Hard Drives - Storage Solutions

[Randal32]

I know this could be posted on another forum, but since a majority of shooters on this forum are professionals, I thought I would ask here first.

This is my situation.  I wouldn't call it a solution though =)

I have 3 Maxtor 750G hard drives full - Each has an exact copy - so a total of 6 750G HD's

I back up the working hard drives 1 a week or so and then once they're full store them off site somewhere.

I am fine with the maxtors, although after a year or so they start to act finicky with my G5.  

1st question - What hard drives and backup software to yall recommend for using on a mac.  I've heard good things about G-Raid, but it's about 25% more in cost.

2nd question - Is there a better way (of course)?  Meaning could I backup in another way?  Maybe set up a server or HD enclosure that backs up automatically and then i can pull the full copies out and replace new one?

I am at a point where i need to get more hard drives so want to explore the possibility of another route or at least another type of hard drive.

Thanks in advance.  sorry this is a tad vague...

Randal

[MichaelEzra]

If you would like to rely on hard drives, I would first recommend to have identical backups on different models/or, if same model, drives from different batches of manufacture and all shipped separate.

[feppe]

Maxtor doesn't have the greatest rep there is, but if they star acting finicky after just one year of use, you need to take a look at your setup. I have drives in my box that are 3+ years old, have been on 24/7 for the entire time, and swapping throughout their whole lifespan.

RAID is not really a backup solution, more of an uptime and data loss prevention in case of drive failure solution.

One thing to look for is hot-swappable HDD enclosures. That way you don't have to fiddle with connectors, making taking out the backups more convenient. Other than that, your setup sounds decent. I prefer having two backups - one on-site, one off. Another good thing to do is to verify the integrity of the entire backup each time you add to it. And if you have old hdd backups, re-verifying them once a year or so prevents catastrophic loss of an entire drive - rare, sure, and can be alleviated by having double backups.

[digitaldog]

1st question - What hard drives and backup software to yall recommend for using on a mac.  I've heard good things about G-Raid, but it's about 25% more in cost.

Love my two small 160 gig (for travel) G-mini's. They were about $30 more than a comparable drive but they stay COOL unlike some other's I've used so for me that's worth the extra money. They are a tad smaller too. Can't comment on their larger drives but the build quality of mine is excellent. For a desktop Raid solution I'm using Sonnett (five bay) with Seagate drives (Seagate for their 5 year warranty). Happy with all these products so far.

[Rick_Allen]

I have a seritek esata drive draw thingy that I really like. I buy 2 bare internal drives at a time 1 seagate and western digital 320gb load them into the draws plug them in and copy the files over. I dont do RAID because that is too risky and I dont buy drives any bigger than 320 because there is too much error correction going on. I store one of the drive copies at home and one at the studio in the static proof bags that they are shipped in. Every six months or so (ie when I have a work experience kid come in) I plug the drives in and run disk utility and copy random folder from the drive. I currently manage around 40 drives this way and while it seems like hard work once you have the workflow down its pretty painless. As these drive are managed for other photographers the ability to sleep at night not worrying if the raid will fail ( as i have had one do) is a bonus too.

[SecondFocus]

You might want to take a loook at this dual bay RAID 1 system or something else like it.

http://www.wiebetech.com/products/silversata.php

Drive space goes very fast. But if you are working commercially you need to really consider off site storage. I use PhotoShelter and have a terrabyte of storage with archiving, display, client delivery options and even print delivery. It also has built in pricing features.

http://photoshelter.com

It also full integrates with my website, take a look...

http://SecondFocus.com

[narikin]

been in the same boat myself.

the thing that is certain to happen is a drive failure. my nerd friend says hard drives are in two states: 'failed' and 'yet to fail'. true that.

So - Backup semantics aside, this is the #1 scenario to avoid, which means well constructed Raid system. best for photo pros is Raid 6 - which is raid 5 with an extra drive. Raid 5 is fine too, but best be cautious.

I know someone will point out that this is not strictly 'back up', but as this is what WILL happen, not what might, its worth #1 attention.

as for what might happen - catastrophic flood, fire, theft etc. yes you need off site backup. and it sounds like you are doing the right thing. make a copy and store it elsewhere. rotate and replenish. if you have lots of $ go to PhotoShelter and the kind, but for big archives its not economic.

Seagate have a decent reputation, and give 5 year warranties. thats good. Look at StorageReview.com for more info, and a reliability report. Maxtor are nowhere near this, and portable external drives generally have greatly reduced warranties, including seagate, (the enclosure heat damages the drives) so I agree with the poster who said use easy swap bare drives in a quality enclosure.

I'm on Windows PC, so you can put as many drives as you want in a case, rather than what Apple thinks you want. currently I have 12 +OS etc, hot swap, Raid 6, 8Tb.  I backup to Seagates. you can get the 750Gb for under $200, and the 1Tb are dropping fast...

good luck

[nicolaasdb]

I started out with using 1TB lacie drives....then 2TB lacie .....but the 2TB are not very stable!! 2 of them failed.....ofcourse I back everything up....but still when a drive failes you are asking yourself: did I back it all up??

I now decided to use 500GB drives for backup...just in case! drives are very cheap nowadays and I don't trust the more expensive raid (whatever number) systems....

It is getting a little crazy with about 15TB....and shooting 95GB per job doesn't help it much.
Hopefully in the near future there will be a better system.

[Dustbak]

HD's like it best to keep spinning. Turning them on & off shortens life-span significantly. Storing one in a seale bag, you will be surprised that many after awhile will not work anymore.

I find RAID5 or 10 best. Cheap S-ata raid controllers usually take 4 drives.

Expensive raid sets usually have their own on-board controller and are boxes that you can connect either by gigabit ethernet, FW or SCSI. Most of these have hot pluggable drivebays, local hotspares & global hotspares. Do expect to spend well over 10K for any one of these systems.

I have kept it cheap and use s-ata raid with 4 750GB drives in a RAID5. By the time it is filled larger storage will be significantly cheaper.

I also delete most of my commercial stuff, at least the raw files. Who wants to keep a library of 10's of thousands images of shoes, bags and other accessories?

[Anders_HK]

 Photogarphy is my serious hobby, but being an expat living overseas means I have developed a multiple system, both for photos and other files. I am now renewing it with 2 new 300GB Fujitsu Calmee 2.5" pockat drives (yup 2.5", light for travel!). Thus once I done all re-copying of my system it will consist of following:


For camera:
6-4GB CF cards, used for shooting, no backup when on photographic shoot. If I lost one card, the others are still there.

Prime:

2-100GB 2.5" drives in notebook (Fujitsu S6311 14"  for normal file storage and temporary storage of images).
1- 100GB with recent photos.


Backup when overseas:

2-300GB 2.5" pocket drives, one for photos, one for all other personal and office files.


Backup with family in Sweden:

2=500GB 3.5", dual back up in case one will fail.


With this system, even if notbook or drive breaks down I am covered. And even if when travel with all drives overseas and I loose them, I am more or less covered.


Regards
Anders

[rainer_v]

HD's like it best to keep spinning. Turning them on & off shortens life-span significantly. Storing one in a seale bag, you will be surprised that many after awhile will not work anymore.

what happens to drives which are resting? there are drives which are specified as "server proofed", they have the capacity to run 24h/7days, the other drives are recommended not to run 24h.
i have too many exchangeabe  sata drives to let them run all the time,- so whats to do if they should not be stored.

[Dustbak]

Store them in a bag (or box) with those thingies that suck up moisture and hope it will startup if you have left it there for a long time.

I have had drives that have been running for years without problems. The second we turned them off they never came on again.

Most manufacturers give a drive a lifespan of about 5 years. Most drives break either within the first month or go the distance (is my experience). They all break down sooner or later hence the recommendation for using Raid.

These things are why I always have a Raid continuously running with my most valuable data. 1 drive breaks I replace it with another.

Next to that, yes I do keep drives stored but I do keep in mind they just might not work when I need them.

Unfortunately every extra level of redundancy come at a steep price where total security is almost impossible.

[rinderart]

Maybe this will sound silly but, I gotta put it out there anyway. Like a lot of you I've been at this a very long time [45+ years] Am I the only one that still use's DVD's and Gold CD's? I burn off my work to 3 sets of DVd's and One set of CD's. I keep the DVD's at 3 different Locations stored UP in cool dry conditions. The job of my assistant when not working is to on a rotating basis copy them in 3 year time periods. I am a Stickler for cataloging and can find anything in one minute. Never a problem, ever. I only have one 500GB HD that keeps all catalog info and the small Jpegs and that is backed up everyday. Am I old school about this? I would be dead if I lost stuff with all these stories im reading here. Any Thoughts?
Thanks for your time.

[Mark_Tucker]

This is what NOT to do:

http://www.marktucker.com/temp/harddrivemadness.jpg

That was my old system.

Now I use the Apple Xserve RAID. Savings in my electric bill damn near paid for the RAID...

[Dustbak]

That works too, indeed you have to recopy the DVD's every now and than. No it is not old school, just another way of doing it.

With max 8Gb on a DL DVD you need quite a few DVD's when your archive is in the range of TB's.

Nope Mark, the X serve Raid is way more convenient, stable, cheaper in usage and takes up less space than your old system. Makes for fun images though.

The Xserve RAID or a solair would be my choice and is on my list right after some other stuff and at the moment the 4drive s-ata raid gets insufficient.

[RicAgu]

I just started using the new RTX system from Weibetech and had it shipped as a JBOD and use softraid for raiding it.

The four bay system is amazing and lets you slide drives in and out like floppy disks.

I use 750's and use one Seagate, one Hitatchi and one IBM.  Everything gets triple backed up and one sits off site in their silver bag and plastic case that it came in.  The other two are always at the studio.  When they fill up they get dated, numbered and placed in a lateral filing cabinet in their silver bag and plastic case.  If I need to access them, I just pull them and slide it in.  Softraid does everything in the background.  Great software and great support.

I had a small Apple Raid set up in G4 a few years ago and sold it as the expansion options for me was not what I wanted.  I then started using a Weibetech four bay IDE drive bays and when they introduced the RTX and E-SATA drives I was all in!

Great company and Great support and cost effecting.

Best of luck

[digitaldog]

I just started using the new RTX system from Weibetech and had it shipped as a JBOD and use softraid for raiding it.

When I was investigating the Raid system to get, it wasn't' clear if you could have BOTH JBOD and a Raid. In fact, the one company that flat out told me yes, you can do this was Sonnet. I got the 5 bay so two could be Mirrored for my Lightroom catalogs and photo's (backed up to other external drives) plus one drive for the system backup (done each night automatically with SuperDuper). That leaves me two more open bays.

[RicAgu]

Hey Andy,

http://weibetech.com/products/RTX400.php

Weibe ships the four bay in a non brain unit (as I call them).  Means it doesn't have the LCD and RAID contrller.  AMAMZING SYSTEM!

I have tried super duper but never had any luck.  Softraid was $120.00 and flawless.

Mark, that picture is INSANE!

[alexjones]

http://www.wiebetech.com

These guys get my vote.  The customer support is real and personal with solid help.  You don't find that very many places anymore.

Alex
Photo Assistant Digital Tech Pittsburgh

http://alexrjones.com/alexrjones/digitaltech.html

[narikin]

Maybe this will sound silly but, I gotta put it out there anyway. Like a lot of you I've been at this a very long time [45+ years] Am I the only one that still use's DVD's and Gold CD's? I burn off my work to 3 sets of DVd's and One set of CD's. I keep the DVD's at 3 different Locations stored UP in cool dry conditions. The job of my assistant when not working is to on a rotating basis copy them in 3 year time periods. I am a Stickler for cataloging and can find anything in one minute. Never a problem, ever. I only have one 500GB HD that keeps all catalog info and the small Jpegs and that is backed up everyday. Am I old school about this? I would be dead if I lost stuff with all these stories im reading here. Any Thoughts?
Thanks for your time.
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thats an insane image Mark. I hope you sold all those drives on EBay to fund your X-raid.

I really don't want to get onto the thin ice of appearing to bash apple, but Xraid, whilst a wonderful product is very very expensive for what it does.
 
for anyone setting up photo raid storage, its a reason to think about PC base.

a 3.5Tb X-raid is $8000+, but a 3.5Tb Raid 5 system inside your PC on an ultra fast dedicated hardware controller would be about $1200 max. Cheaper than that if you use an on-board controller.
Head towards 7Tb, and the savings are in the order of $9000+
that is very hard to ignore.