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Relatively safe, alternative media storage?

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  • 31-10-2010 2:52pm
    #1
    19543261
    Registered Users Posts: 1,973 ✭✭✭


    Right now I have a 500GB internal with all my music and pictures, and a 500 external with all my movies. They're both on their last GB's - time for some more space, then.

    HDDs are lovely and cheap these days, and that's great and all, but I don't want to pick up 2x2TB to have one of them crap out on me at some stage, losing 2TB of data. So up until recently I had been planing to just keep buying 500GB externals, thinking if I lost one it would only be half of that. But that's still a lot of lost data.

    So I began looking into RAID towers but they're all so pricey. You're only really getting half the space you pay for, I'd have to fork out twice the amount of cash. That's insane. It's not very economical considering your paying 200% for the off chance that something does happen, which it more than likely wont. I don't know if that extra amount is worth the "security".

    Are there any alternatives? BD are still too expensive, and DVDs are too small.

    What about useing software to automatically backup my data? I'm not so sure how I'd go about setting something like that up. If you lads could give me an idea or throw some other suggestions I'd be very grateful, cheers.


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    #2
    Monotype
    Registered Users Posts: 6,710 ✭✭✭Monotype


    You could set up your discs in RAID 1 which would clone everything you do to one disc to the other. While it involves you to only sit back and let the data double itself, it doesn't save you from deleting things by accident.

    RAID 5 - Requires at least 3 discs. If one drive goes, you're still ok. Not expandable and comes with it's own problems.

    Backup software - good in that if set up correctly, it will back up the changes you've made once in a while.

    External backup - The best kind, in my opinion. Simple and even if your whole computer blows up, your data is still safe. On the other hand, thieves will find it easier to grab a hard drive than a computer. You could use this with backup software.

    Remote/Online backup - Expensive. Great if your house burns down but the data has been passed outside your hands.

    What I usually do myself is create my own 7zip file with minimal compression and backup to an external disc/another computer. It can take a while, but it saves a bit of space and you have a full backup.

    Windows has it's own backup which you can schedule, but maybe other software would be more suitable. You can buy Acronis for €40 which is a very good piece of software. I haven't seen any open source alternatives that I liked, but maybe somebody else has some suggestions.

    When I say external backup, you can can use a harddrive dock and internal discs. If your harddrives are for backup, just go for the cheaper slower drives - E.g., green series. Speed is not the key as you won't be accessing it every day.

    So... maybe a new fast 1TB internal drive to replace your main drive, if it's old (to get the speed boost). Then maybe get 2 more 1/1.5/2TB green drives for storage and backup. How fast do you reckon you'd be filling up the space? You're at 1TB now? A year before you're at 2TB?


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    #3
    19543261
    Registered Users Posts: 1,973 ✭✭✭19543261


    Thanks for the reply, Monotype.

    I only put together this machine less than a year ago, so the harddrive is up to standard I would think. So yeah, 10 or so months to gather up 1.5TB+ (Had to constantly uninstall games, remove movies and prune my FLAC collection. Painful process to say the least T_T)

    The original idea was to build the computer so that the OS's would run off an SSD, while all the media would be stored externally. Saves power and keeps **** neat. In the end I ran out of money and got my hands on a free HDD, but now I'm thinking of going back on that. I could then use the 500 internal I have now for applications, games and an image of the OS's, while everything else would be held externally.

    How much would you reckon enclosure for the storage to cost? I was checking some out and found this: http://www.dabs.ie/products/startech-com-multi-bay-hdd-enclosure-6LBN.html?refs=4294948642

    8TB max seems just right. It doesn't have RAID, but the software can deal with that, I assume?

    Edit: Or this one instead: http://www.dabs.ie/products/edge10-4bay-esata-das-enclosure-5FYF.html


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