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Author Topic: Now we're talkin STORAGE  (Read 26807 times)

CliffSamys

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« on: January 03, 2007, 05:45:40 pm »

I thought some here may be interested in this article:

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,723...ml?tw=rss.index
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alainbriot

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« Reply #1 on: January 03, 2007, 06:07:53 pm »

Yes, things are moving :-) Seagate bought Maxtor. I just got several  Maxtor 1.5 TB OneTouch III Turbo Edition Hard Drives and they are great.  Small, silent, practical.  Far better than the LaCie 1TB I used before.  The new Maxtor are not as noisy, they are smaller and they stay cooler. They also come with Retrospect software, with One Touch Sync backup (couldn't be easier) are Mac formatted, and are ready to be configured as Raid 0 or 1.

http://www.maxtorsolutions.com/en/catalog/OTIII_Turbo/
« Last Edit: January 03, 2007, 06:18:54 pm by alainbriot »
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Nill Toulme

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« Reply #2 on: January 03, 2007, 06:51:00 pm »

Mais Alain, don't those drives consist of two 750GB drives chained together in one case, thereby doubling your chances of catastrophic drive failure for each one?

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Ray

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« Reply #3 on: January 03, 2007, 06:57:02 pm »

Amazing and incredible! 50 terabits per square inch?? Wow! Couple that with a quantum computer and anything is possible   .
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alainbriot

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« Reply #4 on: January 03, 2007, 07:17:53 pm »

Quote
Mais Alain, don't those drives consist of two 750GB drives chained together in one case, thereby doubling your chances of catastrophic drive failure for each one?

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I agree it is a risk, but I need large storage space.  Right now I have about 4 TB online.  Everything is backed up twice, so even if a drive crashes nothing is lost.
« Last Edit: January 03, 2007, 07:19:28 pm by alainbriot »
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CliffSamys

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« Reply #5 on: January 03, 2007, 07:39:30 pm »

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Mais Alain, don't those drives consist of two 750GB drives chained together in one case, thereby doubling your chances of catastrophic drive failure for each one?

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If configured as RAID 1, this would be a mirrored 750GB RAID. This would be safe, as everything is stored on both drives.
RAID 0 is striping, where data is written alternately to each drive to increase speed.

By the way, this looks like a nice product. I've been pushing Samy's to start carrying a CalDigit item:

[a href=\"http://www.caldigit.com/FireWireVR.asp]http://www.caldigit.com/FireWireVR.asp[/url]

The Maxtor is better priced, though.
« Last Edit: January 03, 2007, 07:56:08 pm by CliffSamys »
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Nill Toulme

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« Reply #6 on: January 03, 2007, 09:13:39 pm »

Quote
I agree it is a risk, but I need large storage space.  Right now I have about 4 TB online.  Everything is backed up twice, so even if a drive crashes nothing is lost.
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I don't understand the point of these doubled drives though.  In what way are they better than two separate 750GB external drives?  It seems to me all they accomplish is doubling your chances of losing twice as much data.  (Does that equate to 4x the risk?)

If I had that much data (I only have about half a TB now) I'd have it all on a RAID5, backed up to another RAID5, with that backed up in turn to a bunch of 750GB external drives.  As it is, I have the live data on a 1.1TB RAID5, which backs up automatically nightly to two external 400GB drives, which are in turn backed up manually weekly to a single 750GB external that lives offsite.

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Nill Toulme

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« Reply #7 on: January 03, 2007, 09:18:10 pm »

Quote
...By the way, this looks like a nice product. I've been pushing Samy's to start carrying a CalDigit item:

http://www.caldigit.com/FireWireVR.asp
...[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Something like that holding four drives instead of two, configurable as RAID5, and with a handle on top for portability, would seem just about ideal to me.  SATA might be preferable to firewire though.

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Ray

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« Reply #8 on: January 03, 2007, 09:20:51 pm »

Has it not been established that those who are the least bit paranoid about data loss, should back up their images on optical media like DVDs.

I know it's a bit tedious burning DVDs that hold only 4.4Gb, but we now have Blu-ray discs that hold 25Gb.
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feppe

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« Reply #9 on: January 03, 2007, 09:44:40 pm »

Quote
Has it not been established that those who are the least bit paranoid about data loss, should back up their images on optical media like DVDs.

I know it's a bit tedious burning DVDs that hold only 4.4Gb, but we now have Blu-ray discs that hold 25Gb.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93560\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I don't see a reason to do DVD backups. Backing up 100GB, let alone 1TB on DVDs is not "a bit tedious," it's murder. Not to say unnecessary and ridiculously expensive compared to HDDs. Besides, you'll have to check the DVDs or re-burn them every year or so to ensure they're not rotting. Blu-ray and HD-DVDs seem to have higher (claimed) shelf-life but are not nearly as cost-effective as HDDs or even DVDs.

Hot-swappable RAID 0 or 5 setups are quite affordable these days, and external HDDs for off-site backing up cost even less. With HDD Mean-Time-To-Failure -rates at well over 1 million (!) hours and non-operating shock resistances in the hundreds of Gs you'll have to really try hard to get a failure leading to data loss with striped or double-backups.

alainbriot

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« Reply #10 on: January 03, 2007, 09:45:16 pm »

Quote
Has it not been established that those who are the least bit paranoid about data loss, should back up their images on optical media like DVDs.

I know it's a bit tedious burning DVDs that hold only 4.4Gb, but we now have Blu-ray discs that hold 25Gb.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93560\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I have everything backed up on DVD's as well.
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feppe

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« Reply #11 on: January 03, 2007, 10:21:18 pm »

Quote
I have everything backed up on DVD's as well.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93564\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Umm..... 4 terabytes on DVDs? That's.... *calculates* .. *shocked* .. *doublechecks* ... almost one thousand (1,000) DVDs...

You, sir, either have the patience of a saint or a very patient assistant.

Well, I can see how it's not such a problem if you accumulate it over the years. But as I said, I would check that they work yearly in case they start rotting - even if I had double backups. Well, I guess if you check a DVD per day so that's a 3-year rotation which isn't that bad as long as you have two backups.

Still, a few external HDDs would be much more convenient.

Ray

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« Reply #12 on: January 03, 2007, 10:21:31 pm »

Quote
Besides, you'll have to check the DVDs or re-burn them every year or so to ensure they're not rotting. [a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93563\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Nonsense! Have you ever thought of engaging in a bit of introspection to check your level of paranoia   .
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feppe

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« Reply #13 on: January 03, 2007, 11:02:32 pm »

Quote
Nonsense! Have you ever thought of engaging in a bit of introspection to check your level of paranoia   .
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93572\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Paranoia? It's a studied fact that DVDs rot. I have literally hundreds of DVD-Rs from less than 5 years back that are unreadable. Cheapest DVDs available with nothing I wouldn't miss on them, but the point remains. If you have two sets of backups you have to do some kind of rotated check to ensure they are still readable, and that you have time to copy them to new media when they start to do so without losing any data.

And as I pointed out, DVDs have currently nothing which makes them a better choice than HDDs as a backup media.

If a professional really wants to gamble with her income, be my guest. Investing a few hundred dollars on a decent backup system - whether it's DVD or HDD -based - is priceless in case of a equipment failure or fire.

CliffSamys

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« Reply #14 on: January 03, 2007, 11:19:58 pm »

Quote
I don't understand the point of these doubled drives though.  In what way are they better than two separate 750GB external drives?  It seems to me all they accomplish is doubling your chances of losing twice as much data.  (Does that equate to 4x the risk?)
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93556\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

For most people, doing a single backup is difficult enough. So to be able to write it to one device that automatically makes two copies makes sense. There are really no advantages to archiving to RAID 5 over RAID 1 in this type of scenario. In RAID 1 everything is written twice. It's only when people use RAID 0 (striping) that the failure rate increases.
« Last Edit: January 03, 2007, 11:21:00 pm by CliffSamys »
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CliffSamys

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« Reply #15 on: January 03, 2007, 11:24:08 pm »

Quote
Something like that holding four drives instead of two, configurable as RAID5, and with a handle on top for portability, would seem just about ideal to me.  SATA might be preferable to firewire though.
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Hmmmm... Like this?

[a href=\"http://www.wiebetech.com/products/rt5.php]http://www.wiebetech.com/products/rt5.php[/url]

I like these too:

http://www.kanotechnologies.com/products/SV3X500R5S.cfm
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Ray

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« Reply #16 on: January 03, 2007, 11:24:59 pm »

Quote
Paranoia? It's a studied fact that DVDs rot. I have literally hundreds of DVD-Rs from less than 5 years back that are unreadable.[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93578\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Wow! I can't understand that at all. All my ultra budget CDs recorded more than 10 years ago are still perfectly readable. I have no instances of DVDs that are unreadable, recorded 5 years ago (or so, or more).

Have you been the victim of fraud? Perhaps some company selling a batch of reject DVDs that they managed to acquire for nothing?
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feppe

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« Reply #17 on: January 03, 2007, 11:37:24 pm »

Quote
Wow! I can't understand that at all. All my ultra budget CDs recorded more than 10 years ago are still perfectly readable. I have no instances of DVDs that are unreadable, recorded 5 years ago (or so, or more).

Have you been the victim of fraud? Perhaps some company selling a batch of reject DVDs that they managed to acquire for nothing?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93582\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

CDs and DVDs aren't really comparable as DVDs have much higher data density and as thus are more susceptible to rotting.

It's possible that I'm a victim of fraud. But there are plenty of studies which suggest that "normal" recordable DVDs have a _practically_ limited shelf life. Limited in the sense that I nor any professional should trust them to work indefinitely. If you just burn two sets once, put them in a climate-controlled archiving cabinet and leave them for ten years, I wouldn't be surprised if there are quite a few ones that aren't readable.

Thankfully (?) tech advances at such a pace that people are re-burning or re-archiving files to different media every few years.

alainbriot

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« Reply #18 on: January 03, 2007, 11:45:14 pm »

Quote
Umm..... 4 terabytes on DVDs? That's.... *calculates* .. *shocked* .. *doublechecks* ... almost one thousand (1,000) DVDs...

You, sir, either have the patience of a saint or a very patient assistant.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93571\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I have been burning them as I go, starting around 1995 with CD's and now with DVD's :-)  Right now I am burning them at a rate of about 4 a week or so, with peaks and valleys, so to speak.  I also have everything on external disk drives.  4 copies of everything.  That keeps my paranoia in check.
« Last Edit: January 03, 2007, 11:49:44 pm by alainbriot »
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Nill Toulme

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« Reply #19 on: January 04, 2007, 09:00:18 am »

Quote
For most people, doing a single backup is difficult enough. So to be able to write it to one device that automatically makes two copies makes sense. There are really no advantages to archiving to RAID 5 over RAID 1 in this type of scenario. In RAID 1 everything is written twice. It's only when people use RAID 0 (striping) that the failure rate increases.
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Now that does make a bit of sense, although (a) I suspect that most of these drives are being used as 1.5TB RAID 0 (or JBOD or something worse?) drives, not as 750GB RAID 1, and (b) there are still advantages to simply having two redundant external drives over RAID 1, e.g., operator error, etc.

Clearly there's no benefit of RAID 5 over RAID 1 in a two-disk array, but my whole point is that I don't *see* the point of two-disk arrays.  RAID 5's reliability benefits kick in at 3+ disks.

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« Last Edit: January 04, 2007, 09:03:01 am by Nill Toulme »
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