Redundant RAID and Canadian Retailers

[wflan]

I'm looking to turn 1-1.2 TB of HD into 500-600 GB or redundant backup space. I was looking at the 1 TB Mybook pro/premium editions, which look promising, and was wondering if anyone had any experience with using the raid feature on these drives. I was also wondering if there were any other products that came ready to turn into redundant backup. I'd be up for building my own if someone could point me towards a good case and parts supplier.

The only snag is that I'm living in canada right now and don't really know the retailers here that well. Any websites that ship to Canada free of customs/are Canadian to begin with would be greatly appreciated. I'd normally just go to newegg.com but they don't play well with Canucks.

I'm looking to spend $300-350 at the most (which is why the mybooks looked good versus, say, gdrives)

Thanks!

 

[terriyaki]

If you're thinking of building your own you might want to look at OWC's external enclosure kits.

Here's one of their RAID enclosure kits.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer Technology/GM8U2KIT0GB/

I ordered a similar enclosure kit from them (a non RAID 1* one, though) along with a 4GB RAM kit and got tagged with duty but I believe the duty was due to the RAM. I believe the enclosure kits are made in the US so I don't think there would be any custom fees but I'm not 100% sure on that.

Edit: My enclosure technically offers RAID, but only RAID 0 which is stripe. It also offers span and jbod. It does not offer the safety of RAID 1.

 

[synth3tik]

The MyBook Pro is set up on a RAID 0. I think this is hardware and not changeable to RAID 1. Although I could be wrong.

Anyhow, for the drive itself. It's a bit loud but just a great drive. No issues for me as of yet.

 

[wflan]

according to http://wdmybook.com/en/editions/ the Premium, Pro, and World Editions II can do RAID I mirroring. The Newer Tech enclosure sounds great, almost exactly what I'd be looking for but a little expensive. I just wish my MBP was new enough to have FW 800... Not many of the high performance enclosures like this have two FW 400 ports for chaining.

On another note, if I were to connect drive to computer via FW 400 and then another drive to drive via FW 800, would it chain properly? Id hate to use up multiple ports on multiple drives unless I was going for absolute speediness.

 

[VforVelveta]

If you're looking for a good external RAID 1, I'd suggest the Guardian Maximus.

http://newertech.com/products/gmax.php

I've had one for a while now and have yet to have any problems with it. You can just buy the model without any hard drives and install your own, which is pretty simple, just a couple of screws.

 

[9Charms]

Go with a DROBO (1 guess as to the URL).

Failing that, if you can build your own. Goto http://www.hptmac.com and pick a RAID card that fits your machine and budget.

You can get most of these items cheap from NCIX.com (canadian).

I have a the 1740, which I am no longer using as I am moving to a Mac Pro, so if interested, PM me. (Moderator: If this line is not appropriate, please advise, and I apologize in advance if this is the case.)