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RAID Setup: Am I going overboard?

D

DTphonehome

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Apr 4, 2003
1,952
3,650
NYC
Hey All,

I want to have a good backup solution for my Macs that is reliable and as near to foolproof as possible. I was thinking of this setup, but I think it might be overkill:

Time Capsule (500GB)
USB RAID Enclosure with 2 1TB drives in RAID1 config plugged into TC's USB port

I would use the 1TB RAID array as my Time Machine backup disk (shared among my Macs) and the 500GB drive on the TC as NAS.

Now, am I going overboard by having the external disk being a RAID array? While I don't want to depend on just one disk to backup my stuff, isn't having a Time Machine disk enough backup if my primary drive fails in my Mac? And if the Time Machine disk fails, I still have the disks on the Macs.

So any advantage to having an external RAID array, besides for the added redundancy which may be overkill?

Thanks!
 
There is nothing having a redundant array for an external; I've had my back up volume and regular drive both fail on me at once, so a back up for your back up is not such a bad idea.
 
alphaod said:
There is nothing having a redundant array for an external; I've had my back up volume and regular drive both fail on me at once, so a back up for your back up is not such a bad idea.
Click to expand...

Whoa, that's pretty bad luck! But I guess you're right...anyway, the difference between a 1TB drive and a 1TB RAID setup is only like $150-200 at most. I suppose that's a reasonable price to pay for a very safe setup.
 
I feel you would be better off with an AEBS with 3 1TB drives in a RAID 5 config. This would give you 2 TB storage plus the redundancy. RAID 5 is great for large capacities.
 
p.luik said:
I feel you would be better off with an AEBS with 3 1TB drives in a RAID 5 config. This would give you 2 TB storage plus the redundancy. RAID 5 is great for large capacities.
Click to expand...

I thought about using an AEBS, but I heard that Airdisk isn't officially supported, and I have several Macs that I'd like to all share one Time Machine disk. Is this not true?
 
DTphonehome said:
I thought about using an AEBS, but I heard that Airdisk isn't officially supported, and I have several Macs that I'd like to all share one Time Machine disk. Is this not true?
Click to expand...

It is officially supported. It was included in the 7.3.1 update I believe back when they released the Time Capsule. So as long as you have the latest firmware, just connect to the Airdisk and then select it in the your Time Machine; then you can disconnect from the Airdisk as Time Machine will automatically connect when it needs to back up or when you choose to restore.
 
alphaod said:
It is officially supported. It was included in the 7.3.1 update I believe back when they released the Time Capsule. So as long as you have the latest firmware, just connect to the Airdisk and then select it in the your Time Machine; then you can disconnect from the Airdisk as Time Machine will automatically connect when it needs to back up or when you choose to restore.
Click to expand...

Wow, OK, I didn't know that! Now I just need to find a nice RAID enclosure! Thanks!
 
DTphonehome said:
I thought about using an AEBS, but I heard that Airdisk isn't officially supported, and I have several Macs that I'd like to all share one Time Machine disk. Is this not true?
Click to expand...

Well in your OP you wrote that you were gonna use the RAID for time machine. This would require AirDisk as its not the internal TC drive anyway.

And AirDisk is now supported as of March 2008.
http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/19/time-machine-now-works-with-airport-extremes-airdisk-feature/
 
I have a 1TB Time Capsule backing up all the Macs. I also have an Iomega Rev drive backing up the important stuff again, monthly, to a set of disks. Each disk takes a full backup (not incremental) and 1 of these is always off-site.

The Time Capsule makes for easy recovery of simple losses, or complete recovery of a whole Mac. The Rev covers any disasters and means I can still recover what matters, I just have a little more work to do.

So I, for one, don't think you're going over the top.

If ever you come to restore a whole machine from your Time Capsule, you will be making more use of the disk than ever since you made the first full backup, so I'd suggest a slightly higher chance of it failing at precisely this time, while it's still the only copy you have!
 
DTphonehome said:
Whoa, that's pretty bad luck! But I guess you're right...anyway, the difference between a 1TB drive and a 1TB RAID setup is only like $150-200 at most. I suppose that's a reasonable price to pay for a very safe setup.
Click to expand...

I just want to point out that the possibility of 2 drives failing at the same exact time is really really really low.
 
Thanks for all the replies. So, I'm looking at using a Drobo enclosure with as many 1TB disks as I can afford. Is this the optimal configuration? AEBS with Drobo attached to the USB port?
 
masteroflondon said:
I have a 1TB Time Capsule backing up all the Macs. I also have an Iomega Rev drive backing up the important stuff again, monthly, to a set of disks. Each disk takes a full backup (not incremental) and 1 of these is always off-site.

The Time Capsule makes for easy recovery of simple losses, or complete recovery of a whole Mac. The Rev covers any disasters and means I can still recover what matters, I just have a little more work to do.

So I, for one, don't think you're going over the top.

If ever you come to restore a whole machine from your Time Capsule, you will be making more use of the disk than ever since you made the first full backup, so I'd suggest a slightly higher chance of it failing at precisely this time, while it's still the only copy you have!
Click to expand...

alphaod said:
I just want to point out that the possibility of 2 drives failing at the same exact time is really really really low.
Click to expand...

I know the odds are low, but hey, it happens (as it did to you!), and I suppose I'd pay a little more for the peace-of-mind for when I actually do need to restore my machine from my sole backup!
 
The Drobo looks very cool, the only problem I can see with it (and this goes for some other RAID enclosures / units as well) is that whilst they will protect you against a drive failure, what happens if you get an enclosure failure? for example the PSU dies or something goes pop inside?

Drobo use a proprietary algorithm for spanning the data across the disks, so the only solution you would have would be to buy another drobo (and hope it picks up the existing disks ok), or if still in warranty send it off and wait for the repair, neither of which are very practical if you need to access the data.

The simplest way to avoid the potential problems is to make sure you still have another backup elsewhere.
 
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