Need Bigger Hard Drive

[mabas9395]

I think I need another hard drive. I have two internal drives that are pretty full (my 300gb secondary drive has less than 15% free space so some functions have ceased to function). I have tons of music, video and photos (obviously, that why I'm on this board). Plus I want to digitize a bunch of analog video and need a working space for that too.

I am looking for a 500gb external drive for a Windows XP machine. I also want some good backup software to go with it (one that can do incremental back ups). I think my plan (and I use the word "plan" loosely, I'm a finance guy, not a tech guy) is to use my main drive for apps, my secondary internal for media, and this new third one for backups and video editing "working space". (and yes I am a firm believer in DVD backups as well)

Any suggetions on either my plan or a good drive to get?

btw, this is photography board related because if it wasn't for all my RAW files, I probably wouldn't be needing another HD.

 

[Groucho]

Seagate offers a 5-year warranty - that's a pretty big feature in their favor.

 

[AndrewWG]

I'm actually at the point of looking for a terabyte drive. Yep, that's 1000GB I believe. I have 2 200GB drives that are mainly full (one basically mirrors the other so it is only really 200GB of data) and the TB drives seem like a good choice at this point. I think they make them in external, but I'm sure the cost is quite high. I have seen some internal ones that aren't too bad. I forget how much now, but I don't remember screaming at the price so it had to be around $200 give or take.

 

[AndrewWG]

Looks like they are mainly closer to $300. I must have seen a sale before. Oh well, I can wait.

 

[SharonLowe]

I have a 2 terabyte Buffalo NAS Terastation for back-up - 4 500 gig drives in one system; Raid 5 configured so only gives me 1.5 terabyte 9(there are smaller ones). One of the 4 drives failed right after I started backing up so I was very happy to have configured it as Raid 5. Buffalo's products work well with PCs (my husband runs a PC on our network; I have a Mac; I wouldn't have picked the Buffalo for my Mac since they don't support Macs (but it works with it over the network) but he got it for me as a Christmas present last year) and come with pretty good back-up software that continuously works in the background. Back-up software is by Memeo. I had to buy their Mac software, which works quite well. I think their PC back-up software is the best in the industry.

I wouldn't get just one drive for back-up. I definitely recommend a Raid type system if you have a chunk of files. Another company, Drobo, is getting good reviews for its products - handles the back-up, manages the disks, etc. You buy their management system and add and replace drives as necessary.

Both are worth looking at if you are serious about a good back-up system. With the Memeo products, you can set different back-up plans and they will stay up to date. I have 3 set up based on 3 different hard drives on my system (yes, I have 3 hard drives that I use every day - the smallest is 400 GB!) and haven't had a problem with it. The Drobo came out after I already had the Buffalo; otherwise I would have gone that direction since it seems like a really great way to go. My main complaint about the particular Terastation I have is that it is not hot swappable - my husband didn't think it was necessary. So, I made him replace the drive that failed - think he learned why I thought it was a really important feature after the amount of time and effort he had to spend

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I second the suggestion for a NAS RAID, if you want the extra space and redundancy it provides. I recommend the Infrant (now owned by Netgear) boxes over the Buffalo. I don't know anything about Drobo.

I would not recommend an external drive or NAS for any "working" files. Access is much slower than an internal drive. OK, an esata drive is probably an exception, but I wouldn't use a USB or firewire drive. Ideally, if you're working with large video files, I'd build an internal RAID 0 array for working space and keep the files backed up on an external RAID 5.

 

[SharonLowe]

I second the suggestion for a NAS RAID, if you want the extra space and redundancy it provides. I recommend the Infrant (now owned by Netgear) boxes over the Buffalo. I don't know anything about Drobo.

I would not recommend an external drive or NAS for any "working" files. Access is much slower than an internal drive. OK, an esata drive is probably an exception, but I wouldn't use a USB or firewire drive. Ideally, if you're working with large video files, I'd build an internal RAID 0 array for working space and keep the files backed up on an external RAID 5.

I too would second the recommendation for Infrant. That is the system I wanted for my Mac. But, my hubby is a PC guy and the Buffalo was way cheaper so he went with it despite my request for an Infrant system. He learned why it was so much cheaper when one drive failed right away and he had to struggle to remove it and then put in the replacement. Plus, the included software doesn't work on Macs so I had to separately purchase my backup software. He still won't admit that the Infrant would have saved money when factoring in his labor costs and the extra software costs....

 

[mabas9395]

But how easy is a RAID to set up and manage for a non-tech sort?

 

[SharonLowe]

But how easy is a RAID to set up and manage for a non-tech sort?

You tell your system that you want the unit/disks set as a RAID, whichever type you choose - each drive in the RAID must be the same size. The system should take care of itself. If a disk fails, it should show it and tell you which one. You then remove it, get a new one, and it should restore itself to using all of the disks.

I must admit, I at first had major issues that took a very long time to deal with because the system my husband got was designed for a PC system and just didn't want to deal well with my Mac. I had over 1 TB of stuff I wanted to put on it (3 large drives that had been backed up to single drives that I now wanted to put on the NAS RAID system). I split it into separate back-up plans to make it not so painful but each one took several days to complete, if they got through the process. I had problems with file/folder names and learned that the system was trying to use AppleTalk (so my Mac could communicate with a PC based system) which didn't like long/odd names (even though my Mac could care less) so it would work for hours and then tell me there was an error and just quit on me. When I finally got decent back-up software, a drive failed and my Mac wouldn't even talk to what was left. It is finally running okay but it still doesn't like some files in my documents folder so I have given up trying to back it up. I now have Leopard on my Mac and it includes a new back-up program, which I will try to see if it can handle my documents folder even if I have to back it up to something other than my PC-centric NAS.

I have read/heard that the Drobos are really simple and quite good. They however use a different protocol than RAID, which has been the norm. So, it is a fairly new technology and I can't confirm that all the bugs have been worked out. Plus, from them, you buy the case/software/firmware, but purchase the drives separately. With the Infrant systems, you can buy it either way - with or without the drives. With Buffalo, I'm not sure if they offer it with you buying your own drives separately.

 

[mabas9395]

I'll accept the fact that a RAID configuration would probably be a technically superior solution, I just don't think I have the knowledge/skill/time to implement a RAID and not cause more problems than I already have. History has shown that when I have more technology than knowledge, I'm a ticking time bomb.

My son just turned 11, so I'm sure before long he will know more about this than me. I'll just let him install the RAID in a few years and just go with a simple "classic" hard drive for now.

 

[Groucho]

I find the biggest obstacle to RAID is the simple fact that you have X number of hard drives sitting there and you're not using all of them. I chew up so much space that I'd probably end up disabling the raid array and using the second drive for storage. (My 500g drive that I bought a couple months ago is down to 12 gigs free now....!)

That being said, if I found myself with an extra pile of cash, a raid array would definitely be something I'd feel more comfortable about, but all my important stuff generally exists in at least two places and is backed up nightly.