Data Storage Solutions

[d2creative]

I currently have a Mac Pro with 3 internal hard drives. One is for my OS, apps, music, etc. The second holds all my work (photos), and the third is a dupe of the second.
The second is also backed up nightly to an off-site backup online, and periodically I will also back it up to a drive that I store in a different location.

But now I am looking at switching from the Mac Pro to a Macbook Pro and need to figure out a different storage solution. The internal drive will be just like in my Mac Pro, but I need some external drives. Since the new Macbook Pro's have the new Thunderbolt technology, one option I'm looking at is the Promise Pegasus Raid. 4 drives totaling 1TB for a whopping $1k. But at transfer speeds of 500mb/s it's tempting. I have never had a Raid before though so this is unfamiliar territory.

Another option is separate external drives which would be similar to what I'm running now, just external instead of internal.

Thoughts? Other options?

[kenw]

If is just for archiving, is xfr speed really all that important? You're only going to backup the recent session, not the entire drive each time.

[sbp]

If it is me I will go with individual drive, cheaper and can have multiple copy.
Raid will be fast as you will be writing to multiple disk at a time.

But if anything major happens to that raid you will be sorry as you have to have same raid controller card etc.. to recover from it.

[d2creative]

Originally Posted by kenw

If is just for archiving, is xfr speed really all that important? You're only going to backup the recent session, not the entire drive each time.

Well, I would be working on this drive as well.
In other words, my Lightroom library will be on the first external drive. So i will be downloading to it from my camera's card, and then working on the files on this drive. The second external drive would be a backup of this. Only software would be on the internal drive. At least that's the current plan. Because after loading OS, software, etc on the internal 500gb drive, there isn't as much writable space left as I would like.

[kenw]

Originally Posted by d2creative

Well, I would be working on this drive as well.
In other words, my Lightroom library will be on the first external drive. So i will be downloading to it from my camera's card, and then working on the files on this drive. The second external drive would be a backup of this. Only software would be on the internal drive. At least that's the current plan. Because after loading OS, software, etc on the internal 500gb drive, there isn't as much writable space left as I would like.

If that's the case, I might think using a much larger internal might make sense for the added working space. The removed internal can always be put in an external box for utility storage so you don't really lose anything..

[d2creative]

How big can you put inside?
Apple only offers a 500gb at 7200rpm.

[kenw]

Originally Posted by d2creative

How big can you put inside?
Apple only offers a 500gb at 7200rpm.

well, if 500gb is it, then my idea doesn't have much traction....

[RKEnnis]

I'd consider adding one or more external firewire drives. They are cheap, readily available (unlike Thunderbolt devices), and plenty fast. You can easily daisy chain several drives for connection to one port.

You might even consider buying some external drive enclosures and putting the drives from your Mac Pro into them. That could save you some money, and would let you get more life from the drives you already own.

[d2creative]

Thanks, Randy... this is what I'm currently thinking.
And I wouldn't have to "move" all my data if I can continue using the same drives. Maybe then by the end of the year when those start to fill up Lacie and others will have Thunderbolt drives available.

And thanks for confirming the firewire drives are daisychainable. I was wondering about that. I assume I can get the enclosures at Fry's or something?

[RKEnnis]

Yeah, they probably have then at Fry's.

Newegg.com also has a nice selection of external enclosures. I really like the Macally enclosures, although they aren't the cheapest.

Newegg.com - macally G-S350SUA Aluminum 3.5" USB & 1394 & eSATA External Enclosure

[Rson]

I like the Buffalo NAS drives on a Gig switch. You can have 2 TB Mirrored or 4 TB Striped.

[d2creative]

Rich, I'm not familiar with that. Can you explain? How would that compare to having two external drives, one of them being a simple copy/backup of the other?

Also, I'm thinking of doing the dual internal hardrive setup which involves replacing the superdrive with another harddrive. I could use a 256 SSD as my boot drive and save working files to a 7600rpm mechanical drive. This in addition to an external backup.

[RKEnnis]

Originally Posted by Rson

I like the Buffalo NAS drives on a Gig switch. You can have 2 TB Mirrored or 4 TB Striped.

Nice drives, but pretty serious stuff. Do you know if they offer an "add your own drives" option?

[Flores]

Originally Posted by RKEnnis

Nice drives, but pretty serious stuff. Do you know if they offer an "add your own drives" option?

No offense, but this is not serious stuff at all.

This box:



is a 'point n shoot' for _serious_ storage, the buffalo NAS is like a camera phone... a really OLD camera phone.

Storage and Data Processing is just like anything else. The really good stuff costs $$$$.

If your going to 'add your own drives', you may want to consider just building a tower case with hot swappable SATA drives in it, and load FreeNAS 8.0 | Storage For Open Source onto a USB boot key or something.

[Charles Putnam]

I have a 1TB WD My Book connected to our Airport Extreme that handles both my wife's Win7 backup, and my MBP. Additionally, I use two separate drives - one that has a backup of just my data, and the other that has Time Machine backups.