External Storeage Solutions

[SCOR]

Can someone provide a link to a source explaining the various options for external storage. I would like to know the pros and cons of:

NAS devices
External RAID arrays
Basic hard drive enclosures and how those work

Just something that talks about the various options would be great.

I need to store a large amount of digital photos in a very secure solution.

Thanks

 

[OrangeSVTguy]

this article could help you out (click me)

depends how much you planning on how to store and retrieve your data. your best bet would probably be a large capacity external device like a hard drive. but you can also use tape backup or record to dual layer dvds.

storing photos to dvd is a great option because you can always put them in a dvd player and play back on your tv.

 

[admiraldennis]

How large is a 'large amount'? A terrabyte? A few hundred gigabytes?

NAS devices

These tend to be expensive, but useful and "easy" to configure and use. They hold either a single drive or an array of drives, connect to your LAN, and are accessible over afp/smb from computers on the LAN.

External RAID arrays

What do you mean by 'external'?

Multiple single drives connected via FireWire or USB and RAID-ed in software will yield horrible performance and should never be attempted.

Those big cases that hold multiple drives with hardware RAID cards and have FireWire/USB interfaces can be nice, but again are expensive. Watch out for proper ventilation, too.

Basic hard drive enclosures and how those work

You put a drive inside of them and connect them via USB or FireWire. They show up on your computer like a normal external storage device.

 

[SCOR]

Thanks for that overview. by large I mean 1TB minimum. I am a semi-professional, so I already have about 500gb I need to backup. I think the NAS or raid enclosure is the best bet. i will have to do some research to figure out what brands are reputable and reliable. This is mission critical stuff for me.

thanks again

 

[shecky]

i have a homebuilt NAS that uses 4 x 500GB seagate drives in RAID5 - gives me 1.2TB of useable space and is connected to my network via gigabit ethernet and works great. its runs FreeNAS; so far so good. very fast to move stuff around, RAID gives me drive failure redundancy and i backup critical stuff to offsite FW drives and DVD.

 

[TechNutt]

NEED help with H/D solution, as well!!

Ok, so I have a similar problem. I want to buy an external hard drive that would be able to hold 600-800 of my cds, plus other files like some video and applications to backup my macbook pro since I dont have enough storage space as it is. What I'm most concerned with is the *reliability* factor! I've read forums and reviews where hard drives will be dead in a year's time, and since I'm no expert I would like to know other people's opinions. I've read good and bad reviews on the Lacie drives, but also for Seagate's drives. Isn't there anything that separates itself from the rest of the pack?

I've been thinking of getting the LaCie d2 Quadra External 500GB Hard Drive (4 1/2 mouses out of 5 on MacWorld--but heard terrible things about it elsewhere), Seagate 500 GB one, or even a Western Digital one. I would like a drive to hold about 500-750 GB.

Like I've said, I'm not concerned with much else other than reliability, first and foremost. It doesn't do much good if it's fast and/or looks pretty--BUT STILL fails. I've read about Raid 1 and Raid 5 but it seems I need more than one drive to do achieve that sort of protection.

Please help. Any advice will be tremendously appreciated!!!! Thanks.