RAID/ NAS Storage Solution Needed!! BADLY

Sort Posts by Likes
TK2K

TK2K

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 4, 2006
266
0
Hey,
So over the past 6 years I keep running into the sam problem, I need more storage space than I can really fit in my computer.


I'm looking to buy a home/power user edition of pretty much an xserve raid. I don't need all the fancy features, but what I do need is data redundancy and room for at least 8 hard drives. I'm not against direct attached storage through a PCI-Express raid card to an external box... I just need some recommendations

Price is a concern, I can't drop $3,000 on just a case...



I currently have a 3 500gb's and a 750 in my Mac Pro and I have only about 120GB left. Sooner or later I will run out. Now I could just get 4 1TB hard drives, but I'd still have no data redundancy, which quite frankly scares me.
 

firestarter

firestarter

macrumors 603
Dec 31, 2002
5,496
108
Green and pleasant land
I've been there, done that. Spent money on an Infrant Ready NAS to have it fail. Built a Linux server to house an array of disks. Now I'm just using external drives to backup.

Here's a few things I think you should consider:

- RAID systems ONLY protect you against a disk failure. They don't protect against fire, theft, software errors, corruption, accidental deletion, a spilt cup of coffee etc.

- RAID hardware can go wrong. RAID is great for businesses, where you have loads of systems and you can swap your disks into a new box if a RAID/NAS drive fails. 3 years from now when your RAID/NAS box fails, are you going to buy a new one? Is the new one going to accept the old format of disks and allow you access to your data?

In my opinion (and this is my chosen backup solution), just get the biggest disks you can in the lowest cost good quality USB boxes and manually backup - then store this offsite. At parents/family/your desk at work etc.

Encrypt your backup if it contains personal information - storing offsite puts you at risk of theft of that backup.

You will find that most of your data doesn't change very often, so you don't need to refresh that backup much. For your new or fast moving data, use SuperDuper to replicate the drive and rotate two backup drives off/onsite.

Keep it simple. Be very realistic about the risks to your data, and what you can/can't replace. Realize that an empty fancy RAID box can cost more than a pair of Terabyte drives with external cases - and these external simple drives give you much much better protection against a more realistic set of threats.
 
CaptainChunk

CaptainChunk

macrumors 68020
Apr 16, 2008
2,142
6
Phoenix, AZ
TK2K said:
Hey,
So over the past 6 years I keep running into the sam problem, I need more storage space than I can really fit in my computer.


I'm looking to buy a home/power user edition of pretty much an xserve raid. I don't need all the fancy features, but what I do need is data redundancy and room for at least 8 hard drives. I'm not against direct attached storage through a PCI-Express raid card to an external box... I just need some recommendations

Price is a concern, I can't drop $3,000 on just a case...



I currently have a 3 500gb's and a 750 in my Mac Pro and I have only about 120GB left. Sooner or later I will run out. Now I could just get 4 1TB hard drives, but I'd still have no data redundancy, which quite frankly scares me.
Click to expand...
Hardware RAID enclosures are expensive any way you look at it. What level of data redundancy are you looking for? If you can live with software RAID-1 using Disk Utility, the Mac Gurus Burly enclosures are pretty good values and don't require proprietary hard disk modules. You'll also need an eSATA card for this.
 
N

nanofrog

macrumors G4
May 6, 2008
11,719
2
TK2K said:
Hey,
I'm looking to buy a home/power user edition of pretty much an xserve raid. I don't need all the fancy features, but what I do need is data redundancy and room for at least 8 hard drives. I'm not against direct attached storage through a PCI-Express raid card to an external box... I just need some recommendations

Price is a concern, I can't drop $3,000 on just a case...

I currently have a 3 500gb's and a 750 in my Mac Pro and I have only about 120GB left. Sooner or later I will run out. Now I could just get 4 1TB hard drives, but I'd still have no data redundancy, which quite frankly scares me.
Click to expand...
What level of redundancy? RAID 1, 5,6???
Are you willing to build anything? And if so, what might you have lying around?
(An old computer case w/ plenty of drive bays, or even an old computer in the case of NAS).

Or are you just looking for a pre-made, ready to use method?

These details could help members steer you in the right direction. ;)
 

You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom