Decent mirrored external backup

mikeanywhere

I am looking to put together a decent mirrored backup in place after another external HDD failure this morning.

Can anyone recommend any decent products and why??

I am aware of the Drobo and am looking to see where I can source them from at present but again would appreciate any help on that too

enda1

Have you considered on-line?

Someone like these guys.

mikeanywhere

enda1 wrote: »

Have you considered on-line?

Someone like these guys.

Will check them out as an alternative, thanks for that. However, but the files I want to backup are pretty large (total rather individual size) and would take forever to upload on this crappy net infrastructure we dont have

stcstc

mike

have tyou considered actually having a server instead?

that way you could install a mirroed set etc and work off the network, then add another set as you need to etc

eas

Hi Mike,

I got a drobo from amazon - was the best price I could find.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B001CSZMRK/ref=oss_product.

I'm using the firewire connection and it's fast enough. I'm having a small issue with it disconnecting every now and again. Not often enough for me to try and figure out why. Obviously the real test of hardware / software like this is when one of the drives fail, nothing to report on that.

Hope you didn't loose anything important.

mikeanywhere

stcstc wrote: »

mike

have tyou considered actually having a server instead?

that way you could install a mirroed set etc and work off the network, then add another set as you need to etc

Might be something worth looking at in the future. Just need to someone to do it for me tho as anything complex in config/setup and the eyes starting glazing over

eas wrote: »

Hi Mike,

I got a drobo from amazon - was the best price I could find.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B001CSZMRK/ref=oss_product

Ta muchly, will have a gander at that at the moment.

Stupid question - will they deliver to Ireland as I tried to order a load of Lightscribe disks a few days back but at the checkout I was told they wont deliver here and couldn't proceed with the order.

eas

yeah, not 100% sure what the policy is - but I did get the drobo delivered here..for free I think

The Snipe

I'd recommend purchasing a webhosting account or the likes, and upload all your pictures onto that as a backup, I know LetsHost, are cheap and do have a great package - And have a backup of your account every 6 hours which you can recall if anything goes wrong.

The website is www.letshost.ie I use them for my websites and general hosting for my images and whatnot, and they were great.

Other options are to zip/rar them and upload them to the likes of Rapidshare etc. That way you will always have a secure backup of your photos.

Cameraman

Mike,

I just rely on lots of individual hard drives. I know you've had a bad experience - but mine have not failed yet. (They will, of course - they all fail eventually, but I'll have moved on to something else by then). Currently using 2 x 2TB drives as my main setup and 2 sets of 1TB drives as secondary (tertiary ?) backups.

Last but not least, have all my JPEGs online (albeit smaller sized) in Smugmug/Zenfolio.

If you do want to buy a Drobo - do consider how you're going to back it up.

pixbyjohn

Don't be too quick to purchase anything right now as USB3 has just arrived.

magicbastarder

just mail all the photos to yourself with subject lines like 'al qaeda' and i'm sure the NSA will be happy to pick them up and store them for you. for free.

http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/11/01/nsa-to-store-yottabytes-of-surveillance-data-in-utah-megarepository/

mikeanywhere

I tore apart the housing on the drive that failed to make sure it wasn't the HDD that was knackered too. I have it sat in a docking station gizmo I bought from PC World and is happily working away as it was before.

A new 2TB is sat next to it and is chugging away transferring everything across as we speak.

(feeling slightly happier at the moment)

Borderfox

I just run 2 externals together and use quiksynch to copy the same info to both, copy to dvd also and have offsite backup too, same info also stored on NAS too.

Glad to hear the drive is still working,

The Snipe

You could also (if your using a PC, and it supports RAID), get a internal HDD, (about 500GB for €50 on Ebay), and RAID Strip it, or make a partition on it, just for photos, and don't use it for anything else, that way it knows where to look extending the life of it. But once again, I'd recommend off-site backups.

mikeanywhere

XiledSniper wrote: »

You could also (if your using a PC, and it supports RAID), get a internal HDD, (about 500GB for €50 on Ebay), and RAID Strip it, or make a partition on it, just for photos, and don't use it for anything else, that way it knows where to look extending the life of it. But once again, I'd recommend off-site backups.

If only I knew how (glazed look starting lol)

Prenderb

mikeanywhere wrote: »

I tore apart the housing on the drive that failed to make sure it wasn't the HDD that was knackered too. I have it sat in a docking station gizmo I bought from PC World and is happily working away as it was before.

A new 2TB is sat next to it and is chugging away transferring everything across as we speak.

(feeling slightly happier at the moment)

Hi sorry to hijack your thread, but can you give any details of the docking station gizmo, and how it works? I'm assuming you unscrewed the external housing and connected it by some other cable to an internal connection? Name, type or price of gizmo would be much appreciated...thanks. Sorry again for the hijack.

The Snipe

@PrenderB:

External Docking stations can be purchesed at any good Electronics/Computer retailer, just ask for an External HDD Docking station, or a "Hot Swap Station".

http://maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=222999 Is an example, so if you live near a maplin store/know someone who lives near a maplin store, they are cheap enough to pick up.

mikeanywhere

@PrenderB:

Don't feel you are hijacking as threads like this help everyone in one way or another

The product I bought from PC World is similar to the one that Sniper talks about. Here is the link and from memory is was about €32-33.00 or thereabouts.

To save you a bit of time searching for on when you get there, mine was on the shelf with all the external HDD's

Hope this is of help!!

sineadw

that docking station yokey is exactly what I need - thanks Mike!

mikeanywhere

sineadw wrote: »

that docking station yokey is exactly what I need - thanks Mike!

It works a treat Sinead

Prenderb

xiledsniper and mikeanywhere, thanks for the replies! I presume a HDD in an "external" box still has the connections just to slot onto the docking station - is it SATA or something? Think it's the puter shop for me tomorrow.

Cameraman

Prenderb wrote: »

xiledsniper and mikeanywhere, thanks for the replies! I presume a HDD in an "external" box still has the connections just to slot onto the docking station - is it SATA or something? Think it's the puter shop for me tomorrow.

The docking station itself is just meant to hold a 'bare' disk.

You then need to connect the docking station (containing the disk) to yoiur computer. The usual ways of doing this are via eSATA or USB (firewire is also a possibility sometimes). The docking stations vary in the interfaces they include - the one I have has USB2 and eSATA.

eSATA is faster than USB (but USB3 will be along soon - don't know how the two compare). If you use eSATA, you will need an external eSATA port on your computer. This may require you to install an eSATA interface card if your computer doesn't have one already.

Prenderb

I suppose what I meant to ask was - is an external hard drive just a "bare disk" with a fance jacket? If I unscrew the external hard disk's cover, will there be a "bare disk" underneath that'll just sit onto this dock? Unfortunately, I don't have the disk with me so I can't open it up myself!

USB to PC will do fine, I just wanna make sure I can save Dad's pics!

The Snipe

Yeah, there should just be the bare disk - but if you can try and keep a way of storing it, so that it doesn't break, (Make sure it stays in a static bag if its not installed in a computer/enclosure, and make sure you always discharge your static energy before you touch any harddrive).

Prenderb

Cool. I think Dad was planning to get a new HDD soon anyway, so this might be his excuse. Will try convince him to keep the old one too, but the main thing is to get the pics off the old one! Thanks all for your help and suggestions, I hope it works. Sorry again for the OT/hijack.

Cameraman

Just a warning - it may not be a SATA disk i.e. a different interface and need different connectors. I think most recent disks will be SATA though.

The Snipe

Prenderb wrote: »

Cool. I think Dad was planning to get a new HDD soon anyway, so this might be his excuse. Will try convince him to keep the old one too, but the main thing is to get the pics off the old one! Thanks all for your help and suggestions, I hope it works. Sorry again for the OT/hijack.

If thats the case, then you could even install the other one, and keep the old one in there aswell (but still back up all the photos on the new one anyway), that way you can still easily keep all your old files.

Cameraman wrote: »

Just a warning - it may not be a SATA disk i.e. a different interface and need different connectors. I think most recent disks will be SATA though.

Most modern computers are supplyed with SATA II, However SATA III 6GB/S was recently introduced aswell so that would be something to watch out for aswell, as the SATA III HDD, mightn't have proper Support for SATA II Ports. (I'm not sure about that one, but there might be problems).