an off-site server, and if so what are the costs? By off-site storage does that mean literally taking the data to another location?
 
bedifferent said:
Is it possible to upload large amounts of data to an off-site server, and if so what are the costs?
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Yes off coarse it is possible to upload large amounts of data to a server. But. We hire a server, 10GB for websites, email, ftp. We do have an 50 MB upload internet connection, but I do think server storage of 2TB is really expensive. It will be much cheaper just to buy an extra external hard disk and take it home and back once a month or so..
 
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ddwit said:
There is standard no eSata?
Is this cable good? http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer Technology/MPQXES2/
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There are no eSATA ports as you get the system.

As per the cable adapter you've linked, it was meant for 2006 - 2008 systems (had a pair of ODD_SATA ports) that went unused (optical disks were connected via IDE/PATA). There's also issues with cable length using this device (not true eSATA as it's attached to internal SATA ports = they run at a little lower voltage; so internal cable spec = 1.0 meter). This means that the cable length of the adapter + external cable can't exceed this distance, and the additional connection introduces contact resistance (further reduces voltage, and thusly distance - you'd see stability problems <disks won't show or drop out>). All in all, not the best way to go.

Due to the lack of the ODD_SATA ports in 2009/10 systems, you're better off using an eSATA card over cabling issues as well as the distance limitations. Fortunately, they can be had cheaply (under $20USD for 3.0Gb/s). More money can be spent of course, depending on if you need additional ports (4x), 6.0Gb/s support (you'd want this for SSD's), or the ability to boot from it (OS X). It's the 4x port versions as well as the bootable unit from Highpoint that's on the expensive side.

If you do you want/need 6.0Gb/s, then look at newertech's cards; there's 2x versions that go for $50 (non RAID version) and $80USD (RAID version, also supports Port Multiplier enclosures). Pricing is from OWC.

Hope this helps. :)
 
ddwit said:
How many of these PCI slots (those needed for the eSata card) are in a Mac Pro? I presume one is already used for the video card..


Edit: For internal expansion the current Mac Pro has four PCI Express (PCIe) 2.0 expansion slots.
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2009/10 Systems:
Slots 1 and 2 = dedicated 16x lanes (so 32 total).
Slots 3 and 4 = share the same 4x lanes.

The reason for this, is the chipset only has 36 lanes for PCIe slot use. Thus to dedicate 32 to graphics, they decided to use a PCIe Switch for the remaining 4x lanes to slots 3 and 4 (more useful, so long as they're not being used simultaneously or present much of a load if they are).

But if you do use those slots simultaneously, there will be a speed penalty (switch latency at a minimum, even if each card is 1x lane). It cannot split lanes to be used simultaneously, which is why even 1x lane cards will slow down under simultaneous usage.

Just to make you aware of this, as it's not stated by Apple.
 
ddwit said:
I'm an artist. I take incidentally photo's. Usually they're of poor technical quality and they do not need post processing and a lot of storage at all. I work spontaneous, also with photo's.

My wife, she is the photographer. As I told you in my other thread. She needs the storage. Her freelance business is expanding, but not in the amounts you are working in. She works for advertising agencies, architects, government etcetera. She has a lot of work and delivers 1-100 photo's per project to the customer.
Click to expand...

thanks :)
 
ddwit said:
Thank you all for sharing.

So there is:
- optical (dvd or blu ray) for longtime storage, stores by hand
- harddisk storage for immediate access (TowerRAID TR5UT-BP, drobo), stores automatically
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Some Blu-Ray discs are designed for the sole purpose of archiving data, thus have a shelf life in excess of 25~50 years.

Magneto-Optical might be old school but they have 50 years life.
 
nanofrog said:
2009/10 Systems:
Slots 1 and 2 = dedicated 16x lanes (so 32 total).
Slots 3 and 4 = share the same 4x lanes.

The reason for this, is the chipset only has 36 lanes for PCIe slot use. Thus to dedicate 32 to graphics, they decided to use a PCIe Switch for the remaining 4x lanes to slots 3 and 4 (more useful, so long as they're not being used simultaneously or present much of a load if they are).

But if you do use those slots simultaneously, there will be a speed penalty (switch latency at a minimum, even if each card is 1x lane). It cannot split lanes to be used simultaneously, which is why even 1x lane cards will slow down under simultaneous usage.

Just to make you aware of this, as it's not stated by Apple.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the information. I don't exactly understand what it means. Does it mean in real life you can't use 4 PCIe cards at the same time?
 
ddwit said:
Thanks for the information. I don't exactly understand what it means. Does it mean in real life you can't use 4 PCIe cards at the same time?
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No.

Slots 1 and 2 will work fine no matter what's going on in Slot 3 and 4. But if Slots 3 and 4 are being used at the same time, there will be some throttling involved. Now whether or not you'll notice, will depend on the specifics (how is the bandwidth divided in terms of time available to each card <balance of system requests between the devices>, is it running in the background,....). The switch has to flip back and forth between the two devices, so there's additional latency as a result.
 
again the warning on BluRay :) some say 25 years ? yet they said that about DVD and DVD rot is a plague that has effected many

the best way to archive and keep stuff so you can use it is to keep moving it forward to current media every few years (meaning 5 or so)
and have it on two types of media and or two copies or more !!

and if that is the case you dont want to keep pulling it off BluRay and then moving it forward that would be a pain
so you could use BluRay and move it forward on HDD then when new media comes out re record it again as that second layer !!!

but again BR can be part of the BU plan just dont every make it your only plan !!!! or it could come back to bite you same thing I dont like ONE thing I like multiple to be safe
 
Honumaui said:
the best way to archive and keep stuff so you can use it is to keep moving it forward to current media every few years (meaning 5 or so) and have it on two types of media and or two copies or more !!

..but again BR can be part of the BU plan just dont every make it your only plan !!!! or it could come back to bite you same thing I dont like ONE thing I like multiple to be safe
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I get the point. "Moving it forward to current media" is what we did without thinking the last 20 years and it worked well..

Blu ray is also a system which you have to do by hand. It's not automatically. I know my wife and she won't do it. So if there will be a storage / backup system I would prefer an automatic system.

I don't think we need to keep things really long BTW. Maybe a couple of years. I asked Annabel and she even had never had a request for old pictures. So till now we could just as well have thrown away all the photo's clients paid for ;).



nanofrog said:
No.

Slots 1 and 2 will work fine no matter what's going on in Slot 3 and 4. But if Slots 3 and 4 are being used at the same time, there will be some throttling involved.
Click to expand...

Ok thanks, now I understand better.
SO if I use only 3 slots there won't be a problem? Or is slot 3, with 4 lanes, always slower then slot 1 and 2 (32 lanes)?
And if I use 4 slots there can be some noticable speed problem between slot 3 and 4? Slot 1 and 2 will be fine?
 
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ddwit said:
SO if I use only 3 slots there won't be a problem?
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No problem at all (assuming you're not trying to run more bandwidth across Slot 3 than it can take). :D

ddwit said:
Or is slot 3, with 4 lanes, always slower then slot 1 and 2 (32 lanes)?
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In the sense of total bandwidth, Yes, as there's fewer lanes (4x) in these slots vs. 16x in Slot 1 and 2.

In terms of bandwidth per lane, No. They're PCIe Gen. 2.0, so can handle a max throughput of 500MB/s (each lane). Now if the card is only rated to PCIe 1.1, they'll have to drop down to 250MB/s per lane. But that's due to the card.

ddwit said:
And if I use 4 slots there can be some noticable speed problem between slot 3 and 4? Slot 1 and 2 will be fine?
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Slot 1 and 2 will be fine.

Slots 3 and 4 will depend on if they're running at the same time. If not, No. If they are, then there will be some throttling. How much will depend on the specifics (system request balance between the 2x cards will determine how often the switch has to activate to route the data to the correct card).
 
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