More Storage and Backup

[rctneil]

Hey guys,

Been looking around at more storage options for my system as I am very quickly running out of space. Less than 10Gb remaining on my internal 1Tb drive in my iMac.

I am thinking of getting a 3Tb drive and then another onto which I will perform weekly backups.

There are two things I am unsure about:

1. Do I get 1x NAS (Data) and 1x DAS (Backup) or 2x DAS (one for Data and other for Backup)? - My concern is that I have never used a NAS and am worried about access speeds. Especially when accessing Raw images from it from within Adobe Lightroom. Should this be a concern?

2. If I go the NAS route then I would get a Synology unit but on the side of the DAS I have no clue what enclosure to get. Can anyone recommend any USB3 SATA 3 capable 2 bay enclosures?

3 points:

- I know my iMac does not have USB3 support but this is me just future planning.

- I want 2 bay models so I can have a 3Tb drive in each now and be able to quickly and easily add in extra drives for storage in the future.

- Don't want RAID. I'll do frequent backups of the drive myself.

Any thoughts?

 

[FreakinEurekan]

NAS is only necessary and advisable if you need to access it from multiple computers, or if DAS would be difficult (i.e. on a laptop). If you need this storage on your iMac and only your iMac, stick with local storage. It's cheaper, faster, and less trouble.

 

[maflynn]

1. Do I get 1x NAS (Data) and 1x DAS (Backup) or 2x DAS (one for Data and other for Backup)? - My concern is that I have never used a NAS and am worried about access speeds. Especially when accessing Raw images from it from within Adobe Lightroom. Should this be a concern?

Get at least a 2 drive unit, as the extra dives on a NAS will be used for redundancy, i.e., if one drive failed you'll not be losing your data. There are units out there for DAS that also have RAID redundancy, such as a Drobo Mini.

2. If I go the NAS route then I would get a Synology unit but on the side of the DAS I have no clue what enclosure to get. Can anyone recommend any USB3 SATA 3 capable 2 bay enclosures?

Check out OWC they have quality multi bay drives.

Another point to consider is throughput, a NAS will generally be slower because gigabit ethernet is slower then USB3, though I believe Ethernet maybe quicker then USB2 but don't quote me on that - better ask the google on that one

I'm personally going back to DAS after living with a NAS. I like the idea of a NAS and set it up because I thought Id use it with with the other computers in my house but that wasn't the case. I've decided to sell my NAS and go with a DAS for a more simpler implementation (plus I got a sweet deal on a drobo mini )

 

[rctneil]

Thanks guys. 100% going for DAS only.

Just need to find a nice USB3 and SATA3 dual bay enclosure that I can get at a decent price in the UK.

 

[rctneil]

Think i'll get a couple of these:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...act_title_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE