This is a problem I've been struggling with for a while and could really use another set of eyes or advice from a fresh perspective.
We're professional wedding photographers who have to develop a very economical storage and backup solution. We shoot about 20 weddings a year averaging 4000 photos a wedding at an average of 25-30mb per photo (we shoot RAW). This equals about 120GB a wedding in raw files and about 2.5TB in RAW files per season.
We also shoot a variety of other projects throughout the year and will be adding video to our workflow this year, which means we need even more space.
Right now we have two Mac Pros. The following is the current plan for storage/backup, I'm looking for people to shoot holes in it so please be brutally honest and give me your best suggestions for improvement.
Machine 1 - 2TB total usable space
- 4 1TB drives running in RAID 10 (which will include booting the OS from the RAID)
- This computer will be used to store RAW data only. RAW photos, and RAW video footage
- When any data is downloaded to this RAID array it will also be downloaded to a Mac Book Pro to be transferred to an offsite backup drive so that at all times we have one on-site raid copy of the files and one offsite single backup of the file
- When this RAID array is full all 4 drives will be removed, one mirrored set will be put in static bags in storage and one set will be placed in a dual bay external enclosure for easy access ***Is it possible to transfer two striped drives from the Mac Pro to the dual bay enclosure while maintaining the striped RAID?***
Machine 2 - 1TB total usable space
- 4 500GB drives running in RAID 10 (which will include booting the OS from RAID)
- This computer will be used to store LIVE working data. Edited JPEGs, albums, business documents, video edits.
- This computer will have the entire 1TB content of the array copied to a 1TB external firewire drive each night for backup (erasing the contents from the previous night). At the end of one week I'll move that firewire drive to an offsite location and replace it with another 1TB firewiredrive. Those two 1TB drives will be switched back and fourth offsite and onsite each week so that the most we could ever lose of LIVE working data is 1 week if our studio burnt down or something.
- Again like above when this RAID array is full all 4 drives will be removed, one mirrored set will be put in static bags in storage and one set will be placed in a dual bay external enclosure
I know that the Mac Pro has two odd sata ports on the motherboard which can be used to plug in two esata connectors. Does anyone think it would be worth plugging in two esata connectors to MACHINE 1 in order to have six 1TB hard drives running in RAID 10 for a total of 3 TB usable space. I've read that it's quite a pain installing those esata extenders on the mobo
- I really want to figure this problem out without using a RAID controller card
- I Do not want to create a linux server to house more than 4 drives
- I Do not want to use 1.5TB drives, as I've read some really negative reviews on them (and I can't risk losing anyones wedding pictures!)
- I Do want to use the Mac Pros existing 4 bays to create a good solution.
- I don't mind switching the drives out once a year and putting them in an enclosure but I don't want to have to take them out more than once a year because a) it means i have to install a fresh copy of the OS and related programs on new RAID 10 drives and b) i don't want a ton of external drives cluttering things up
Obviously eventually we'll be looking at dedicated Xserve type RAID arrays but for now I want to stretch the capabilities of the Mac Pro to find an existing solution.
Thanks in advance for anyone who has even taken the time to read this thread, I know it's super long.
We're professional wedding photographers who have to develop a very economical storage and backup solution. We shoot about 20 weddings a year averaging 4000 photos a wedding at an average of 25-30mb per photo (we shoot RAW). This equals about 120GB a wedding in raw files and about 2.5TB in RAW files per season.
We also shoot a variety of other projects throughout the year and will be adding video to our workflow this year, which means we need even more space.
Right now we have two Mac Pros. The following is the current plan for storage/backup, I'm looking for people to shoot holes in it so please be brutally honest and give me your best suggestions for improvement.
Machine 1 - 2TB total usable space
- 4 1TB drives running in RAID 10 (which will include booting the OS from the RAID)
- This computer will be used to store RAW data only. RAW photos, and RAW video footage
- When any data is downloaded to this RAID array it will also be downloaded to a Mac Book Pro to be transferred to an offsite backup drive so that at all times we have one on-site raid copy of the files and one offsite single backup of the file
- When this RAID array is full all 4 drives will be removed, one mirrored set will be put in static bags in storage and one set will be placed in a dual bay external enclosure for easy access ***Is it possible to transfer two striped drives from the Mac Pro to the dual bay enclosure while maintaining the striped RAID?***
Machine 2 - 1TB total usable space
- 4 500GB drives running in RAID 10 (which will include booting the OS from RAID)
- This computer will be used to store LIVE working data. Edited JPEGs, albums, business documents, video edits.
- This computer will have the entire 1TB content of the array copied to a 1TB external firewire drive each night for backup (erasing the contents from the previous night). At the end of one week I'll move that firewire drive to an offsite location and replace it with another 1TB firewiredrive. Those two 1TB drives will be switched back and fourth offsite and onsite each week so that the most we could ever lose of LIVE working data is 1 week if our studio burnt down or something.
- Again like above when this RAID array is full all 4 drives will be removed, one mirrored set will be put in static bags in storage and one set will be placed in a dual bay external enclosure
I know that the Mac Pro has two odd sata ports on the motherboard which can be used to plug in two esata connectors. Does anyone think it would be worth plugging in two esata connectors to MACHINE 1 in order to have six 1TB hard drives running in RAID 10 for a total of 3 TB usable space. I've read that it's quite a pain installing those esata extenders on the mobo
- I really want to figure this problem out without using a RAID controller card
- I Do not want to create a linux server to house more than 4 drives
- I Do not want to use 1.5TB drives, as I've read some really negative reviews on them (and I can't risk losing anyones wedding pictures!)
- I Do want to use the Mac Pros existing 4 bays to create a good solution.
- I don't mind switching the drives out once a year and putting them in an enclosure but I don't want to have to take them out more than once a year because a) it means i have to install a fresh copy of the OS and related programs on new RAID 10 drives and b) i don't want a ton of external drives cluttering things up
Obviously eventually we'll be looking at dedicated Xserve type RAID arrays but for now I want to stretch the capabilities of the Mac Pro to find an existing solution.
Thanks in advance for anyone who has even taken the time to read this thread, I know it's super long.