need help with RAID solution - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

cartmen34 · 10-20-2006, 01:02 PM

Help! I am looking for a secure backup solution. Up until now I've been backing up everything like critical files, ISO images, and must have software to DVDs. It is getting to the point where myself and my wife have WAY to much data to backup to a few DVDs. We need a permanent solution with as much redundancy backup as possible with space to spare.

Solution?
Well, I started looking into backup solutions and a few GIS quickly came up RAID1. This seems ideal, as it writes the exact same data to each drive on the array. If one or even two drives fail, we still have all our data on one drive until the failed units are replaced. So... I know I want RAID1. How much space? Well I'm thinking at least 3 identical 500GB drives. 2 for the redundancy, and 500GB just because I want plenty of space. I'm not worried that much about speed. I just need it to be redundant in case of a hardware failure.

Another GIS and I quickly realized that I need the RAID array to be controlled by hardware not software. If the OS fails I do not want to have to re-build my array. Any suggestions on which hardware controller to use?

I'd also like the array to be accessible by everybody at any time. I don't want to put the array in my desktop because I'm constantly modifying and tinkering with it and I don't want to be in the middle of replacing my CPU when my wife needs access to some of her files. So perhaps I should built up seperate computer and plop it on my network? Maybe a NAS? How exactly do I administer a NAS?

Now a little about me. I'm a software guy, not hardware. As you may have sumised, I know enough to build my gaming machine and tweak XP Pro exactly as I like it, but that's about it. I don't konw Unix or Linux, and don't really want to take the time to learn it. (Well, at least not now. I'll probably look into it later.) If I need to build another box to accomplish this I'd like to stick with XP pro for now. I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty, and don't mind spending a little extra time to get exactly what I need, but I also don't want to spend weeks of my personal time getting it up and running.

Any suggestions? Thanks for all your help guys!

Etarip · 10-20-2006, 02:41 PM

First thing:
RAID is not backup! RAID provides redundancy meaning if a drive fails things keep working. RAID doesn't protect from a controller failure, software problems, or if someone deletes the files.

What I've seen work to good effect is using USB drives, and just periodically copying over everything. You can rotate drives for better security

Now then, from the description of your situtation it looks like a NAS is ideal. You could make one yourself or buy a box like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822106001
Administration is through a web browser, it'll share files to all your computers, and it has built in raid support. Then all you have to do is regularly back up the NAS to a USB drive that you can put in a secure place.

Dilbert1234567 · 10-20-2006, 07:06 PM

RAID 5 will give you the speed of n-1 drives, and the redundancy of 1 drive
RAID 6 will give you the speed of n-2 drives, and the redundancy of 2 drives
RAID 0 will give you the speed of n drives, and the redundancy of 0 drives
RAID 1 will give you the read speed of n drives the write speed of 1, and the redundancy of n-1 drive

as for controllers, 3ware is great, don’t forget about the bus speed you place it on, PCI cant handle much speed, so don’t expect to get much out of a normal PCI card, you need to either use PCI-e or PCI-X.

micah67 · 10-21-2006, 07:05 PM

For around $400ish you could bet a 2-bay sata enclosure and a couple of large drives. I think D-link has one that you can set up the drives as a mirror (or striped but I'd recommend mirror). Hook it up to your network and auto-backup to it.

cartmen34 · 10-23-2006, 06:15 AM

thanks Etarip, I had looked on newegg and I'd noticed the product you linked to as something that might work. Although I don't think that backing up to USB is something that would be economical, unless you know somebody who makes a several hundred gig USB drive for cheap! =) I see your point about RAID not being backup, but I'm mainly looking for the redundancy as a form of backup in case of a hardware failure. I don't want to loose the files permanently just because the hardware fails. If I don't need the file(s) anymore, then I'm not worried about them getting deleted. I just need to make sure that some of the stuff I'm constantly working with isn't lost because of a hardware failure.

Thanks for the advice on the controlles dilbert. I'll look into them!

Thanks for the input micah. I looked at the device you mention on newegg but it got rather severe mixed reviews, so I decided to avoid it.

Dilbert1234567 · 10-23-2006, 06:32 AM

so you just need a backup, not data redundancy. get a second drive, and run a nightly incremental backup to it, windows (xp and maybe 2000) have a built in backup wizard, it will make a running backup of what ever you want, each night it will look for changes and copy the new files only, the first night will take a few hours, but after that it will go nice and quick usually.

cyrnel · 10-23-2006, 07:11 AM

Aye. Mirroring is more about availability than security. You want a backup. Besides, with a backup you can keep several generations or even backups of several drives. Add a second if you want rotation or an offsite (safety deposit?) copy. The process is easy and there's free smart software for any platform.

Don't worry about USB cost. the price of enclosures or even drives in enclosures is dropped like crazy. Just last week Staples had a 320GB WD drive in a USB enclosure for $89. Keep an eye on fatwallet et al for similar stuff.

micah67 · 10-23-2006, 09:13 AM

This is what one of my friends runs: http://www.netgear.com/Products/Stor...age/SC101.aspx

It's been rock-solid and only $100 (before hard drives).

cartmen34 · 10-23-2006, 12:09 PM

thanks micah, but it would appear that your friend is one of the lucky ones:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Custra...82E16833122073

Dilbert. I don't want to get a second drive and have my machine back it up. As I stated earlier, I am mucking with the hardware on my desktop machine on a fairly regular basis and I don't want my wife to not have access to her files because I've got my machine tore into pieces.

Thanks for the input everybody!

bendsley · 10-26-2006, 09:53 AM

Depending on the size you're looking for, you might look at a ReadyNAS from Infrant. You can choose several configurations of backup solutions there. I bought a rack mount unit from there yesterday for server image backups. It seems to work pretty well. If you're really looking for good backup solutions, mirrored RAID 5 arrays are a good choice, or disk to disk to tape backup.

Here are work, we're doing the disk to disk at night and then disk to tape during the day.

www.infrant.com

10-20-2006, 01:02 PM	#1 (permalink)
cartmen34 Psycho Location: the hills of aquafina.	need help with RAID solution Help! I am looking for a secure backup solution. Up until now I've been backing up everything like critical files, ISO images, and must have software to DVDs. It is getting to the point where myself and my wife have WAY to much data to backup to a few DVDs. We need a permanent solution with as much redundancy backup as possible with space to spare. Solution? Well, I started looking into backup solutions and a few GIS quickly came up RAID1. This seems ideal, as it writes the exact same data to each drive on the array. If one or even two drives fail, we still have all our data on one drive until the failed units are replaced. So... I know I want RAID1. How much space? Well I'm thinking at least 3 identical 500GB drives. 2 for the redundancy, and 500GB just because I want plenty of space. I'm not worried that much about speed. I just need it to be redundant in case of a hardware failure. Another GIS and I quickly realized that I need the RAID array to be controlled by hardware not software. If the OS fails I do not want to have to re-build my array. Any suggestions on which hardware controller to use? I'd also like the array to be accessible by everybody at any time. I don't want to put the array in my desktop because I'm constantly modifying and tinkering with it and I don't want to be in the middle of replacing my CPU when my wife needs access to some of her files. So perhaps I should built up seperate computer and plop it on my network? Maybe a NAS? How exactly do I administer a NAS? Now a little about me. I'm a software guy, not hardware. As you may have sumised, I know enough to build my gaming machine and tweak XP Pro exactly as I like it, but that's about it. I don't konw Unix or Linux, and don't really want to take the time to learn it. (Well, at least not now. I'll probably look into it later.) If I need to build another box to accomplish this I'd like to stick with XP pro for now. I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty, and don't mind spending a little extra time to get exactly what I need, but I also don't want to spend weeks of my personal time getting it up and running. Any suggestions? Thanks for all your help guys! __________________ "The problem with quick and dirty, as some people have said, is that the dirty remains long after the quick has been forgotten" - Steve McConnell Last edited by cartmen34; 10-20-2006 at 01:05 PM..

10-20-2006, 07:06 PM	#3 (permalink)
Dilbert1234567 Devils Cabana Boy Location: Central Coast CA	RAID 5 will give you the speed of n-1 drives, and the redundancy of 1 drive RAID 6 will give you the speed of n-2 drives, and the redundancy of 2 drives RAID 0 will give you the speed of n drives, and the redundancy of 0 drives RAID 1 will give you the read speed of n drives the write speed of 1, and the redundancy of n-1 drive as for controllers, 3ware is great, don’t forget about the bus speed you place it on, PCI cant handle much speed, so don’t expect to get much out of a normal PCI card, you need to either use PCI-e or PCI-X. __________________ Donate Blood! "Love is not finding the perfect person, but learning to see an imperfect person perfectly." -Sam Keen

10-21-2006, 07:05 PM	#4 (permalink)
micah67 Thor Location: 33:08:12N 117:10:23W	For around $400ish you could bet a 2-bay sata enclosure and a couple of large drives. I think D-link has one that you can set up the drives as a mirror (or striped but I'd recommend mirror). Hook it up to your network and auto-backup to it. __________________ ~micah

10-23-2006, 06:15 AM	#5 (permalink)
cartmen34 Psycho Location: the hills of aquafina.	thanks Etarip, I had looked on newegg and I'd noticed the product you linked to as something that might work. Although I don't think that backing up to USB is something that would be economical, unless you know somebody who makes a several hundred gig USB drive for cheap! =) I see your point about RAID not being backup, but I'm mainly looking for the redundancy as a form of backup in case of a hardware failure. I don't want to loose the files permanently just because the hardware fails. If I don't need the file(s) anymore, then I'm not worried about them getting deleted. I just need to make sure that some of the stuff I'm constantly working with isn't lost because of a hardware failure. Thanks for the advice on the controlles dilbert. I'll look into them! Thanks for the input micah. I looked at the device you mention on newegg but it got rather severe mixed reviews, so I decided to avoid it. __________________ "The problem with quick and dirty, as some people have said, is that the dirty remains long after the quick has been forgotten" - Steve McConnell

10-23-2006, 06:32 AM	#6 (permalink)
Dilbert1234567 Devils Cabana Boy Location: Central Coast CA	so you just need a backup, not data redundancy. get a second drive, and run a nightly incremental backup to it, windows (xp and maybe 2000) have a built in backup wizard, it will make a running backup of what ever you want, each night it will look for changes and copy the new files only, the first night will take a few hours, but after that it will go nice and quick usually. __________________ Donate Blood! "Love is not finding the perfect person, but learning to see an imperfect person perfectly." -Sam Keen

10-20-2006, 02:41 PM	#2 (permalink)
Etarip Tilted	First thing: RAID is not backup! RAID provides redundancy meaning if a drive fails things keep working. RAID doesn't protect from a controller failure, software problems, or if someone deletes the files. What I've seen work to good effect is using USB drives, and just periodically copying over everything. You can rotate drives for better security Now then, from the description of your situtation it looks like a NAS is ideal. You could make one yourself or buy a box like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822106001 Administration is through a web browser, it'll share files to all your computers, and it has built in raid support. Then all you have to do is regularly back up the NAS to a USB drive that you can put in a secure place.

10-23-2006, 07:11 AM	#7 (permalink)
cyrnel Adequate Location: In my angry-dome.	Aye. Mirroring is more about availability than security. You want a backup. Besides, with a backup you can keep several generations or even backups of several drives. Add a second if you want rotation or an offsite (safety deposit?) copy. The process is easy and there's free smart software for any platform. Don't worry about USB cost. the price of enclosures or even drives in enclosures is dropped like crazy. Just last week Staples had a 320GB WD drive in a USB enclosure for $89. Keep an eye on fatwallet et al for similar stuff. __________________ There are a vast number of people who are uninformed and heavily propagandized, but fundamentally decent. The propaganda that inundates them is effective when unchallenged, but much of it goes only skin deep. If they can be brought to raise questions and apply their decent instincts and basic intelligence, many people quickly escape the confines of the doctrinal system and are willing to do something to help others who are really suffering and oppressed." -Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, p. 195

10-23-2006, 09:13 AM	#8 (permalink)
micah67 Thor Location: 33:08:12N 117:10:23W	This is what one of my friends runs: http://www.netgear.com/Products/Stor...age/SC101.aspx It's been rock-solid and only $100 (before hard drives). __________________ ~micah

10-23-2006, 12:09 PM	#9 (permalink)
cartmen34 Psycho Location: the hills of aquafina.	thanks micah, but it would appear that your friend is one of the lucky ones: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Custra...82E16833122073 Dilbert. I don't want to get a second drive and have my machine back it up. As I stated earlier, I am mucking with the hardware on my desktop machine on a fairly regular basis and I don't want my wife to not have access to her files because I've got my machine tore into pieces. Thanks for the input everybody! __________________ "The problem with quick and dirty, as some people have said, is that the dirty remains long after the quick has been forgotten" - Steve McConnell

10-26-2006, 09:53 AM	#10 (permalink)
bendsley Professional Loafer Location: texas	Depending on the size you're looking for, you might look at a ReadyNAS from Infrant. You can choose several configurations of backup solutions there. I bought a rack mount unit from there yesterday for server image backups. It seems to work pretty well. If you're really looking for good backup solutions, mirrored RAID 5 arrays are a good choice, or disk to disk to tape backup. Here are work, we're doing the disk to disk at night and then disk to tape during the day. www.infrant.com __________________ "You hear the one about the fella who died, went to the pearly gates? St. Peter let him in. Sees a guy in a suit making a closing argument. Says, "Who's that?" St. Peter says, "Oh, that's God. Thinks he's Denny Crane."