I bow to the other info presented in this thread. But I can comment a
little on the hardware.
We picked up both a 2 bay and 4 bay QNAP box at work. Both have been
running very reliably and are surprisingly quite. Both are loaded up
with 4TB drives. The 2 bay unit is configured in Raid1, so it has a
total of 4TB capacity (well, slightly less...). The 4 bay unit is
configured with Raid10, giving us 8TB storage, with another 8TB of hot
fail. The 2 unit device serves as an RSYNC target for the 4 unit device
- purely a back up system. ( later picked up a cheaper more consumer
brand 2 bay QNAP for home use and have enjoyed good success with it as
well.)
With this configuration we are reasonably sure we can recover data
quickly should we ever loose a drive. This was NOT the case when the
hardware RAID 5 controller on the storage server that pre-dated these
boxes decided to crap out. Luckily I was able to get most of our data
from the RAID 5 array before it went for good.
The one thing I would do different with the current arrangement is to
move the 2 unit backup NAS offsite. Now that it has been sync'd
locally, doing RSYNCs over the Interwebs would be a minor
inconvenience. We did some quick math about doing a remote backup of
everything from scratch and arrived at somewhere between 2 to 4 weeks of
solid data transfer, utilizing the available bandwidth we typically
see. So I'd recommend a local RSYNC if possible, then move the backup
device and then set up remote backups to minimize the data transfer hits
for that initial backup.
My thoughts.
Shawn
On 14-05-30 10:20 AM, Bogi wrote:
Hi Joe,
Having a single drive external, while better than nothing is way not as good
as having a 2 bay / drive raid 1 enclosure. in terms of safety i am talking. A
step up in terms of safety would be a 4 drive raid 1 or 5 enclosure. A step up
in all these cases, is having the drives/enclosures as a NAS device sitting in
a different place (safer?) than the backed up computers are, and connected with
the network to them.
Most 2-4 drive enclosures (that come with drives) state the capacity as a raid
0, which can be tricky for the uninitialized. A raid0 configuration will not
increase safety, in fact it will reduce it drastically, so when looking at
populated 2 - 4 drive units, as a rule of thumb, half the capacity for 2 disk
units (to get the capacity in raid 1 terms). the 4 disk raids a bit more
complicated. you can treat them as 2 pairs, this halving the capacity, or as a
4 disk raid 5, in which case you get 75% of the total disk capacities.
For direct connect enclosures, look for e-sata capability, look for usb3 ,
specially if your backed up computer has these ports, you can not go wrong
with these features.
For NAS devices, look for the once that have dual gigabit Ethernet connectors,
they usually perform better speed wise.
If you are going to invest on a 2-4 or more drive external nas unit, think
about augmenting it with UPS (uninterrupted power supply), for capacity, add
up the power rating on the NAS unit. If you want to skimp out on the UPS, just
get a surge protector, it's your data after all.
Here are some pointers:
Single drive, direct connection:
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX45802
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX22324
Dual drive, direct connection:
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX40154
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX43461
4 drive, direct connection:
(do consider the noise of 4 drives spinning near your desktop)
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX30898/Reviews
and of course the drobo:
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX42950
Single drive, NAS:
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX32282
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX33812
Dual drive, NAS:
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX47066
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX49052
4 drive , NAS:
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX39139
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX49654
And you still need to get your drives.
Generally look for NAS / Storage rated drives, Green rated drives tend to
perform poorly in raid environments.
Desktop / workstation rated drives will do fine, specially under low/medium
stress situations.
On May 29, 2014 Thursday 14:22:21 Joe S wrote:
I was reading the reviews of external hard drives. I found a
number had problems with reliability. I don't have experience
with these, but need something for backing up my home computer.
Are there any that can be recommended? I also thought of getting
an enclosure and a regular drive in case I have to replace it
in the future. Probably 1 TB or so.
Thanks for suggestions
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