RAID Enclousure, NO NAS!!! ?

[umbilical]

hi, Im not an a expert so any help, the thing is I need storage! for music and video; so I want a raid unit (you know insert 5 hd's by example of 4tb, so I got one big unit of 20tb) but I DONT!!!! need anything of software of server or anything related with NAS! I JUST need plug to my macbook pro, see a new unit in my desktop of 20tb and that is! so whats the name for that? RAID ENCLOUSURE?

any suggestion of brands or models? I repeat I dont want anything to connect remote or server things... just need a big HD!

any help?

 

[thedeske]

Sounds like a raid box - bet the warnings come in further replies, as in how do you back it up

If you need it to act like one giant drive, the raid is Turned On in one of a few modes. Raid5 being a nice compromise (if 1 drive goes bad the others will keep the files safe while you replace it) Raid0 makes 1 big volume as well, but it's risky with so many HDs. If 1 goes bad, you loose all the files.

http://www.acnc.com/raidedu/5

G-Raid, Caldigit, OWC & others are a source for RAID enclosures. They can get pricey. Oh, and http://www.macgurus.com/ is a solid maker of Raid Enclosures.

 

[umbilical]

Sounds like a raid box

If you need it to act like one giant drive, the raid is Turned On in one of a few modes. Raid5 being a nice compromise (if 1 drive goes bad the others will keep the files safe while you replace it) Raid0 makes 1 big volume, but it's risky with so many HDs. If 1 goes bad, you loose all the files.

oh! thanks yes... see I dont understand anything about raid 1 0 etc... but yes I want full security safe (I dont care speed!!!) but I care a lot security, so in a 5bay with raid5 how works? if one of the 5 disks goes bad the info of that disk are storage in the other 4? but how if the other 4 are full?

 

[thedeske]

You'll need to read up on RAID 5 vs RAID 1+0 to get a feel for what you need. 5 protects only 1 drive fail. 1 plus 0 protects all but needs a bunch of drives to do it - think double. It gets really expensive to see just 1 icon that's huge. Also, with any of these modes you loose space on the drives, so if the 20TB target is important, you'll certainly need 5 plus drives at minimum.

4 drives plugged into a hub is cheap compared to this, so pick your poison. There's no getting around the fact that you need at least an equal amount of space to back up, be it a bunch of singles or a huge stack in a RAID array.

Companies like Caldigit use plug trays in devices like the T3 (Thunderbolt) and AV Pro (USB3) to get around the backup problem, but those don't reach your target size in one device. They make large RAID devices for aggressive edit suites, but it's likely overkill for your purpose.

You could always use multiple trays for 1 or 2 externals in any plugable device and have the size needed without the Pain of RAID.

 

[blueroom]

1st rule of RAID, it's not a backup.

2nd: you need to backup your RAID array.

3rd: never use RAID0, just not worth it.

Drobo or Lacie make a DAS, but you'll still need to back it up to something else such as another RAID array.

 

[umbilical]

You'll need to read up on RAID 5 vs RAID 1+0 to get a feel for what you need. 5 protects only 1 drive fail. 1 plus 0 protects all but needs a bunch of drives to do it - think double. It gets really expensive to see just 1 icon that's huge.

4 drives plugged into a hub is cheap compared to this, so pick your poison

mmm thanks, good point about 4 drives plugged into a hub but I start hate have separate drives :/ I would love 1big one...

ok let me put an example and see if understand...

I have 5bay, 4tb each... with raid 5, so! my total is 16tb and one drive 4tb is waiting in the case of one of the 4 working drives fails?
if yes! that sound perfect, having in mind that I have fully 16tb working and one safe guard! awaiting for any of the 4 fails.

please any example of a unit like that?
this: http://www.sharkoon.com/sites/defau...rnalEnclorures/big_5-Bay_Raid_Station_box.jpg ???

 

[thekev]

oh! thanks yes... see I dont understand anything about raid 1 0 etc... but yes I want full security safe (I dont care speed!!!) but I care a lot security, so in a 5bay with raid5 how works? if one of the 5 disks goes bad the info of that disk are storage in the other 4? but how if the other 4 are full?

You should be very cautious about how you interpret this. Raid is not a backup, and you need to be careful with Raid 5. It has its own issues where if a drive takes too long on error recovery, the Raid will assume that drive has timed out and either crash or go into rebuild mode, possibly without being able to flush its cache (assuming you use drives with standard timings). At the very least you need a backup for any Raid.

 

[umbilical]

You should be very cautious about how you interpret this. Raid is not a backup, and you need to be careful with Raid 5. It has its own issues where if a drive takes too long on error recovery, the Raid will assume that drive has timed out and either crash or go into rebuild mode, possibly without being able to flush its cache (assuming you use drives with standard timings). At the very least you need a backup for any Raid.

so... what is a backup? ouch! why is so hard get the simple thing that I want... I just need hd space with some backup...

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http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/M3QX2KIT0GB/
that one with raid 5? 3 working and one waiting if one fails
?

 

[blueroom]

A backup is a copy of your files. If you have a 20TB drive and you want to back it up then you need another 20TB something to back it up to.

That said it can take a while to fill 20TB with media, movies can be compressed to H.264 and are about 700MB per hr and music 256 AAC is about 70MB per hour.

 

[umbilical]

A backup is a copy of your files. If you have a 20TB drive and you want to back it up then you need another 20TB something to back it up to.

ok I got it, but why not raid5? 4 working and one waiting if one is fail, that one save the info of the fail drive?

or well use, crashplan but upload 20TB take me years with my internet up speed :/

 

[blueroom]

Yes but RAID is high reliability (a single drive can die and the RAID 5 can be repaired).

If a file is deleted it's gone as there is no backup. BACKUP = COPY.
Lets say the array dies or is formatted or whatever. It's gone, that's why you need a backup.

Are you currently backing up your mac?

 

[thedeske]

ok I got it, but why not raid5? 4 working and one waiting if one is fail, that one save the info of the fail drive?

It doesn't work that way. Raid 5 puts recovery sectors on all the drives. Again, read up!

As I said, the warnings will come.

 

[umbilical]

Yes but RAID is high reliability (a single drive can die and the RAID 5 can be repaired).

If a file is deleted it's gone as there is no backup. BACKUP = COPY.
Lets say the array dies or is formatted or whatever. It's gone, that's why you need a backup.

Are you currently backing up your mac?

yes I backup my mac right now with time machine but is just 100gb (I have 100gb used in my ssd of my macbook pro and I have an external 1tb drive)... but I want big storage for music/video.

 

[ColdCase]

Buy two of these USB RAIDs (or equivalent) for $160 each and fill them with 4TB drives, span the drives in each to make 16TB volumes. Use one for data and the other for backup with something like carbon copy cloner to copy your working drive to the backup once a day or so.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816856039

There are others, some come preconfigured with drives.

If you want more than 4 bays, it starts getting into real money. 5TB drives may be widely available soon, so loading these 4 bays up with 5TB drives will get you 20TB per enclosure.

As others have said, 20TB will hold a massive HD movie collection. A HD movie (BlueRay, HDDVD, download) saved at excellent quality averages about 8 GB (they vary between 4 and 10GB each). You can store 100 movies on an 800GB drive, 1000 movies on a 8TB drive, 2500 movies on a 20TB drive... now if you start talking 4K video... not sure how big those are. Standard definition movies and DVDs average about 1GB each.

 

[umbilical]

Buy two of these USB RAIDs (or equivalent) for $160 each and fill them with 4TB drives, span the drives in each to make 20TB volumes. Use one for data and the other for backup with something like carbon copy cloner to copy your working drive to the backup once a day or so.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816856039

There are others, some come preconfigured with drives.

you say like this:

2 x $189 = $378
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...p=&AID=10446076&PID=3160356&SID=1emzo2m57kpcz

8 x $160 = $1280
http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digit..._7?ie=UTF8&qid=1394500050&sr=8-7&keywords=4tb

total $1658, well not cheap...

 

[thekev]

ok I got it, but why not raid5? 4 working and one waiting if one is fail, that one save the info of the fail drive?

or well use, crashplan but upload 20TB take me years with my internet up speed :/

because Raid solves one problem. It solves disk failure. Anything else can still toast the raid. Because the raid is so much more complicated, there are other things that can take it down, such as controller failure, corruption in general (low end raids may not use ecc ram for cache). When a drive goes down it has to rebuild. This uses a form of parity in the case of raid 5, and it has to read every bit of data on all drives. During this time it's in a weakened state, so if another drive dies, it's once again dead. If it encounters a single bit error during rebuild, it crashes. That is why I made the note about some low end controllers and ECC ram on the raid controller (has nothing to do with general ram used in your computer).

You keep getting good answers and shooting them down with bad questions. If you want to know how it works, you're going to spend a very long time reading. If you want something that works, then any raid you set up needs a backup plan. A spare drive is not a backup plan. It's merely a way of ensuring the highest uptime possible, as many raids can automatically rebuild with a hot spare.

 

[thedeske]

You keep getting good answers and shooting them down with bad questions.

Well, we did try

 

[mvmanolov]

You may not even need a raid setup... using a multi-bay enclosure just use the drives separate and do file management separately... it doesn't sound like uptime is important for you but rather data integrity... if this is the case a RAID isn't exactly the optimal way to go! So with a multi-bay enclosure you can then have some drives storing data and some drives running backup. and as your actual space needs expand you can buy another enclosure and more drives...

and it is only logical that you would spend big $$$ for big space.... 20TB isn't exactly small...

 

[thekev]

Well, we did try

He may comes to his senses. 20TB is quite a lot of data, even at 40 or 50% capacity. I would hate to later hear of someone losing all of that, especially given that data recovery on a Raid is not likely. It can take too many hours of skilled labor with uncertain results.

 

[ColdCase]

total $1658, well not cheap...

Well cheap is relative, this is about as cheap you are going to get without compromise either in capacity or backup. If you want to spend less you may want to adjust your expectations.

For example, can you start now with 4TB and then add on as your needs grow. In that case buy 2 USB3 4TB drives for $150 like this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145596

When you approach 4TB in media, buy a couple more. With a Mac you can spread your itunes media library over several drives with little impact on performance. Any other media server works the same, you don't need large disk volumes.

So now you have an initial investment of $300, and then add more drives as needed and budget allows. 4TB will get cheaper over time, or buy 5 or 6 TB drives later for about the same price. Not as elegant as an enclosure but way less $$$$... and cheap. Or buy eight 4TB drives now and spread the media. You will likely need a couple USB hubs. So thats $1200 plus maybe $100 for hubs. Pick your poison or compromise.

 

[glenthompson]

so... what is a backup? ouch! why is so hard get the simple thing that I want... I just need hd space with some backup...

----------

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/M3QX2KIT0GB/
that one with raid 5? 3 working and one waiting if one fails
?

This would be a good place to start http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID#References

The reason for backup is for more than just drive failure. Think theft, fire, or other disaster.

I have multiple backups of my music and video collection in addition to the original CD or DVD it came on.

 

[FireWire2]

RAID5 last over five years

I read a lot of comments about raid, without dispute the important of back up...
Because important data, certainly you need 2x copy at 2x places.

But here is how I maintain my RAID5 box over five years w/o back up.

Note: These are my Media (AV) files in 10TB (5x 2TB) - use-able 8TB

Every 3~4 month I remove one of the HDD - Forcing RAID5 to fail - Wait for 10 seconds, inserts it back in

My RAID rebuilds for 7 hrs, now it's in the 5th year.

The contribute factor is
Each of the HDD in a tray-less bay with 2x fans to cool off

Each time I force RAID rebuild, it will checked and mapped BAD sectors in the volume, which ensure the data integrity.

So if you want to make sure your RAID last long
Force it to rebuild from time to time
RAID member HDD needs to be at decent temp - mine is around 40C. Mine was cool by the 2x fans under neath of it

BTW it runs very close to 24/7