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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Alternatives to Drobo Pro?

Tom that definitely seems reasonable. Two Drobo S units may not be a bad way to go so that you create redundancy with the second unit. Each Drobo itself isn't any more robust than a typical RAID-5. One drive fails, you can rebuild. Two drives fail and *poof* goes the data. The 5-drive S model does have an option to enable 2-drive protection, but this really eats into storage space and performance. I guess you would have to decide if it's worth it or not. One Drobo S may be alright if you also intend to keep data on both the PC and Drobo at the same time... Always have two copies or more in existence, the more the better.
 
Hey Tom-
Let me just start by saying that I love your timelapse work. That said, to be frank, I'm kind of shocked that your entire backup strategy relies on hard drives. I would very strongly suggest you look into LTO backup. I've had two drives die this year (actually both in the last four months) and I took very good care of both of them. Obviously the risk is somewhat minimized in a RAID configuration, but still, drives are drives. Getting the camera originals onto an LTO gives you a very secure basis, which then of course is augmented by the same RAID strategies you've outlined. Of course the appeal of hard drives is the relative ease, and, more importantly, pricing. Having said that, though, I've heard of several production companies, as well as individuals, who are willing to dump data you provide onto an LTO for a small fee. This might be something you'd look into, as I really think your work is irreplaceable in many instances. Anyway, I don't mean to impose or anything like that, I'd just hate to hear about anyone else getting burned by dead drives like I did. Keep up the good work!
Peace,

-Harry
 
Harry, I appreciate your concern and your kind words. Keep in mind that the PC RAID 5 and Drobos will also be "backed up" by the fact that I will be mailing off two 500GB drives per week, one to my Dad's house in California, and one to my Mom's house in Oregon.
 
Already had that discussion Larry... Tom no likes the tape. :)

Actually, I know we've talked about it before Tom, but an LTO-4 kit is pretty cheap. The Quantum one w/ controller and cable with basic Windows backup software is about $2K or a bit less. Blank 800GB tapes are $40/each. Even less if you buy quantity.

But what about this: Quantum LTO-4 kit w/ LSI controller and cable, Symantec software and data tape is $1990 from Provantage. 40 x LTO-4 tapes at $40 each is $1600.

So ~ $3600 for you get 32TB of backup capacity.

2 x Drobo S + 10 x 2TB HDDs is about $3200. Hmmm...

For tape backup solutions, the HP 1760 desktop drive is another good option, but is about nearly $1K more for a kit. It may be built a little better, I don't know I haven't had any problems with either (other than the HP being more compatible with other controllers which makes it better for OSX). The HP unit performs a bit faster -- like 25% faster it seems, even though they claim to be about the same speed on paper.
 
My church has set up an archive system for all their media using openfiler on their lan. I'm looking into it as a nearline storage solution using off the shelf hardware. openfiler supports several popular raid cards.
 
Backup is not a device, nor a media, but a strategy.

Graeme
 
Lol Graeme swoops in with the Sun Tzu post...
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
The only issues with Blu-Ray is the cost per GB and you will pile up a lot of discs really quick. It's quite high compared to HDD or tape. But the cost to buy-in is like nothing. BD media is about $0.16 per GB on 25GB discs. LTO-4 is about $0.05 per GB, but you have the higher buy-in costs.
Click to expand...

But might Blu-Ray, being a consumer format, be likely to follow CD-R & DVD-R in getting cheaper fairly rapidly, whereas LTO might be more stable at its current price? I'm no business technology prognosticator, so I'm actually asking if this might be the case.

If Blu-Ray prices drop, then it might become a quite nice archival option for those of us working with smaller quantities of data. Leaving to one side physical bulkiness, but this too ought to be less severe with smaller operations.

RQ
 
Re: LTO4.

If you work it for awhile you can get the good HP drives, ATTO card, BRU PE software, etc. for more in the ballpark of $2500. Prices have come down--especially if you're a good shopper.

I'm just finishing backing up 16 tapes worth of data--over 11TB of data. What a pleasant experience. Been really impressed. And 16 tapes takes up very little space

I've been able to keep tape costs beneath $35 ea. too.

p
 
!!

!!

paul engstrom said:
Re: LTO4.

If you work it for awhile you can get the good HP drives, ATTO card, BRU PE software, etc. for more in the ballpark of $2500. Prices have come down--especially if you're a good shopper.

I'm just finishing backing up 16 tapes worth of data--over 11TB of data. What a pleasant experience. Been really impressed. And 16 tapes takes up very little space

I've been able to keep tape costs beneath $35 ea. too.

p
Click to expand...

Hey Paul-
You're very right. Once I have a MacPro in the next half a year probably, I'll finally be churning away on my LTO backups. I've managed to get all of the LTO stuff (using a great eBay deal and some academic discounts) under $2,000. The only thing I'm having trouble finding in my online shopping is better tape prices. Can you advise where you get yours, and what brand you're using. (Actually, this is an open question to everyone.) Or are you getting that $35 from buying in bulk? I'll take any advice I can get as I step up to LTO. Thanks!
Peace,

-Harry
 
lots of 5s or 10s.

For example, I recently got a pack of 10 HP tapes for $315 + shipping. Ebay's your friend here.

p

Harry Lipnick said:
Hey Paul-
You're very right. Once I have a MacPro in the next half a year probably, I'll finally be churning away on my LTO backups. I've managed to get all of the LTO stuff (using a great eBay deal and some academic discounts) under $2,000. The only thing I'm having trouble finding in my online shopping is better tape prices. Can you advise where you get yours, and what brand you're using. (Actually, this is an open question to everyone.) Or are you getting that $35 from buying in bulk? I'll take any advice I can get as I step up to LTO. Thanks!
Peace,

-Harry
Click to expand...
 
Ebay and Amazon or various bulk media resellers. I typically buy in packs of 10 or 20. I only use the FujiFilm ones -- they're the highest recommended and I haven't had any problems. They're also supposedly the ones that Quantum, HP and IBM rebrand as their own.

As for Blu-Ray media. Yes, the price is falling. It's less than half the price it was just a year ago, but still expensive. One thing with optical media is that it's always been expensive in terms of the actual cost per GB. But it is very convenient. Blu-Ray media is having a lot of trouble gaining acceptance for data storage -- most who want it are the ones doing Blu-Ray authoring. Most people simply do not have large amounts of data to back up and average consumers can still fit most of their data on a couple of DVD's or on external USB/FW HDD's.

Graeme is correct. Backup is a strategy and not a specific technology. For some, LTO will make a lot of sense. For others it won't make sense. The most important task in securing your data is to have a backup plan or strategy and stick to it. No data storage media is 100% secure, nor will it last forever or be forever readable by future systems. This all plays into the strategy.
 
I have a Thermaltake BlackX HDD dock similar to that one. It has USB2.0 and eSATA connections on it. I can drop 3.5" and 2.5" HDDs into it. I don't use HDDs in that manner for backup, but the dock itself would work just fine for such an interface I guess. It's very handy for working with drives directly. Just keep in mind that typical SATA HDD connections are not designed for multiple reconnection cycles and they will wear out quickly. Then again, if using them for backups, you won't be connecting and disconnecting them over and over again anyway.
 
Ok I'm going to chime in here.

Some background, I come from a former career as an IT Systems Administrator, worked mostly in University level education institutions and for some financial sector clients. While I do not specialize in Storage I have a very firm foundation in it having worked with everything from 1200 seat computer labs to SCSI Raid and up to 3par enterprise storage systems.

My 3 main points are:

1. RAID is not a backup. I cannot stress this enough, I personally have had 3 clients who went against my wishes and relied on RAID 5 as a backup solution, subsequently lost their data and lost their entire business. Working with off the shelf RAID systems had both advantages and disadvantages. One thing that people tout as an advantage is that your likely to get a sequential batch of drives. The only problem with this is that any manufacturing defect is then embedded in all of your drives, and in my experience they tend to fail at roughly the same time. I have personally had a RAID6 fail from manufacturing defects in the drives. I would be much more of a fan of having mixed batches but within the same firmware revision from the factory, usually within 6 months of each others manufacturing date. Drobo BeyondRAID is not raid par say, as the more data you fill the drives with the higher the chance the RAID will not recover from a drive loss. I would not rely on it. RAID 5 and 6 are and have been there for a reason, their the standard for a reason.

2. Enterprise hard drives fail as much as consumer ones. As noted before they in many many cases are literally just re-branded consumer drives, don't get ripped off. In my own experience the failure rate of drives is exactly the same regardless of their branding, look at the MTBF (Mean time before failure) of a drive on the spec sheet and divide it in half if your going to use it as a daily work drive was my own personal rule for budgeting and disaster preparation.

3. Tape is gooood learn to love the tape. I'm a fan of LTO-3, I feel LTO-4 is too big, most people cite this as an advantage. If the client is paying for a permanent backup (I don't backup permanently to tape unless they are, unless its in the contract once I've worked the job the data is their responsibility and a disclaimer is included in that) I feel that 400gb is the most I want on a single tape, if its over that its a large project and I would prefer it to be spread. I make 2 copies of each tape one goes in a safe here and the other goes to an off-site on a different continent. I would offer staggered levels of backup security depending on the client. Offloading to external hard drives is a huge no no, sticksion is where the read head will become attached to the platter by static and when you boot the drive up it will die. External hard drives are not backup.


And slightly OT but some people mentioned it, the Caldigit 4tb HDElements system is something I feel is excellent Value for money because it comes with internal raid card. Thus you end up with 2 usable raids for the price of one.

Drive choices I won't comment on as I've only recently moved back into high speed drives so I'm not au fait with the latest and greatest. Although never touch a maxtor they will die. =)
 
Off site backup?

Off site backup?

Does anyone use or have tried off site backups and storage? Just curious if an off site company would maintain their drives and maybe have a vested interest to use systems that won't fail. I haven't tried it but was just wondering?



Dan
 
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