RAID 5 NAS for Mac OS X for photos

[CatOne]

Be careful. Neither NAS or RAID 5 is suitable for backup. These systems are not archival. They are convenient when they work properly, but there are several failure modes the manufactures do not discuss, including failures of the redundent power supplies. Doesn't happen often, but when it does it's a real mess.
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Archival and backup aren't necessarily the same thing.

[budjames]

Be careful. Neither NAS or RAID 5 is suitable for backup. These systems are not archival. They are convenient when they work properly, but there are several failure modes the manufactures do not discuss, including failures of the redundent power supplies. Doesn't happen often, but when it does it's a real mess.
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Thanks for the tip, but I do have individual drives that I archive to in sections due the space limitations of the drives. These are kept offsite to protect against perils at my home or theft. I used to archive to DVD's but I stopped doing that about a year ago.

Bud James

[jani]

Thanks for the tip, but I do have individual drives that I archive to in sections due the space limitations of the drives. These are kept offsite to protect against perils at my home or theft. I used to archive to DVD's but I stopped doing that about a year ago.

Are these individual drives based on magnetic harddisks?

If so, why?

Don't you think you'll have archival needs beyond ~5 years?

[budjames]

Are these individual drives based on magnetic harddisks?

If so, why?

Don't you think you'll have archival needs beyond ~5 years?
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Yes they are. I didn't know that there was any other kind except for new and outrageously expensive solid state drives (ala Mac Air).

These drives are rotated through and each update is verified.

From what I've read and heard, the likes of Schewe and Reichmann use only hard drives for permanent storage. I have also read in these forums and others about the problems of reading RW+ CDs and DVDs (dye based technology) that are not permanent either.

What are you using?

Bud

[mcbroomf]

That is simply a low power linux box running samba.

It requires all the drives to be identical, you can not change or upgrade the configuration (true of just about all RAID arrays), and if you have a drive fail but can not get the EXACT same drive to replace it later (model, and firmaware) you will suffer a performance loss using the device.

It's important that if you build a RAID array that you purchase spare drives while you can.  You also have to buy the maximum configuration you will ever use with it, at the time you build.

You can build that yourself for about $150, it's just a case, low end MB/CPU/RAM, power supply and a free OS.
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Thanks for that, I did not know of those limitations.

Mike

[feppe]

That is simply a low power linux box running samba.

It requires all the drives to be identical, you can not change or upgrade the configuration (true of just about all RAID arrays), and if you have a drive fail but can not get the EXACT same drive to replace it later (model, and firmaware) you will suffer a performance loss using the device.

It's important that if you build a RAID array that you purchase spare drives while you can.  You also have to buy the maximum configuration you will ever use with it, at the time you build.
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Things are changing quickly, though. You can throw a drive of any size at a Drobo from any manufacturer, and upgrade accordingly as you wish. The same might be true (with limitations?) with some of Infrant's RAID(like) products, also.