Media Server? Backup? What is your setup?

[2010mini]

Ok this thread just totally confused me. It seems like everyone is screaming 'the sky is falling' like HDDs are failing left and right. And ones only hope is RAID setups with offsite backup.

Do I really need Raid? They look to be quite expensive. And if you are still doing off site backup (crashplan etc) why is it needed???

I am just starting out with media storage/streaming. I have a Mac mini, an Apple TV 4 iOS device and a MBP.

I have a 2tb WD external attached to the Mini which is a time machine and itunes storage.
I am starting to fill it up with video and photos and want to movie the time machine to a seperate hd. I am also mulling crashplan as it will back up external HDDs as well as the MBP and Mini.

Is this ok or do I really need a raid setup??

 

[talmy]

Ok this thread just totally confused me. It seems like everyone is screaming 'the sky is falling' like HDDs are failing left and right. And ones only hope is RAID setups with offsite backup.

The sky IS falling -- your HDD will eventually fail. It may take a few years. But it might be tomorrow. And are you theft proof?

You don't need RAID. RAID is not a substitute for back ups.

I have a 2tb WD external attached to the Mini which is a time machine and itunes storage.
I am starting to fill it up with video and photos and want to movie the time machine to a seperate hd. I am also mulling crashplan as it will back up external HDDs as well as the MBP and Mini.

Is this ok or do I really need a raid setup??

That sounds just fine. It's always good to have an offsite backup for protection against theft, fire, or natural disasters. The local backup is good because you can restore lost files much quicker. The data and backup must not be on the same drive (what happens when the drive fails?) so having separate hard drives for TimeMachine and media is a good idea.

 

[linds15]

what recommendations are there for a multiple hard drive enclosure? i'm getting past 5 TB of data (photos, tv, movies) and currently have a 3TB WD external backed up to an identical one and a 2TB backed up to another 2TB. id like to not have hard drive piling up left and right, and want an enclosure that just houses 4 or 5. i don't need, and just want to serve media to my ATVs from my main mac

 

[jeff92k7]

Ok this thread just totally confused me. It seems like everyone is screaming 'the sky is falling' like HDDs are failing left and right. And ones only hope is RAID setups with offsite backup.

Do I really need Raid? They look to be quite expensive. And if you are still doing off site backup (crashplan etc) why is it needed???

I agree with Talmy. RAID is not needed and is only one option for a storage setup. I reread this thread and I guess I don't see where anyone is saying that disks are failing and everyone should have a RAID setup. A couple of us mentioned having RAID, then the question was asked "What is RAID?" and then we explained what it is.

RAID is great to provide a reasonable level of safety in case of disk failure - the most common computer component to fail. Disks can, and do, fail regularly. However, I've also seen many, many disks last longer than the system they were in. You just have to ask yourself how much risk are you willing to take. If you have a big single disk and a good backup, then no, you don't need it. If you have need of a volume that is larger than any single disk, then you have to do a RAID (or disk span) of some sort. Every disk you add increases the risk of a disk failure. To mitigate the potential data loss, some of us use RAID.

With my particular setup, I have four 2TB disks in a RAID 5 array with one as a hotspare (will automatically take over if one of the other three fails). With the way RAID 5 works, even though I have 8TB of raw disk space, only 4TB is usable. However, with four separate disks, my risk of encountering a disk failure is 4 times higher than if I had a single 4TB disk. The benefits though, are that even though I likely will experience a disk failure, the system will stay operational and I won't lose any data. This saves me from having to spend time to restore backups. I simply swap in a new disk for the failed one and I'm done.

It's all a trade-off somewhere. You can spend the cost up front and deal with the hassle of setting up a RAID system, or you can go easy and cheap up front and go with a single disk, then spend a lot more time hassling with backups later IF you need to replace it.

No RAID is not necessary, but it's still worth it to me. This discussion was about media servers and what our setups are. Some of us use RAID, many don't. It's all about options and what works for each person.

 

[jdechko]

Ok this thread just totally confused me. It seems like everyone is screaming 'the sky is falling' like HDDs are failing left and right. And ones only hope is RAID setups with offsite backup.

Do I really need Raid? They look to be quite expensive. And if you are still doing off site backup (crashplan etc) why is it needed???

I am just starting out with media storage/streaming. I have a Mac mini, an Apple TV 4 iOS device and a MBP.

I have a 2tb WD external attached to the Mini which is a time machine and itunes storage.
I am starting to fill it up with video and photos and want to movie the time machine to a seperate hd. I am also mulling crashplan as it will back up external HDDs as well as the MBP and Mini.

Is this ok or do I really need a raid setup??

RAID is not a necessity. It provides some data redundancy, but really only if a hard drive fails. Think data centers where they have thousands of drives constantly spinning, or other setups where uptime is critical.

However, RAID isn't a cure-all. Data corruption can get duplicated across multiple hard drives, and by itself RAID does nothing to prevent data loss when the user intentionally deletes a file. Simply "having a RAID array" isn't magic.

If the files (your media files) only exist on the RAID, it's a single point of failure, and it's not a backup. If the files exist on your main computer and a RAID, then that's 2 points of failure and the RAID would be a Backup. An offsite backup, like Crashplan, would add a third point of failure.

For smaller media sets, it might actually be smarter to keep separate drives with the data mirrored. That way you have 2 points of failure. With larger media sets, the spanning offered by RAID-0 and higher-level RAID arrays (5 & 6) allows you to keep your media in one place, even though that spans multiple disks.

Offsite backups, as I said, offer another point of failure in the system, but this is more for catastrophic failure. If your main copy and your backup are destroyed (or stolen), you can restore from the offsite backup. Most offsite backup companies also have remote access capabilities, so you can access files from any computer.

I personally use crashplan as the online backup component of all my computers and I use CP instead of time machine (local destinations).

In conclusion:

• You don't need a RAID setup

• RAID is NOT a backup by itself, but can be one component of a backup

• Crashplan (and offsite backups in general) are a good thing.

 

[Primejimbo]

Mac Mini as a server with a 2TB external hard drive for all the movies and music. The hard drive on the mini is just for the OS and pictures. That is connected to a tv and then the other 2 TVs have an Apple TV each.
I use Crashplan to back up that computer also. It works, I like it, and no issues yet.

 

[westrock2000]

However, RAID isn't a cure-all. Data corruption can get duplicated across multiple hard drives, and by itself RAID does nothing to prevent data loss when the user intentionally deletes a file. Simply "having a RAID array" isn't magic.

This is one of the strong points of the ZFS filesystem, is that it tracks all data consistency with a hierarchy of checksums. When used with ECC memory like in the Mac Pro, this can even help protect your data from cosmic radiation. While I did like performance of the RAID system it offered, keeping my bits in order was a big selling point for me.

Even my music which is on a single dedicated SSD still uses ZFS because of the inherent data corruption protection of the system.

I'm not trying to call anyone out, I'm trying to spread options others may not know existed.

You could also do a bastardized version of mirroring with Time Machine where it could mirror your media files to a backup, you would then also get "versioning" which would give you some protection from accidental deletion. Your backup target would have to larger then your source though.

 

[charlien]

what recommendations are there for a multiple hard drive enclosure? i'm getting past 5 TB of data (photos, tv, movies) and currently have a 3TB WD external backed up to an identical one and a 2TB backed up to another 2TB. id like to not have hard drive piling up left and right, and want an enclosure that just houses 4 or 5. i don't need, and just want to serve media to my ATVs from my main mac

I was thinking the same thing and a year later am slowly moving back to individual usb drives. First to consider is that I had to repartition my drives when I took them out of the individual enclosures and put them in the larger cage. This was true with my 3gig seagates but not my toshiba drive. Second, I find it easier to inventory the drives in individual enclosures.

Just my opinion.

 

[jdechko]

You could also do a bastardized version of mirroring with Time Machine where it could mirror your media files to a backup, you would then also get "versioning" which would give you some protection from accidental deletion. Your backup target would have to larger then your source though.

Or, to channel my inner John Siracusa, Apple could actually write a better file system than the current HFS+, that has many of the advantages of a system like ZFS (such as automatic snapshots & data checking), but is actually tailored for the Mac.

 

[keeper]

I have
Mac mini for media duties.
3tb Thunderbolt drive partitioned for media and time machine.
2 usb drives for onsite and off site backups.

ipad/iphone and macbook pro that accesses the media.