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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 :)

Backup Drives in the field...

J

Jeff Brown

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Chaps

Looking for some advice on purchasing a couple of backup drives for a macbook pro, on site, offload set up.

I've been considering the GTech Graids which require external power but have also seen the PorAvio dvbox:

http://www.proavio.com/dvbport.html

It's bus powered and comes in sizes up to 200gigg 7200rpm. It's only FW400 and USB though - no FW800.

I'll be working with 2x Red drives plus CF cards and never envisioned filling an entire 320 gig red drive (just in case!). Most likely I'll switch and offload/backup the red drive when it's half full, in which case 200gigg will be fine.

The bus powere seems a good idea, as on occasion I may not have power, though on most occassions I probably will.

Any tips/suggestions?

Thanks in advance

Jeff Brown
 
Hi Jeff,

We're seriuosly considering this one:

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/fusionf2.html

Advantage to these is that they're 2.5" laptoplike drives, thus quite shock resiliant and suitable for transport. And they work in raid 1! My main concern using larger capacity 3.5" drives is that that they're meant for desktop use and not good for transport.
Otherwise I'm not sure I'm in love with the SATA connectors, but that will have to tested :)

Jeff Brown said:
Chaps

Looking for some advice on purchasing a couple of backup drives for a macbook pro, on site, offload set up.

I've been considering the GTech Graids which require external power but have also seen the PorAvio dvbox:

http://www.proavio.com/dvbport.html

It's bus powered and comes in sizes up to 200gigg 7200rpm. It's only FW400 and USB though - no FW800.

I'll be working with 2x Red drives plus CF cards and never envisioned filling an entire 320 gig red drive (just in case!). Most likely I'll switch and offload/backup the red drive when it's half full, in which case 200gigg will be fine.

The bus powere seems a good idea, as on occasion I may not have power, though on most occassions I probably will.

Any tips/suggestions?

Thanks in advance

Jeff Brown
Click to expand...
 
I really like the new Wiebetech RTX trayless enclosure we just got. Its Quad interface which is key, and you just slide in the 3.5 in drives and RAID 1 them. It will be versatile and fast in dealing with a lot of bare metal drives.
 
Jeff Brown said:
I've been considering the GTech Graids which require external power but have also seen the PorAvio dvbox:
Click to expand...

It often seems to me that people pay a lot more for drives that happen to look like their macs. Do you pay extra for videotapes that are the same color as your camera too? Harddrives are now the same as videotapes.


Steen Dongo said:
...And they work in raid 1!
Click to expand...

Remember that Raid 1 is like having half a backup. More often than not we hear the horror stories of people trying to rebuild broken raid sets. Raid is NOT backup. It is very difficult to rebuild when one drive in a raid crashes.

For about the same price you could buy 2 completely separate, less pretty, drives.
 
That LaCie is an interesting product... but other than the rubber bumper, is there anything else that makes it "ruggedized"?

I've used G-Tech stuff - they certainly do "feel" solid, due to the amount of aluminum in the things... though yeah, you're paying a premium for the look, too. But it is possible that a more expensive drive might have more robust connectors / interface board too, no? I've certainly had some el-cheapo externals lose firewire connectivity on me before.

On that note: does anyone know of a product that solves the "firewire 800 connectors suck" problem? I'm constantly knocking them loose without meaning to - especially on a laptop, where they stick straight out of the side in the least convenient way possible.
 
i have been using graids for 3 years now, they are the best drives period and are worth the extra money because they ALWAYS work, they have a faster bus and a more robust power supply.


and eight gig card gets downloaded in 3 minutes.

we have done 5 straight months of several red jobs per week and several weeks we have had out 3 packages at once and we always use the gtech drives. they are a little bitmore money, but you are paying for the performance, i know one of the owners and although i can not recall the exact reasons why, he has explained to me why there drives are so much better than the others.
 
Thanks Guys,

I agree with the RAID is not a backup sentiment which is why I'm going for two separate drives for 2 copies on set. Even my Raid back at the studio will be two cloned raid 5 enclosures with daily sync. Thinking about it I'm unlikely to be doing much shooting in places without any power (or where I can get to power at some point in the day to backup).

So I think I'll go for the Gtechs for now...

Cheers

Jeff
 
Hi Kosmos 3D,

Just posting as you were- glad to hear you have a good opinion of them.

JUst wondering what CF adapter are you using in order to offload in 3 minutes - FW800 / Exprescard?

Cheers


Jeff
 
you must use fw 800 either lexar or sandisk, i think the lexar is prob better, although ihave the sandisk, just because. the lexar are daisy chain-able.

there was a post about this early on from jarred or jim saying you must use the 800fw reader for proper download. express is great too, but i rock the 24" imac not the mbp, see other threads i have written on that for more info.

godd luck
 
Sanho Hyperdrive Space 120GB

Sanho Hyperdrive Space 120GB

i think we can use this ? is it better than Graid
3151_1202494671.jpg


:umm:
 
BASSAM MSSALATIE said:
i think we can use this ? is it better than Graid
3151_1202494671.jpg


:umm:
Click to expand...

Yes, you can use that. And it should work. However... it is a single drive only. So there is no data redundancy, and once it's full, you need another one, or you need to open it up and swap out the bare unprotected 2.5" SATA drive.

Until SolidStore is available :wink: the best option is a laptop in the field with two external (ideally eSATA) drives. Copy all files from CF to both external drives. This gives you full data redundancy.

Some people are using a RAID-1 enclosure and then putting one of the two drives on the shelf and using the remaining drive for further copying and usage - this is using the RAID set in a damaged state, and is not a great idea at all.

My preferred method is to make duplicate copies on separate drives on location, then take one of those two drives out to a storage location for the duration of production as 'insurance'. The second drive gets taken on to the post production chain - where ideally the content is duplicated to a larger NAS storage device for post production.
 
For my purposes, and when I have power, I have been using my MBP + Firmtek 2 bay eSATA enclosure connected to my express card. www.firmtek.com This allows me to get harddrives from Newegg on the cheap and it offers clients the comfort of mirrored data. When I don't have power, I've been using OWC's brand of FW800 7200RPM bus-powered drives.
 
good 4 bay powered solution

good 4 bay powered solution

reposted from another thread: http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=8652&highlight=esata

I have been having very good luck with my Apiotek Esata express/34 card paired with a 4 bay Sans Digital external enclosure. The only caveat to the above is that I have had problems with it working in Mac OS 10.5. I am sure support is just a matter of time. Works seamlessly under 10.4.11. I have it configured as JBOD (just a bunch of disks) with 2x western digital 750gb drives but played around with raid 0 and 5 as well.

http://www.apiotek.com/Global/Produc...d/EC-0003D.htm
http://www.sansdigital.com/mobilestor/ms4um.html

P.S. The problem with 10.5 is in the enclosure not the esata card.
 
Offhollywood said:
I have one of these and I love it. For hardcore run-and-gun when you can't use a laptop and you are shooting CF - buy two.
Click to expand...

Been using it for years now. I'm gonna get a bunch of the shells when they go on clearance soon so I'll have backups. I don't need the fancier new ones which still don't support SATA HDDs.
 
CrewPix.com said:
Remember that Raid 1 is like having half a backup. More often than not we hear the horror stories of people trying to rebuild broken raid sets. Raid is NOT backup. It is very difficult to rebuild when one drive in a raid crashes.
Click to expand...

Proper Raid 1 does not suffer from that problem. Take either drive and plug it into a totally different controller, even a different brand, and your data should be immediately accessable. Raid 3 and 5 can be a pain in that regard, and I have dealt with all of them. The biggest problem with using Raid1 for backup, or any Raid for that matter, is the possibility of operator error. If you delete a file on one, it is gone on both. Drive failure wise you should be covered, unless you drop the entire enclosure onto the floor.
 
I've been using the nexto DI for additional backup as it has a check sum verification in addition to a MBP using esata Seagate drives.

the fusion2 is nice though!

When away from power I use Seagate freeagent USB 2 (160gb) drives for download.
 
We're testing this device right now.... stay tuned for more info. It backs up to two hard drives simultaneously but they aren't RAIDed in any way.

Cheers,

Paul
 
I really believe two non-RAIDed duplicate drives is the best solution. That device from Century is a smart product, I think, although it's not entirely easy to judge from their site exactly what functions it offers.

The other clear flaw with the Century product there is that it's not really designed for field use - it's drive interfaces aren't externalised versions, it's designed to connect to bare drives using SATA or IDE. In it's general deployment your drives would be very vulnerable to potential risk factors (vibration, static, environmental conditions).

A good deployment of that might be to pair it with a 'drive caddy' box that will allow you to use drive-caddies and removable drive trays with it.

That company has some truly unique products.
 
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