[Francis]

I was thinking about getting this for my home setup. It's a one terabyte network storage drive that comprises 4 250 gig drives, and I guess it can be set up as one single volume or as a 2 drive RAID. I have a couple of external USB drives right now and use Backupator to automate backups of my freelance stuff, but it would be nice to be able to have a mirrored copy of the entire contents.

http://reviews.cnet.com/Buffalo_TeraStation_NAS/4505-3382_7-31299300-2.html?tag=sub

Anyone have any experience with this drive, or maybe better alternatives?

thanks guys..
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Francis Tsai
TeamGT Studios

[B0b]

i wouldn't trust RAID 0 for backup so your 1TB (4x250) wouldn't do u any good at all..

RAID 1 for backup where your 1TB (4x250) would be split into pairs of 250's giving u in effect 500 rundancy 2x250 x 2, if a drive fails u take out the damaged drive and replace with another 250 and the system rebuilds itself but for a USB system that costs $700+

i'd personally save your cash - get a Firewire PCI card - $3.95 and buy yourself a nice external firewire chasis - $37.95 and put a 500GB Seagate in it - $289.00

total for the above $341.89 and with the firewire connection you're looking 400mbs (50MB/Sec Sustained) rather than burst transfer with USB (12MB/sec Burst - 4-5MB/Sec Sustained) / USB2 (55MB/Sec Burst - 18MB/Sec Sustained)

[eyewoo]

My feeling... the safest backup is burning to DVD. The problem for me with having huge storage capabilities is that I never get around to actually burning the back-up disks... so I've found the best system involves smaller HDs (80 or 100 gig drives) which force me to get the stuff off them onto DVD's... two DVD's for each burn. One I keep here and one is stored off-site. That way I sleep well at night.

(on a different but related note... I sign the two DVDs for each backup session... perhaps one day they will hold some value for my heirs ... )
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[gLitterbug]

Personally I wouldn't trust DVD's all that much either, especially when it comes to long-time storage. A friend burns tons and heaps of DVDs and some of them are already invalid after a short time now. Given those are cheap ones, but I wonder just how much better the more expensive ones really are.

[eyewoo]

Right... these are backups that I do. Using cheap DVDs for backups is not a good idea.
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[B0b]

i'm sorry to say Phil, but even the branded DVD's are sposed to only have a shelf life of 5 years...

i use DVD's for backup but because of the nature of my work, i'm using most of the files again every couple of months for the next project so i burn fresh disks all the time.. the only worry i have at the moment is my photo library, i'm only 2.4 years into the first DVD backup (hopefully the time the 5 years comes round we'll be onto the next technology and i'll put them onto that)

so after that they'll just be a disk with your signature on it

[eyewoo]

Live and learn, eh...

Does that mean that films purchased on DVD will only last for 5 or so years?
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[balistic]

Using DVDs for backup is problematic because it requires action on the part of the user. It's too easy to put off doing it.

I have a pretty safe, cheap HDD-based backup solution that I'd encourage anyone to try. I have two external hard drives, and a little piece of freeware that does a simple copy across from my system drive to an external drive. One of the backup drives stays in my apartment, the other is a small notebook drive that stays at my office, in case my apartment is robbed or the place burns down. I bring the off-site drive home about once a month to update it. The drive at home gets updated more frequently, usually once every couple weeks.

Short of Atlanta getting nuked, my data is very safe, and my effort is minimal. All I have to do is click the backup script and leave the computer alone for 20-30 minutes.

The other advantage to backing up with hard discs is that you know if one of them is failing. When you burn a DVD, you tend to leave it on the shelf until you need to restore files from it. The problem with that way of doing it is that a DVD can degrade and become unreadable, and you'll be completely in the dark about it until you need the data most. If one of my drives dies, all I have to do is buy another. I've lost no data.

Total cost is about $200, depending on how much storage you need (I only have about 50-60 gigs of critical stuff).

Much easier and faster than DVDs.
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brian.prince|light.comp.paint

[balistic]

[B0b]

i keep my backups in 2 of these -


i've recently been donated a large set of 15,000RPM 18GB SCSI HDD and just in the middle of aquiring a hot swap cage for them so i can backup on to them

[Tzan]

Lucky for me Autocad files dont take up as much room as art.
I copy everthing I touched at the end of each day onto a CDRW.
Been thinking about getting an external drive though, so maybe this thread will poke me in that direction. Or at least copy it to my other machine on the network.

[wasssup]

Never have any experience with raid system. I've been using 2 ext. hard drives as backup for a while, a usb Seagate 400g and a firewire Formac 500g, both are 7200rpm. They work fine for me so far, fast and stable. I backup my files pretty much the same way as balistic does, just I need more space for video files and uncompressed samplings.

DVDs hate me, they always do. Not just the bargain ones, some of the more expensive ones like Sony refused to work for me too.

[Francis]

Yeah I have been using the two drives system for a while, but the Buffalo Terastation thing appealed to me because it seemed like a simple, idiot proof solution. The amount of space seems nice too.

B0b, I guess it's possible to build your own RAID 1 setup using a firewire card as you described? Thanks for the links. With how lazy I am, DVD or CD backup is not really a useful solution. I've got CDs all over the place as it is anyway.
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Francis Tsai
TeamGT Studios

[balistic]

I wanted to add that if you don't have an office where you can keep your off-site backup, just stash it at a friend's house, or (ideally) in a safe-deposit box at a bank.

The off-site part of the plan is critical, because it protects you against theft and fire and flood and tornadoes and small meteors and the wrath of Zeus.
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brian.prince|light.comp.paint

[B0b]

[eyewoo]

B0b... do you or does anyone else have any information about MO Drives used for archival storage? MO drive = magneto-optical drive.

I heresay they are rated for 30+ years.
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[balistic]

double post. Why is the server so SLOOOOOW?!
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brian.prince|light.comp.paint

[balistic]

MO drives are a special order item right now. Where are you going to find one (and an ancient computer to run it on) in 30 years? I've never even seen an MO disk in person.

I'm tellin' ya man, it's all about balistic's dual-external-HDD system. Even if an individual hard drive only lasts three or four years, you can just replace it with something bigger and better and faster when it fails. Your data's safe because you've got copies of it in at least two more places (on the workstation itself, and on the other backup drive).
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brian.prince|light.comp.paint

[Lunatique]

I use external HD for backup too. I used to use CD's and DVD's, but burning them is a bitch and they started to take up a lot of room--I had pouches full of them. I need to do that off-site thing too though, or else I'm only getting half the protection.

One thing that's always bothered me though is that--when your drive starts to fail, you might get entire sectors that's unreadable--and you might not find out about it until you tried to access those files. If you backup that up onto the external drives, you'd be copying over the corrupted files too--and before you know it, the only versions of those files you have left are the corrupted versions. I have no idea how to get around that.

[B0b]

any OS based on NT (NT 3.5.1, NT4, Win2K, XP) will detect bad sectors on boot and try and repair - unless u tell it not to.. when u start seeing the OS reparing a HDD on a daily basis, its time to start looking for a new drive..

i used to use MO disks back in '95 - double sided 1.3GB jobbies - slow wasn't the word! who knows they might have improved in the last 11 years

if you are really want to have a safer option than CD/DVD go tape (just keep them away from strong magnetic fields )

if you're dealing with large files - HDD is a good way to go - they're so damn cheap these days - sticking a 200/400GB in a firewire/USB2 box and chucking your data on that at the end of each day and a full backup at the end of each week/month is a good way to go super safe is to have 2 HDD (ghosting your system once you've built it and got it running how u like is a good thing to do - means if you do happen to have a HDD failure it takes approx 30 mins to get back up and running again )

TIP: those who are running Outlook for e-mail search for the .PST file - usually found in C:/Documents and Settings:\USER\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\Outlook.pst - you'll have to unhide files

then move it to your work DIR then when you do a backup you can make sure you have a copy of all your outlook info

when you start Outlook it will say it can't find the pst file, just point it to where you moved it to and Outlook will be happy again

oh and as far as HDD only lasting 3-4 years - i have a drive in my server thats been running since 1998

[eyewoo]

Fujitsu is supposed to make a good MO drive http://www.fcpa.fujitsu.com/products/mo-drives/dynamo-2300u2/

...but the media is pretty expensive for storing big files ... so I think I'm going to switch to a hard drive backup system. I have one InClose hard drive already. It's a removable hard drive system. I think I'll expand on it.
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[eyewoo]

Question re: a new hard drive: Using Windows XP, what is the best way to check the drive during formatting or afterward for weak or bad sectors. ...or is it not really necessary if formatted using XP tools.

...it seems odd that with all the stuff created digitally today, there is not a solid archival system available...???
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[balistic]

Format the drive NTFS instead of FAT32. It's a little more structurally sound, and has a certain amount of error checking built-in. You'll lose (default) Mac compatibility, but gain reliability. It's pretty tough to corrupt an NTFS drive without the OS telling you something's wrong.

Most backup software will also check the integrity of your files for you.

For your off-site solution, look into getting a little USB-powered notebook drive like this. Totally easy to lug around, and no power supply to worry about.
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brian.prince|light.comp.paint

[Tzan]

Well I just got a safe deposite box. Mostly because this thread poked me enough to get it done

The small size is too narrow to hold CD without them going in tilted up, so it only holds 9. So I got a 3x10 box for $40/year.

That little drive looks nice.

[B0b]

wow they still do the 5.25" disks i used to use!

[B0b]

[eyewoo]

ooouch... a fire and lost everything ... did that happen to you?

Raids and tape backup are not what I'm referring to. I backup everything on two different media and keep one set offsite, so I'm not too worried about losing everything as a result of a disaster.

I'm an artist... concerned about the longevity of my work, so, if nothing else (probably nothing else) my children and grandchildren, etc. can see my stuff. I'm sure there must be general business folk and scientists, researchers, etc. who are concerned about the longevity of their data. So... how is it that we can run robots around the surface of Mars, but not have a data media that will archivally store data???
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[B0b]

i haven't actually lost anything in a fire.. but its not to say it won't happen..

everything decays over time.. normal Music CD's / Movie DVD's are pressed so they last longer than ur W/RW CD/DVD's.. Tape lasts longer than CD/DVD's but is generally slower @ backing up so is done when no-one is in the office - so from say 10pm-7am the server backs up the data made that day - and then has a day @ the weekend (sunday) do a complete backup of the week.. these backups are kept in a fire-proof safe..

General Business folk and Scientists/Researchers etc who want to save their data - employ IT people who have a budget to spend each year - who do infact spend it on RAID5 SCSI systems and tape backup - if the IT people loose the data, they can't be that good and are prolly replaced by better IT people

the last ad agency i worked for had no backup solution before i tipped up - so got an external FireWire (60GB i think it was) to backup the main workstations (20GB in each machine) every night we'd copy eachothers work to our machines and every week we'd do a full system backup to the external - just as well as the mac i was using had a fujitsu drive in it and died one day loosing a couple of hours work..

[balistic]

Phil: the problem right now is one of file formatting. There's really no standard image format (or audio, or video, or text . . .). We have formats now that have been in use for close to 20 years (Targa, GIF, et cetera), but we've also lost support for hundreds of different formats over that same period of time.

I think the best way to go would be to develop an open-source raster image format, designed purely for archival use. It would need to have no limit on bit-depth (who's to say how many colors displays will have in 30 years?), or the overall number of different channels and layers. It should have a header with human-readable instructions for how to write a decoder for it.

From what I understand, there are a couple formats like this already, but they haven't really taken off, since big companies like Adobe and Corel don't have much to gain by adding support for them.

Personally, I use Targas for archival purposes. I don't see them going away anytime soon, since they're still used in the VFX and games industries all the time, and they're dead simple to decode. TIFFs get a little sketchy, because the format has changed a lot over its lifespan. TGAs are a little safer, I think.
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