Something like a drobo?

[jrm27]

Hi All,

I've got lots of data... about 10 TB of movies that I've converted from my DVD/BluRay library, a huge Lightroom Catalog, and tons of raw video data from my videography work. Right now it is all spread around multiple hard drives... and nothing is really backed up. So, I think it is time to get some kind of RAID/Drobo setup going. Whats a good alternative to Drobo? I know I'll have a large outlay on hard drives no matter the solution, ao I'm hoping to save a bit of money if there is room to do so on the hardware/software. Any ideas?

Thanks!

 

[ZapNZs]

What is the budget?
How important are read and write speeds?
How much do you expect your library to grow over the next few years?
How robust of a backup plan do you wish to implement? (how many different causes of data loss do you want to cover?)
Do you plan to purchase new drives or do you wish to use what you already have?

IIRC, one benefit of the Drobo is the ability to use different sized hard drives - so if your drives are healthy then you could reuse them in this new enclosure. Further, IIRC the Drobo allows you to expand the size without having to redo the entire thing. With a RAID hardware implementation, neither are an option, and so you would need to purchase new drives if your existing ones are not the same size.

You could do something like the OWC QX2 enclosure (around $200-250), and RAID 5 four 4TB 7200 RPM HDDs (around $150 each for the HGST DeskStar NAS) to give you about 12 TB of usable storage (about $800 total.) Then, you could use a cloud program to make off-site backup archives of the RAID setup (or you could buy one very large HDD like a 14 TB drive and use it to back up the RAID enclosure's contents.)

 

[apple_iBoy]

I like my OWC Thunderbay. I bought it empty, with the bundled Softraid option, and filled it with low-cost and high-reliability Toshiba enterprise grade drives. I’m very satisfied with the setup.

 

[jrm27]

Thanks for this info all. Budget is important. I need to economical about this, but not irresponsibly so. Read and write speeds are not THAT important. I have one at work that is connected by Thunderbolt and it allows me to be able to use it as a relatively fast set of external drives. I can edit video from it, do graphic design, etc... This won't be as important for the home set-up I am trying to create, but it would be nice to keep relatively decent speed. I'm planning on buying new drives.

I'll check out that OWC! Thanks!