Quantcast

external enclosure for multiple drives

narlus

narlus

Eastcoast Softcore
Staff member
Nov 7, 2001
24,658
65
behind the viewfinder
hey, remember me? i'm the idiot who has been hemming and hawing about a backup system for his photos for the last two years w/o doing much about it.

ok...i decided i do NOT need RAID...the biggest drawback (aside from cost) is that it doesn't appear to be expandable, at least very easily.

this is basically what i want to do:

keep my external drives as primary storage
use some sort of external case to store bare drives to create backups of the externals (hot-swappable would be nice)
take the drives out and bring 'em to work as a secure backup copy

seems pretty basic, right?

so do i go w/ something like this?
http://www.mwave.com/mwave/skusearch_v3.asp?scriteria=AA70900

or more basic, like this?
http://www.newertech.com/products/voyagers2.php


or do i just go w/ a NAS box and use it as JBOD and not RAID, like this:
http://www.readynas.com/?cat=3

the build quality of the Kingwin seems a bit suspect, and i really don't want to have to do a lot of fooling around w/ drivers and all that other bull****...i just want a plug and play solution.

my mobo has an eSATA port, but do i need to somehow check to see if AHCI is enabled in my BIOS in order to use that connection? i'd rather take advantage of eSATA vs USB if possible.


any ideas?
 
binary visions

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,161
1,261
NC
narlus, I know it's not what you're asking, but I just got onboard with Backblaze, one of these unlimited-storage-for-$5/month places.

I had several conversations with one of the company founders and they seem like really excellent, technical guys so I made the jump.

I've received superb and responsive customer support, and they have a USB drive recovery option if you're ever in that situation - they'll ship you a USB drive with your data on it. It costs like $180 but considering you get the drive with it, you're basically spending $100 for a big data recovery.

The initial upload, of course, took like 30 days. But it keeps up well, it's cheap, and it's a lot more safe than fooling around dragging drives from place to place. Plus it's encrypted if you want it to be (secure transfers always, but you can encrypt your remote data).

What pushed me to do it was having my primary storage drive die on me. I realized that my backup was a week old and I would have lost photos if I didn't catch it and get all the data off it. Plus, we went away for 10 days and - who knows what happens to your house while you're gone? Water pipes burst? Smoke damage from a fire - even if the fire doesn't touch you?
 
narlus

narlus

Eastcoast Softcore
Staff member
Nov 7, 2001
24,658
65
behind the viewfinder
fraser, what capacity is yr QNAP? just looking @ the photos I've gotten, i've got at least 2.5TB of data to backup....

i dont NEED a NAS box, but i am thinking that it could be a decent choice solely for build quality, support, and i am toying w/ the idea of just taking the 'cream of the crop' shots and having them always on a drive (which does get me to the root of the issue...deletion of average/similar shots...)

bv, i am thinking that i would cook through my bandwidth allotment pretty quickly in trying to upload all my data...

edit - also, my bare drive/enclosure system would protect me from fire/water damage at the house, since i plan on storing the backup HDDs in my office.
 
binary visions

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,161
1,261
NC
You have limited bandwidth per month? :think:

My point was that sure, manual transfer of off-site storage is good, but in my case, my off-site storage was a week or so old and I had since transferred a bunch of Christmas photos to my computer. Those had not made it off-site yet. With this system, my files are in a constant process of being backed up.

There's also a pretty nice file fingerprinting hash that prevents duplicate files from having to be uploaded twice, so if I have copies it just ignores the local copy and duplicates it on the server.

Anyway, I know it's not exactly what you were looking for but I finally came to grips with the fact that, for me, a manual process often suffers from, say, a long day or a busy life or something that prevents it from being religiously kept up.
 
syadasti

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
They sometimes run specials on these Acer WHS, though they aren't too expensive to begin with http://www.provantage.com/acer-pg-t170w-007~7ACEN0M1.htm

You can do folder mirroring/replication across drives and they don't have to match or all be internal either like most RAID setups.

The QNAP is nice but its going to be a bit more expensive.

Its not as good but you could also mirror folders across drives on the same computer + a networked computer with script and task scheduler or a third party program.
 
Transcend

Transcend

My Nuts Are Flat
Apr 18, 2002
18,040
3
Towing the party line.
I had a 209 pro II with 2 x 1TB drives in it. I've since moved up to a TS 419P with 4 2tb drives.

I have all of my local photo backups on it, as well as my entire movie and audio collection, and a small collection of essential files. I also have all of my current season's photos (and most of last) on a 1tb backup drive that travels with me.
 
narlus

narlus

Eastcoast Softcore
Staff member
Nov 7, 2001
24,658
65
behind the viewfinder
i ended up w/ the Thermaltake eSATA dock, and a sh1tload of HDDs. $800 later, i should have total redundancy and new capacity.

is there anything i need to know about my MoBo, AHCI, and getting the eSATA to work properly?
 
syadasti

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
narlus said:
i ended up w/ the Thermaltake eSATA dock, and a sh1tload of HDDs. $800 later, i should have total redundancy and new capacity.

is there anything i need to know about my MoBo, AHCI, and getting the eSATA to work properly?
Click to expand...
You need the driver for your eSATA controller installed for hot-swap capability to work correctly assuming you have a controller that supports its it. Don't forget to eject/unmount the HDD before disconnection.
 
narlus

narlus

Eastcoast Softcore
Staff member
Nov 7, 2001
24,658
65
behind the viewfinder
SkaredShtles said:
I'm starting to think narlus shouldn't be allowed anywhere NEAR a computer. :rofl:
Click to expand...
digging into computer settings/stuff is among the least favorite activities i can think of. aside from troubleshooting computer problems. that's the absolute worst.



i should probably just use a mac, but i'm a cheap bastard.
 
Dartman

Dartman

Old Bastard Mike
Feb 26, 2003
3,911
0
Richmond, VA
binary visions said:
narlus, I know it's not what you're asking, but I just got onboard with Backblaze, one of these unlimited-storage-for-$5/month places.

I had several conversations with one of the company founders and they seem like really excellent, technical guys so I made the jump.

I've received superb and responsive customer support, and they have a USB drive recovery option if you're ever in that situation - they'll ship you a USB drive with your data on it. It costs like $180 but considering you get the drive with it, you're basically spending $100 for a big data recovery.

The initial upload, of course, took like 30 days. But it keeps up well, it's cheap, and it's a lot more safe than fooling around dragging drives from place to place. Plus it's encrypted if you want it to be (secure transfers always, but you can encrypt your remote data).

What pushed me to do it was having my primary storage drive die on me. I realized that my backup was a week old and I would have lost photos if I didn't catch it and get all the data off it. Plus, we went away for 10 days and - who knows what happens to your house while you're gone? Water pipes burst? Smoke damage from a fire - even if the fire doesn't touch you?
Click to expand...
Backblaze just failed me. Lost my harddrive and after months of uploading there was only about 8Gb of useless data on the backblaze server for my computer.

I've cancelled my subscription and requested a refund. I hope you have a better experience.

I'm going back to the good old Acronis images and multiple external harddrives for my backups.
 
binary visions

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,161
1,261
NC
Huh. Weird, I verify mine regularly - the control panel gives size estimates locally on the computer, and then I log into the control panel online to ensure that it appears my data is intact. I don't check every file of course, but I sample a bunch of recent stuff to make sure it's good.

Sucks, dude. Sorry about it :(
 
Dartman

Dartman

Old Bastard Mike
Feb 26, 2003
3,911
0
Richmond, VA
binary visions said:
Huh. Weird, I verify mine regularly - the control panel gives size estimates locally on the computer, and then I log into the control panel online to ensure that it appears my data is intact. I don't check every file of course, but I sample a bunch of recent stuff to make sure it's good.

Sucks, dude. Sorry about it :(
Click to expand...
No worries man. Acronis saved the day once again.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom