NAS Questions

[garris3404]

What NAS soluntion do you use? Do you use a single disk or multiple disks? Do you use RAID, and which level? What vendors/models do you use? Are there other factors to consider?

 

[Steve's Girl]

NAS - Nikon Accessory Syndrome. Me, I just keep buying more stuff. Works everytime!

 

[garris3404]

NAS - Nikon Accessory Syndrome. Me, I just keep buying more stuff. Works everytime!

I already have that NAS (too costly). I'm asking about Network Attached Storage (NAS).

 

[DueyDooDah]

I currently use a Buffalo Linkstation 250GB device. I like it, although it's slow. It does not have RAID. As I use DVDs to make backups, I don't see the sense in RAID and losing the space it requires.

I have looked seriously at the Western Digital Net Center for my next NAS. It is fast, large and cheap. But Buffalo has dropped its prices lately and I will have to review their offerings before making my final decision. I suggest you look at both company's products. I've looked at others, but find these options the best value and performance.

http://westerndigital.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=243

http://uk.buffalotech.com/products/storage.php

 

[Groucho]

I use an old PC tucked away in the basement. Works fine for me.

Remember that hard drives are unreliable and that NAS is not a backup solution, just a storage one. With RAID, it becomes more of a viable backup solution, but I still prefer alternate methods.

 

[alan]

I use a Buffalo LinkStation, I think it's the 300GB model. I use it partly for backup, partly to let me stream video around the house

Pro:

• Hard disks actually aren't bad as a backup media. They're fast, and probably longer life than blank DVDs. Thet're not perfect, though, and I'd still like to find a better solution.
• I can use SyncToy from Microsoft to set up a nightly backup of my photograph folders without requiring any intervention on my part. Works pretty sweetly; by the time I wake up in the morning any photos I added yesterday have been added to the NAS device
• You can attach a random USB external hard drive, and have the LinkStation schedule backups to the USB disk. Pretty neat, huh?

Con:

• The model I have doesn't allow account-level access control, only share-level access control. I'd like to have the device writable only by a backup account, which would be a non-interactive account. I can't set it up that way :-(

regards,
/alan

 

[rtphokie]

I've got my photos on a couple hundred terrabyte NetApp at work. When management finds it I'm so fired.

 

[DueyDooDah]

I've got my photos on a couple hundred terrabyte NetApp at work. When management finds it I'm so fired.

I'm working to consolodate my communications department's data onto our primary file server. Once that's done, I should have unlimited space (hehe).

 

[Groucho]

[*]Hard disks actually aren't bad as a backup media. They're fast, and probably longer life than blank DVDs. Thet're not perfect, though, and I'd still like to find a better solution.

Welcome to a relatively new user.

However.............

There's just no way hard drives are remotely as reliable as DVDs. Trust me on this one, computer work like this is what I do (for a large international company), and on the side, I have built a ton of PCs for myself and others. Hard drives are incredibly unreliable, certainly the least reliable part in any given PC.

Not that DVDs are perfect, certainly, but that's much safer than hard drives (plus there's that whole eggs-in-a-basket thing - one bad DVD will lose a lot less data than one bad hard drive.)

Still, if you keep your data on two hard drives and regularly access both of them (so you'll know if one kicks the bucket), they are a passable day-to-day backup solution - but you should still burn backup DVDs or CDs regularly IMHO, no matter what else you do.

 

[alan]

Thanks for the welcome!

I have no wish to get into an argument, but for me the fact of there being a backup is what matters. Bottom line is that I am not likely to back up my collection of photos onto several DVDs terribly often - my NAS device and Windows SyncToy between them do the backup every night.

Now, there certainly are weaknesses in my backup regime. I should use a USB disc once in a while, backup the NAS device and store this USB disc in my office. That's going to start very soon.

My understanding is that current predictions suggest that the emulsions on DVD-R blanks may well break down in three years or so after manufacturing. If I am wrong, that is good news!

Everything comes down to statistics. If I have my data on three HDDs, two in my house and one in my office, I'd need to be unlucky indeed to lose it all. I absolutely accept that a further copy would be better. My experiences of CDs and DVDs have not generally been happy ones, maybe that's just bad handling by me.

Now, if someone would start marketing a decent 300GB tape drive for $200 or so, I'd jump at it

regards,
/alan

 

[Groucho]

Blank DVDs have been around quite a bit longer than three years, and very few that age have problems. When blank CDs were new, there were also proclamations of doom and failing media, which by and large have not held true (I've got many 10+ year old CD-Rs and it's a rare that one that has problems.)

Regardless, hard drives often don't make it to three years of age - many less. (That's a big reason why most of the manufacturers only give a 12-month warranty now, instead of the 3-year that used to be standard - and why I've been much exclusively bought Seagate recently, for their 5-year warranty.)

If you have multiple hard drives storing the same data and are using them regularly, you're probably fine. What makes me nervous are the people (and I've seen 'em) who buy a hard drive (or several), fill it full of data, then stick it on a shelf somewhere, and expect it to be a safe backup a few years from now. Unfortunately, that's not a realistic proposition (plus it's far more expensive than DVDs or CDs.)

Tape is probably still the safest long-term backup, for better or for worse.

 

[alan]

I have always understood the golden rule for HDDs is "never let them stop spinning"

regards,
/alan

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I use a couple of Infrant ReadyNAS X6's. They are 4 disk RAID 5 arrays with 300's in one and 400's in the other.

One really nice feature about the X6's is that I can upgrade in place. I plan to replace each of the 300's next year with 1 gig drives and it will replicate all of the information on the 300's to the 1 gigs and expand the volume automatically.

I preferred the ReadyNAS products over the Buffalo because they have better performance and better support. The Buffalo units were cheaper, but not by that much when I bought my first one. I bought the second one because I needed the space and because i wanted hardware redundancy as well.

HDD's are less reliable than properly stored DVDs, but I don't use them as a complete backup solution. I archive to DVD and store one copy at home and the other at my office. That gives me a critical offsite backup.

My ReadyNAS continuously monitors drive temperature and error reports. It e-mailed me several months ago when a drive started reporting problems. I promptly replaced the drive (losing no data since it was a RAID and the drive was still working anyway). I now use the drive as part of a two drive RAID 0 array which is used as a scratch drive.

Modern HDD, when kept spinning and kept with proper climate controls and continuously monitored are pretty reliable. Just make sure that you replace them when you see signs of trouble. Don't trust any one physical device as a complete backup. Fire and flood render most backup solutions unusable.