RAID or external hard drive?

[whaussies]

We are about to go shoot a very large dog show and it was suggested to me to get a RAID. This was instead of an external hard drive for back up to our laptop. I have been looking trying to find the real difference in a RAID and an external hard drive and don't get it. If you were at a show where backups on DVD where hard to do and needed an different back up, what would you do? And if you go with RAID, could you explain the difference in the two? PLEASE PLEASE!!!! I am so lost....

[cmalana]

RAID would be something you would use when you get back home. It's just a fancy term for putting together a collection of hard drive and using different configurations, decrease the exposure to a hard drive failure.

From what I understand of your situation (on-site backup), I think backing up to 2 hard drives (perhaps one being the internal laptop hard drive, and another external drive) would work.

To confuse you even further, there are external RAID arrays that are available ;)

[whaussies]

Well and that is what they said and external RAID. But when looking I was like, why do that?

[cmalana]

It's all about risk management. If you feel that you are comfortable that don't need a backup (or multiple backups) then you're fine. It depends on how much the images you have are worth.

In our line of work (wedding photography) , we need to make sure we always retain 3 copies of our clients' images because the images we take are difficult, if not impossible to re-shoot.

Think of it as insurance - some people are fine without it, and others prefer to mitigate that risk.

You would be going to RAID if you are wanting to mitigate the risk associated with your hard drive failing.

[johnastovall]

Originally Posted by whaussies

Well and that is what they said and external RAID. But when looking I was like, why do that?

You can have an external raid on you home desk top but you don't want to be carrying an external raid around as they can get rather large as these show.

Just get a good external USB interface drive and us it but do test it for a week before critical use.

[Daniel Bates]

I have this drive... it works great for backing up my laptop's HD. And it is tiny (fits in a hip pocket).

[whaussies]

Very cute little drive!

[zeroendless]

Just bring extra mobile hdd as ext storage while shooting in remote area. Get 2 for extra backup if you afraid you gonna lose it all. There's no need to bring heavy ext raid drive with extra power cords and stuff.

[Pikachu]

RAID = Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks

The main purpose of implementing RAID is to provide fault tolerance and recoverability from a disk drive failure. Most commonly, it is used in server systems due to the space it takes up with multiple drives. RAID is not a replacement for proper backups; just a system to help insure data integrity in case of the failure of a (depending on the configuration) single drive in an array. In other words, in an array of 7 disks, one (or possibly 2, depending on configuration) can go belly-up, then when the failed drive(s) is replaced, the data will rebuild, and the system will return to normal.

Speaking as a former network engineer, it really sounds to me like what you need is an external, high capacity drive to store a large volume of images for a short time. In that case, your best bet would probably be to get a USB hard drive enclosure and a big drive to slap in it. Then when you get home, transfer the images to your production machine so they can be backed up along with all of your other important data.

[LoungeLizard]

By the way, you can get considerably cheaper RAID enclosures from these guys: http://www.cooldrives.com/usbenclosures.html

Last night I just received the two drive RAID Spanning enclsoure. They have a version of it with a "copy" button that implements RAID Mirroring within the enclosure at the press of that button!

[kenw]

I have several USB2 2.5 external drives that I use for various purposes. The advantage of the 2.5" drives is that they are self-powered thru the USB2 cable, ie; no power supply needed. They are a bit more expensive per GB, but when going portable with your laptop, a larger style external drive that needs a power cord is a total waste.

Both of my external drives are actually salvaged from older notebooks, using a purchased enclosure that has a interface board and cable. I salvaged a 20GB from one ancient notebook and a 80GB from another. The enclosures were $20-25 at CompUSA, Fry's.

Most people wil want to just buy the drive in an enclosure like Daniel showed us, ready to go for well under $100 depending on the GB size of the drive. There are many brands.