Reliable storage solution

[Giuanniello]

Hello,

currently I use an old Q-NAP NAS with 2x RED 4TB disks (EFRX) to store mostly movies on a RAID 1 array, for photo and documents storage there are 2 old LaCie disks with quad interface and in RAID 1, then another 3TB HD into a separate enclosure, a nightmare!!!

Photo archive onto a RAID1 volume, then it backs-up onto another same one and then onto the USB one, complicated and lot of cables, enclosures starting to fail (red light blinking but disk diagnostic report is fine), I'd like to upgrade the NAS with 2x6TB and move the 2x4 into a RAID1 case but storage is too expensive at this moment in time but still I need to find a reliable solution and am sure that RAID1 is not, a nightmare if a box fails to recover the data so, end of the day, not really worth the pain.

Would it make better sense to have single disks rather than RAID to store? I don't need a speed demon, just high reliability and redundancy.

All suggestions welcome

Grazie

 

[glenthompson]

Just remember that RAID is for fault tolerance, not backup. It lets you keep running when a drive fails. If you can tolerate the down time there are easier and cheaper solutions. I use an old Mac mini with a 2 drive enclosure. One drive holds all our media files - movies, music, books, and archived data. The other drive is used for backup of the other Macs in the house. Both these drives are backed up locally to external drives and to BackBlaze. If I can't access the media files for a day or so while I replace a failed drive, it's no big deal. If I lose the backup drive it's just a delay in getting everything backed up again, mostly overnight.

 

[Fishrrman]

"Reliable storage solution"

I would not consider RAID or NAS as "reliable".
But I guess that's just me.

"Would it make better sense to have single disks rather than RAID to store? I don't need a speed demon, just high reliability and redundancy."

That's more like it.
If you want "redundancy", create one or more exact copies of the source drives using either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper.
That's what I do.

 

[Giuanniello]

Ok,

let's say, I have my photo archive on one of the external RAID1 drives connected through FW800, on another one there is a backup of the archive (from RAID1A to RAID1B) and then a 4TB WD RED, let's call it C, in an external case which backs up both.

The data is mostly offline, pictures get organised in the archive by going through the local MacMini (an old 2014 model) storage then, once deleted what unneeded, organised and moved to drive A which then backs to B and then on the C one so there is double redundancy.

I understand RAID not being any secure but I have those, so, what would I do, other than RAID1 slowly replace them with, say, external cases of the same brand/type, in single disk configuration (so I could use existing storage and skip buying new drives) or what else?

I too thought to delegate an old Mini (I have a 2007 which is almost useless and a 2014 with an i5 CPU which only serves to download music and movies when in use) as a backup device with the external disks connected to it to collect data from the other Mini which does as main machine for the photo archive so:

- MacMini i7 with photographs and a local external drive to store the photo archive
- MacMini i5 with external drive/s to collect data from other computers and back it all up onto the drives

Which software to eventually use for such purpose on a wireless/wired network?

Grazie, I know it's confusing but I am tired of having a lot of cables, power adapters, boxes and headaches when it comes to organising data

 

[glenthompson]

Consider this enclosure for $200. You can use some of your existing drives or add more of necessary size. 8tb drives are currently less than $250. Once installed you can use file sharing to share the drives across your network. Easy to configure in System Preferences.

For backing up other Macs I use Carbon Copy Cloner to copy my files from my iMac to the Mini. You can also use Time Machine.

 

[InuNacho]

Whew man, confusing system you got there.
On my Photo drive I just store everything and never delete it because why not? Rotational drives are cheap. I have an External Raid 1 8TB connected to my 2018 Mini and its all backed up to a local 12TB with some other drives and another 8TB I take to a relative's across town.

To be fair my Mini is an octopus like yours.

 

[400]

I just use several independent drives and manage the copies with CCC to them. One drive is time machine only. I also off site a hard drive (very important) and use non iCloud fully versioned online backup with zero knowledge.
I still use iCloud for photos and document but it has issues for me as a backup. It is a convenience only.
I hide the drives under the desk via a powered USB3 hub. That means a single cable to the drive location leaving the meagre number of ports Apple have decided on relatively free.

I have a mix of drives, Toshiba and Seagate and enclosures, main ones all 4tb or higher. One is an enclosure I can swap drives, one a Tosh, two are Lacie (Seagate HD inside?). I did have a Seagate desktop but is was terrible slow, ripped the HD out and fitted it to the enclosure and it flies. Off site is another brand that escapes me at the moment.

I kept an eye out for deals, the Lacie 6tb I picked up for less than a 4tb when the offer was on and retired the 2tb disk it replaced but put copies on the 2tb for long term just in case..