Installing RAID 0 (or 1) for storing and running media

[bluesrules]

Hi All,

I am going to copy all my Media in a RAID 0 system running two 1TB HDs. I am not sure whether to use RAID 0 for performance or RAID 1 for safety.

Could I use RAID ) and backup it up somehow or should I use RAID 1?
If I decide to go for RAID 1 and I run out of space, is this easily expandable?

Also I will be running this of my MacBook Pro. Should I get a Mac desktop to run this and if so which one would you recommend?

I also have Apple TV connected, what is the best way to run all my media through my HD TV? Through Apple TV or via MacBook (or Desktop)?

Thanks for your help!

 

[blodwyn]

OK, I'll try and answer

I am not sure whether to use RAID 0 for performance or RAID 1 for safety!

Only you can answer this one. A RAID 0 gives you larger volume size and better performance, at the expense of a greater risk of total data loss through drive failure. RAID 1 gives you better protection against drive failure, at the expense of performance and volume size.

Could I use RAID ) and backup it up somehow or should I use RAID 1?

You can build a 2TB RAID 0 volume, and back it up to another 2TB volume. Any drive failure in a RAID 0 volume will result in the loss of the whole volume, so backing it up is highly recommended if you value the data.

A RAID 1 volume will only be 1TB, but you will have protection against a hardware drive failure.

If I decide to go for RAID 1 and I run out of space, is this easily expandable?

Not really. You would have to build a new and bigger volume and then copy the data across

Also I will be running this of my MacBook Pro. Should I get a Mac desktop to run this and if so which one would you recommend?

With your MBP you will be relying on external drives. Do yourself a favor and use Firewire rather than USB. If by a desktop you mean an iMac, then you will still rely on external drives so you don't really gain anything. If you can get a Mac Pro, then you can use internal drives which will give you better performance. You might find that a RAID 1 mirror will give you acceptable performance if you run it with internal drives, whereas (for example) using external USB drives would be unacceptable.

I also have Apple TV connected, what is the best way to run all my media through my HD TV? Through Apple TV or via MacBook (or Desktop)?
!

Sorry, I don't have an Apple TV

 

[bluesrules]

OK, I'll try and answer

Many thanks!

You can build a 2TB RAID 0 volume, and back it up to another 2TB volume. Any drive failure in a RAID 0 volume will result in the loss of the whole volume, so backing it up is highly recommended if you value the data.

Can you recommend a backup product or should I just use Time Machine and backup everything to a super drive?

With your MBP you will be relying on external drives. Do yourself a favor and use Firewire rather than USB. If by a desktop you mean an iMac, then you will still rely on external drives so you don't really gain anything. If you can get a Mac Pro, then you can use internal drives which will give you better performance. You might find that a RAID 1 mirror will give you acceptable performance if you run it with internal drives, whereas (for example) using external USB drives would be unacceptable.

I was thinking of using firewire not USB. MacPro might the way to go in future but can't really do it now!

 

[sickmacdoc]

A couple more thoughts to keep in mind as well as the good responses above-
while Raid 1 does offer hardware redundant safety, it still does not offer protection for user/system error as would an independent backup set.

What I mean is that, for example, if you accidentally delete a file that you did not mean to, it will be deleted on both drives at the same time. If you had an independent backup set you would be able to retrieve the file from there to recover from the error. Another example would be if you install some new software that messes up your system. Again with Raid 1 both your drives will reflect the problem with no way to essentially "roll back" your system to the state it was prior to the installation.

Next, unless I am mistaken I do not believe you can back up to a superdrive with Time Machine- particularly because the Time Machine backup is updated whenever you change or save a new file-- not in disk sized chunks of data like an optical drive would need. There are other backup tools out there that will allow you to do a backup to optical media (CDs and DVDs) by "spanning" across a set of disks but that is extremely slow-- not to mention that the next time you backup you would need to start all over again and discard the previous set of disks. (I won't even get INTO the headaches of trying to use re-writable disks in this scenario). SO- calculate additional hard drive storage into your budget for backups whether you use Time Machine or the tools I will mention below.

As far as backup tools, it seems that the most popular way of doing backups outside of the realm of Time Machine is to use either the free Carbon Copy Cloner or the $27 "all features unlocked" version SuperDuper software.

In either case after an initial backup is made which copies all files to the backup set you can then do backups whenever you like and it will only copy new and changed files to the backup, which is generally a very fast process as long as you do it regularly. I do this with about 3Tb of data to two sets of backup drives- one set of which resides at a neighbor's house for off site safety ( I take set A over to his house after doing a fresh backup and retrieve set B each week, then reverse it the following week) as I really need to keep my graphics projects safe but that is overkill for most people.

Hope this additional info helps!

 

[blodwyn]

Can you recommend a backup product or should I just use Time Machine and backup everything to a super drive?

As sickmacdoc says, you can't use TM to back up to a super drive, nor would you want to back up 2TB of data to DVD's

I agree that SuperDuper! is a great solution for maintaining an image backup, or for finer grained synchronizing of individual files/folders, then I'm a big fan of Chronosync.

 

[bluesrules]

I am really sorry sickmacdoc and blodwyn, I think I used a term I shouldn't have! By superdrive I meant a really big drive (3Tb for example) not the optical drive. I only now realise what Apple means by a Superdrive!!

Anyway, back to the original questions then, I assume I could the use Time Machine or the products you recommend.

Thanks a lot, both your answers have been very helpful.

 

[sickmacdoc]

I am really sorry sickmacdoc and blodwyn, I think I used a term I shouldn't have! By superdrive I meant a really big drive (3Tb for example) not the optical drive. I only now realise what Apple means by a Superdrive!!

Anyway, back to the original questions then, I assume I could the use Time Machine or the products you recommend.

Thanks a lot, both your answers have been very helpful.

Yes you can!

The main reason I personally don't care to use Time Machine is that if you are backing up a bootable drive, the Time Machine backup will not be bootable- where the Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper backups will be. That is important to me as should the original boot device suffer a meltdown, I can immediately boot from my backup and simply clone it back onto a new drive and be right back in business. To be honest I have only suffered that one time, but the simplicity of that sealed the deal for me. You can do that with Time Machine too to a degree- but it requires some additional manipulation.

I am not familiar with Chronosync, so perhaps blodwyn will fill us in on the bootablility of backups done with it.

 

[blodwyn]

Anyway, back to the original questions then, I assume I could the use Time Machine or the products you recommend.

Confirmed. As always you have some choices...

Time Machine will keep copies of everything, including deleted and changed files, and you can rebuild your boot volume if you need to, but the configuration options are limited

SuperDuper! will just maintain a snapshot of the current volume contents, losing any deleted or changed files, which may or may not be desirable for you. SuperDuper! does a great job of maintaining a bootable image of the internal disk

Chronosync can be set to archive deleted and changed files, is highly configurable, but will not maintain a bootable image

I use TM for my system disk, but my personal preference is to also use SuperDuper! to keep a bootable backup of my system disk, and use Chronosync for my data disks, with archive enabled to preserve deleted and changed files