Storage and backups. NAS drives?

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I (think I'm) looking for something like 4 TB of storage from 3 x 2TB drives in an arrangement where you lose nothing if one fails.

I want it to sit on the Wifi network and get auto-backed up nightly.

I may have the wrong idea though.
And what software would manage it. Does it come in a bundle?

Any recommendations on where to look or what for?

I'm not looking here for offsite storage, or portablility.
As far as I know, cloud storage winds up the costs and from what I've used, it's slooow.

I've got a few odd USB drives plugged into a pc at the moment, not into the router. Don't know how.../if... to do that.

TIA
 
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Chris have Synology here for similar, plus other uses.

Whatever you do avoid WiFi connection. Remember you are backing up you valuable data. WiFi is not 100% reliable and also slower than a wired connection.
 
I would seriously suggest that you use a Raid1 or Raid5 configuration.

With R1 you can use 2 x 2TB HDs, and that gives you 1TB of storage pace.
If one HD fails, you still have the data on the other HD, and then you need to replace the said HD with the exact same size drive and rebuild the raid array.

With R5 you can use 3 x 2TB HDs, and that will give you 3.6TB of storage space.
Again if 1 HD fails, you just replace with the same size etc.

Also, forget about WiFi for this, use ethernet cables if you are wanting to back up your system/user data.
 
Raid-1 What is the point??

Raid-1 simply holds the same data on two drives. For that two separate USB drives might be a better idea. At least that way you get the same as Raid-1 but with the added advantage of two individual sets of hardware.
 
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Raid-1 What is the point??

Raid-1 simply holds the same data on two drives. For that two separate USB drives might be a better idea. At least that way you get the same as Raid-1 but with the added advantage of two individual sets of hardware.

So what you are saying is to use 2 individual drives; well that is the easiest thing to do, but what happens when one of them goes down.

That's if you mean not to use Raid 1
 
Raid1, Raid 5, or if it is supported, RaidX is the way to go. Do not attempt to use WiFi, it will be far too slow, and, in the event of a dropout could corrupt data. Use ethernet, with gigabit switches, if your PC and NAS have gigabit LAN connections.
 
2 x 2TB giving 1Tb doesn't sound very good!? :eek:
I've heard of things like 4 TB of storage from 3 x 2TB from a couple of sources, so what's the deal?
As I said I want about 4TB working. Using 2 x 8TB drives sounds a bit much. :confused:

There are 2 laptops in the house which would be wifi connected.,
Wouldn't incremental backups would be feasible over wifi?

I'd seen these..:
http://www.maplin.co.uk/4tb-buffalo-linkstation-pro-duo-636689
and assumed I'd get a little under 2TB from each.
 
Bobby what I was trying to say was that Raid-1 is two drives with mirror images so using two separate drives would give better protection in as far as a Raid-1 enclosure relies on common hardware but two separate drives do not. If one drive goes down you have the complete data on the other. Exactly same as Raid-1. Raid-1 has no ability to recover data such as Raid-5 does.

Chris you would be better using say 3 3TB drives configured as Raid-5. This would give you 4TB of effective usable storage. The remaining spacer is used to enable the storage of the data across the 3 drives so that if one drive goes down the system can reconstruct the missing data and replace it onto the replacement drive.

If you had say 4 2TB drives then you would have around 6TB of data storage.

Site with good space calculator for Raid Arrays is http://www.raid-calculator.com/Default.aspx

The Maplin box is basically two drives which you can configure 2 ways Raid-0 or Raid-1.

With Raid-1 identical data stored on the two drives so 2 2TB drives would enable you to store 2TB of data. One drive fails you have data on the other since they are mirror images of each other.

With Raid-0 Separate data is stored onto each disk so if one drive goes down data will be lost but the box will store almost 4TB in total.
 
I (think I'm) looking for something like 4 TB of storage from 3 x 2TB drives in an arrangement where you lose nothing if one fails.
Hi Chris,
What are you backing up to need 4Tb, a music or video collection or home movies?
I want it to sit on the Wifi network and get auto-backed up nightly.
As others have said not a good idea


I'm not looking here for offsite storage, or portablility.
As far as I know, cloud storage winds up the costs and from what I've used, it's slooow.
I know you are not comfortable with Cloud Backup but in reality that is the way everything is going in the future. There are numerous companies but one that springs to mind is Livedrive http://www.livedrive.com/ForHome/#CompareProducts For the basic Backup, this is only £3 per month and for £36 per year you have unlimited backup, (a third of the price of a 2Tb USB hard drive which will probably not last three years). You simply install a client on one PC and it will backup in the background without intervention. I notice from your signature that you live in London so assume you have a full 8Mb or greater download and 844Kb upload speed. The initial upload will obviously take some time but after that it only backs up new and changed files. If you have a Hotmail account you automatically get 7Gb free Skydrive which you could use for essential precious files like family photos.

I've got a few odd USB drives plugged into a pc at the moment, not into the router. Don't know how.../if... to do that.
Any recommendations on where to look or what for?
Without spending a lot on a NAS enclosure like Qnap, (the cheaper versions are not very reliable, and beware Buffalo as they use a proprietary filing system which is nearly impossible to rebuild and recover the data on a windows PC) the alternative is to have several external 1 or 2Tb hard drives and back up to each of them in turn. USB 2.0 is OK, USB 3.0 is better but eSata is probably as fast and cheaper.
I may have the wrong idea though.
And what software would manage it. Does it come in a bundle?
There are loads of free backup utilities on the internet but Cobian backup comes to mind. It does incremental backups and you can have several profiles so that Monday you backup to disk 1 Wednesday you can backup to disk 2 and Friday to disk 3 etc. Another reliable free option is AutoVer. This monitors folders in real-time and provides incremental backup. Alternatively use windows SyncToy or windows built in XCopy or Robocopy (if you have windows 7) and a scheduled task . I can help with a backup script but there are lots of tutorial on the internet.
The only problem with large hard drives is the reliability. It seems the larger capacity they get the shorter lifespan they have. I run my own IT support company and I have replaced numerous 1 and 2Tb hard drives for customers who have had them for between 6months and 1year. It also doesn't matter what manufacturer of disk, they all suffer from the same issue unless you pay top dollar for Server Hard drives.
I have 8 Tb of storage in a Windows 7 Home server I built and use Drive Bender for redundancy across the 4 hard drives. If one (or two) hard drives fail the data is spread across the remaining two or three drives and may be recovered. This is not Raid in the true sense but based on Microsoft's original Drive Extender technology built into Home Server. I then backup all my documents to one 1Tb hard drive, all my Photos to another 2Tb HDD and then backup everything again to the cloud as full belt and braces. Ripped DVDs and downloaded films I backup directly to the cloud. If I lose them I already have the DVD or can download it again.
Hope this helps
Fozzie
 
I (think I'm) looking for something like 4 TB of storage from 3 x 2TB drives in an arrangement where you lose nothing if one fails.
A RAID or similar system is not appropriate as a backup.
Yes - if one drive (perhaps two) fails, and is then replaced, it can be rebuilt from the remaining ones.

However:
A set of drives purchased at the same time are likely to fail at the same time as well - a popular failure moment is when a recently replaced drive is being rebuilt.
A drive rack powered 24/7 will use non-trivial amounts of electricity - the cost could easily be £100 or more per year.
Most (all) drive backup systems designed for home or small office use will only have a single power supply. When that fails, data loss is virtually inevitable.
No disk based system will protect against data corruption caused by viruses, user error and similar.
No disk based system will protect against the device being stolen. Or fire, floods, pint of beer spilled into the top of it, etc.
 
Been away.
Thanks all

It's photographs mostly, but multiple combined large ones so a single picture can wind up using dozens of GB.

So it's
- simple,
- reliable,
- best value,
- fast;
..pick any two !!

Separate standalone hard drives aren't a bad compromise then, probably with split backup routines, and some stuff in the cloud..

Speed remains a concern.

"844Kb upload speed" -lets assume it is. Is that bits or bytes?
1TB would take
1x10^12 / 844 x 10^3 is ~ fourteen days, if it's Bytes :( :(

If I have say two USB drives, it seems to take an awfully long time to transfer files from one to another. Say a 64GB SD card full. What should I get (bytes/sec)?

How would the "backup" drive appear, to a laptop say? Is is just plugged into a desktop on a USB or, a router?
Is it just a question of making the hard drive "shared" so the laptop can see it?

TIA
 
Separate standalone hard drives aren't a bad compromise then, probably with split backup routines, and some stuff in the cloud..

Speed remains a concern.

"844Kb upload speed" -lets assume it is. Is that bits or bytes?
1TB would take
1x10^12 / 844 x 10^3 is ~ fourteen days, if it's Bytes :( :(
This is a whole subject in itself. you can find more information about broadband speeds here http://broadband.about.com/od/speedissues/a/Broadband-Internet-Speeds-Explained.htm
If I have say two USB drives, it seems to take an awfully long time to transfer files from one to another. Say a 64GB SD card full. What should I get (bytes/sec)?
Again I do not take credit for the extract below but it explains what factors affect transfer speeds to and from external USB Devices. The lesson to learn is that either USB 3.0 or esata are the way forward. Both USB 3.0 and eSATA PCIE cards are cheap to buy and will give you better transfer speeds than USB 2.0

"Typical hi-speed USB hard drives can be written to at rates around 25–30 MB/s, and read from at rates of 30–42 MB/s, according to routine testing done by CNet.[62] This is 70% of the total bandwidth available. According to a USB-IF chairman, "at least 10 to 15 percent of the stated peak 60 MB/s (480 Mbit/s) of Hi-Speed USB goes to overhead — the communication protocol between the card and the peripheral. Overhead is a component of all connectivity standards." For isochronous devices like audio streams, the bandwidth is constant, and reserved exclusively for a given device. The bus bandwidth therefore only has an effect on the number of channels that can be sent at a time, not the "speed" or latency of the transmission.

USB supports the following signaling rates: The terms speed and bandwidth are used interchangeably. "high-" is alternatively written as "hi-".

A low-speed rate of 1.5 Mbit/s (~183kB/s) is defined by USB 1.0. It is very similar to full-bandwidth operation except each bit takes 8 times as long to transmit. It is intended primarily to save cost in low-bandwidth human interface devices (HID) such as keyboards, mice, and joysticks. The full-speed rate of 12 Mbit/s (~1.43 MB/s) is the basic USB data rate defined by USB 1.1. All USB hubs support full-bandwidth.

A high-speed (USB 2.0) rate of 480 Mbit/s (~57 MB/s) was introduced in 2001. All hi-speed devices are capable of falling back to full-bandwidth operation if necessary; i.e. they are backward compatible with USB 1.1. Connectors are identical for USB 2.0 and USB 1.x.

A SuperSpeed (USB 3.0) rate of 4800 Mbit/s (~572 MB/s). The written USB 3.0 specification was released by Intel and partners in August 2008. The first USB 3 controller chips were sampled by NEC May 2009[55] and products using the 3.0 specification arrived beginning in January 2010.[56] USB 3.0 connectors are generally backwards compatible, but include new wiring and full duplex operation.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Serial_Bus"


Again the Copy command withing Windows explorer shell is not the most efficient way of transferring data. Both Xcopy and Robocopy which run at the command line level offer much faster transfer rates than Copy and Paste in windows explorer.
How would the "backup" drive appear, to a laptop say? Is is just plugged into a desktop on a USB or, a router?
Is it just a question of making the hard drive "shared" so the laptop can see it?
Not sure what you are asking here. Are you referring to Cloud storage or a connected USB drive? In cloud storage generally you see another location in Network Places, however the backup software really takes care of the backup and you don't need to do anything other than save new files in the location monitored by the backup client.
I would not connect an external hard drive to the router. Some have this functionality but transfer speeds again are fairly poor. If you want to backup a laptop you need to attach the external hard drives to the PC which ideally needs to be left on to allow the bacvkup to the cloud to continue. As you suggest you create a sher on the attached Hard drive that may be seen from the laptop. You either save directly to the share or runs some local backup software that transfers files from one to the other. Again this will be very slow over a wifi link so a wired connection is a must.

Fozzie
 
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