RAID Archive Required - Suggestions

futureal33

futureal33

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Afternoon all

I would appreciate any help / advice / pointers anyone could give me regarding a decision I am currently trying to finalise at the moment.

My wedding RAWs and general picture backup system is robust, but messy, and I am looking at simplifying.

I am looking at getting some kind of archiving system, which I will load RAW files onto, once they have been worked on and "completed". This system must be large (I need around 8GB of usable data - with an option to expand if I need it being favourable). I wont be accessing the files from any tablets, phones etc, it will purely be a "copy and paste and forget" - archive solution, in the event I ever need to get a RAW file back from my last 3 years.

I have other (internal PC) hard drives which I will use as working directories (backed up via mirroring), so my requirement is purely for an archive.

At the moment I'm torn between a few different options. Ideally Id like to be able to hot swap a broken drive, or have the option to increase an individual or multiple drives capacity (from 3TB to 4TB for example) at any time with no data loss - something which I know the DROBO allows, but Im not sure if other's do this? Very appealing

1) DROBO. Sounds very simple and Ive read some good things. Also read some bad things. Id go for a 4 bay unit with 4 x 3TB drives inside
2) WD EX4100. Something I've only recently come across. Looks similar to drobo but possibly not as simple (?) Not sure about the hot swapping / increasing with larger drives capability
3) Synology 4 bay. I currently use a Synology for my home-media server and it works great, so I like the brand. No idea if this would be too complicated for what I need though really?

Any help MUCH appreciated!
 
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remember raid mirroring is not a backup.

now thats out of the way..

synology > drobo. drobo run a propriety file system so can be a pain to recover if the worst happens. their support isnt that good either.
 
I recently upgraded from a Synology with 8Tb to a medium spec QNAP with 24Tb; both RAID 5. My QNAP a little more pricey than the budget models offered by all the suppliers but what a wonderful bit of kit!
One recommendation I highly recommend is to consider looking for a NAS with Gigabit ethernet and upgrade your cabling/switch.
Initially the QNAP speed improvement over the Synology wasn't as much as I'd hoped for; but after upgrading my network it absolutely flies - it's like having discs mounted internally. Transferring a shoots worth of images onto the drive now takes seconds and browsing my archives is no longer a chore
 
I'm in a similar situation with my Synology DS413 which currently houses a mixture of weddings, personal work and media for streaming around the home. It's quickly running out of storage so I'm also considering an archiving solution however I do find it useful to be able to access earlier weddings via Lightroom so it would be useful to still have them easily accessible.
 
DuncanDisorderly said:
I recently upgraded from a Synology with 8Tb to a medium spec QNAP with 24Tb; both RAID 5. My QNAP a little more pricey than the budget models offered by all the suppliers but what a wonderful bit of kit!
One recommendation I highly recommend is to consider looking for a NAS with Gigabit ethernet and upgrade your cabling/switch.
Initially the QNAP speed improvement over the Synology wasn't as much as I'd hoped for; but after upgrading my network it absolutely flies - it's like having discs mounted internally. Transferring a shoots worth of images onto the drive now takes seconds and browsing my archives is no longer a chore
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not to say the med/high spec synologys arent speedy.

the DS1010+ was excellent for working on RAW over gigabit. the DS2414+ at work (36Tb yo..) also very fast. :)
 
A NAS is great bor backups of your system and data that you may want to access quickly. But if you rarely need to access your old data then I'd go for an eSATA docking station and multiple 3.5" disks. I'd have three disks per year, all identical, all stored in different locations (e.g. one in the home office, one in the bedroom, one off-site. At the end of the year I'f copy all that year's data from the NAS to the three drives, check data integrity, then delete it from the NAS. Each drive will have a LR catalog covering the images on the drive, to make it easier to find stuff.

It sacrifices speed of access for expandabilty (near-infinite) and security (data stored in multiple locations).
 
neil_g said:
not to say the med/high spec synologys arent speedy.

the DS1010+ was excellent for working on RAW over gigabit. the DS2414+ at work (36Tb yo..) also very fast. :)
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I'm using a synology ds713+, which has two gigabit port. I get full sustained speeds with it when using wd red 3 and 6 TB disks. So yes I agreed, no reason why one should be faster or slower than the other.
 
If you like Synology, then that could be the best solution. If you're looking for alternatives, the as per my post in DigitalRelish's current thread, Unraid might be an option for you. I have one set up as a file server, and my desktop just sees it as a range of extra drives sitting on my network. Very straightforward and very quick.
 
If you are serious about going down this road, then I'd recommend you look at RAID6 over RAID5. Just been bitten by a multiple disk failure in a RAID5 configuration on a server. The array was still rebuilding (large disks) when a second disk failed and the whole thing was totalled.
Fortunately it was a non critical server.
 
Have you considered cloud storage?

Dropbox pro, based on how much your equipment will cost to purchase and maintain.
Also remember unless you have offsite secure backups if the house goes up its trouble.
 
futureal33 said:
My upload speed at home ranges from between 0.08mbps and 0.4mpb - so unfortunately cloud storage isnt an option! Neither is YouTube for that matter, frustrating beyond belief
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fair enough, do you have any options to change that broadband, any virgin media cable etc?
 
Believe it or not, Im supposedly with the fastest supplier in my area (BT).

The only other options with regards to internet / cloud storage are expensive satellite internet providers, which offer upto 8mpbs, but the price is through the roof, so Im not currently really considering that an option!

Im hoping that fibre comes soon to my area, but have been hoping for ages now
 
yeah it sounds like you are out of luck, shame as some companies out there are offering amazing deals.
I have a 10tb solution for my business which has full version/undelete history, sharing with external users.

Absolutely piece of cake for £18/month. It is more than perhaps doing it all yourself but I can't recommend it enough for simplicity.
 
Given your requirement's are archive I would definitely err away from NAS type solutions.
The long term costs for having it online at all times are just not efficient.
 
true but what happens if your NAS box PSU goes pop.
You have the issue of disk reliability over say 5+ years.

NAS devices are for online availability and reliable to a point combined with a good backup solution.

Archive is different and there are better products like blu ray and off site storage that work out much cheaper and reliable over extended time frames.

The OP has specified Archive requirements.
 
Problem is the volume of data I am wanting to keep.. A disk solution (despite how big BluRays are) isnt feesible, and tbh I can see this being more messy than my current solution (ie, Disk 1 = Jan - April 2015 weddings, Disk 2 = April - June weddings, Disk 3 = June - August weddings) etc etc - it just seems a bit messy!?

I do like the idea of having a USB backup - thats something I'll look into :)

Something like a 3TB USB 3 ext.HDD backed up to the NAS would be good - and that way I could possibly have 2 of them... 1 for 2012-2014 and the second for 2015+ - but also on my NAS
 
I appreciate what your saying but the NAS solution is the wrong solution for archive period.
for Archive purposes you need to be spending your money on the long term viability of your data and its security, not the short term access of said data.
 
Nothing wrong with drives for said archive. Providing a) it's a second (or better) copy and b) drive integrity is monitored.

Coming from someone who uses drives and blu ray, blu ray gets a bit of a faff. Especially for large volumes of data.
 
neil_g said:
or just use an external HD and lob it (metaphorically not physically) into a drawer at work. get 2 and cycle them so 1 is always off site.
Click to expand...

This is what I've done - full backups on external drives (in addition to my Unraid server), regularly checked and stored off site.
 
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