Crucial SSD’s and backup solutions

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Chris
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Ive decided to add an external SSD to my iMac to keep my LR, Catalogue and current years photos on and noticed that the Crucial SSD drives are a lot cheaper than the likes of Samsung etc, I wondered if anybody had any experience of the Crucial drives. I know I would need to add an enclosure or dock but it still works out a lot less than the competition. For security I plan on keeping a backup on a WD Passport External Drive.

I have always been a little blasé about backups (mainly down to lack of knowledge etc) have decided I need to change this attitude before something goes wrong. I also wondered what workflow people followed.

My current plans are as follows. Does this make any sense?

All archive files will be kept on a separate external drive with a backup kept on a dual drive NAS (set-up with Raid0 - Mirroring). Images imported to External SSD with 2nd copy going to the NAS. I will also Clone the external drive to a 2nd external drive once a month. I am also looking into options for storing Raw files in the cloud. I currently have a Keenai account which may come in for that.

Hopefully that should take care of the Raw’s and LR catalogue. As for the finished JPEG’s my current workflow, means than completed images get exported from LR and into Photos (which lives on the internal drive) and also into Flickr for sharing. Based on this I have 2 backups in the cloud. My Mac is also backed up using TimeMachine and I am also thinking that when I clone the external drive, I will also clone the internal.

So by my current thinking this would give me the following backups:

Raw files/Catalogue - 1 Physical backup + 1 Cloud backup (+ original)
JPEGs - 1 Physical + 2 Cloud backups (+ original)

Am I missing something? All feedback and thoughts are welcome.

Many thanks

Chris
 
Crucial stuff is pretty good, it did have a poor rep quite a few years ago when SSds were getting established.
With most SSds being used in PCs and Laptops people get hung up on the extra couple of percent of the Samsung evo stuff for sure but as an external drive you will be limited to the interface supplying it anyway.
 
Have a look at carbon copy cloner. It allows you to automate the backup process. I've been using it for a couple of years, the only part of the backup process that needs my input is swapping over the offsite backup once a month (it even reminds me when it needs doing).
 
Crucial stuff is pretty good, it did have a poor rep quite a few years ago when SSds were getting established.
With most SSds being used in PCs and Laptops people get hung up on the extra couple of percent of the Samsung evo stuff for sure but as an external drive you will be limited to the interface supplying it anyway.

Have a look at carbon copy cloner. It allows you to automate the backup process. I've been using it for a couple of years, the only part of the backup process that needs my input is swapping over the offsite backup once a month (it even reminds me when it needs doing).

Thanks both, its something I've been meaning to get around to, but due to it seemingly really complicated kept putting it off
 
you are doing the right thing with cloud backup that is by far the most reliable.
I use hubic and have an HP microserver running as a NAS/media server.
 
Raid 0 as it is known is basically just the disks as they are sometimes some systems cluster them together to show them as one single disk or even call it JBOD (just a bunch of disks)
.
RAID stands for or used to Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks.

RAID has been deformed from what it was intended to into what it is not.
It was invented by storage geeks years ago to speed up disks access as older disks were much slower than now.
the theory being more platters and more spindles (the bits inside disks) you could bundle together added up to more speed.
put a bit of tech in the way (a RAID controller) and you have a big bag of disks that behaved as one big fast one.

Now adays in the home use RAID is sold as a redundant option especially RAID 5 which is really quite awful as it offers very little in the way of redundancy.
because as soon as you lose one disks from your array the whole thing starts trying desperately to make up the lost data, that is not redundancy.

honest answer the best way to do disks in a redundant manor is RAID 1 which as Neil says is mirroring.
The theory being if you lost a disk you have a complete mirror disk or the very expensive RAID 6 which uses more disks and writes more strips but out of 4 disks you get half the storage as half the disk are used for redundant stripes.

I would urge anyone with an older RAID 5 array to really start looking at phasing it out unless they have a rock solid backup and recovery plan.

Also to many people focus on the disks not those £5 PSUs that often power little NAS setups that can easily go pop
 
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Raid 0 as it is known is basically just the disks as they.
RAID stands for or used to Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks.

RAID has been deformed from what it was intended to into what it is not.
It was invented by storage geeks years ago to speed up disks access as older disks were much slower than now.
the theory being more platters and more spindles (the bits inside disks) you could bundle together added up to more speed.
put a bit of tech in the way (a RAID controller) and you have a big bag of disks that behaved as one big fast one.

Now adays in the home use RAID is sold as a redundant option especially RAID 5 which is really quite awful as it offers very little in the way of redundancy.
because as soon as you lose one disks from your array the whole thing starts trying desperately to make up the lost data, that is not redundancy.

honest answer the best way to do disks in a redundant manor is RAID 1 which as Neil says is mirroring.
The theory being if you lost a disk you have a complete mirror disk or the very expensive RAID 6 which uses more disks and writes more strips but out of 4 disks you get half the storage as half the disk are used for redundant stripes.

I would urge anyone with an older RAID 5 array to really start looking at phasing it out unless they have a rock solid backup and recovery plan.

Also to many people focus on the disks not those £5 PSUs that often power little NAS setups that can easily go pop

Thanks Paul RAID1 was the option I was planning to use. When you talk about the PSU Im guessing your on about the one that is built into the NAS rather than an external device?
 
Yes but its kinda just basic electronics, they just sit there cooking for years and in many respects just as possible for them to go pop.
if it is an old NAS as well (and that in this world can be a very short time) you might find the NAS difficult to recover.

lots of basic NAS products just have little plug top type supplies as well.
 
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OK, so after a lot of investigation, this is my present thinking.

WD MyCloud Mirror 2 x 2Tb (set to RAID1) - Archived images + LR Catalogue Backup. Lightroom also set to to import a second copy of Raw's to this drive
WD My Passport SSD 512Gb for Lightroom Catalogue and images (last and current year)

2Tb Portable External Drives to clone the SSD (512Gb) and Main HD (1Tb) to once a month??? (Is it possible to clone 2 drives to 1 larger drive?)

As well as this I also have a 1Tb hard drive running Time Machine. As I also said in the OP, The finished JPEGs are exported to Photos (with iCloud backup) and Flickr. I will also be saving the archived Raw's in the cloud also, prob. Keenai or iDrive (which would enable me to store a copy of the LR Catalogue there too)

By my reckoning this gives:
1 physical and 1 Cloud backup of archived images
1 physical and 1 Cloud backup of current Raw files
1 physical and 2 Cloud backups of JPEGS's

Does this make sense or have I overlooked anything
 
...Now adays in the home use RAID is sold as a redundant option especially RAID 5 which is really quite awful as it offers very little in the way of redundancy. because as soon as you lose one disks from your array the whole thing starts trying desperately to make up the lost data, that is not redundancy.

RAID 5 uses 3 or more disks, and by striping the data across all disks allows for 1 disk to fail with no loss of data - which most certainly IS redundancy.

You can then replace the defective drive, and it will rebuild the array.

It will certainly have a significant performance hit while a disk is down, but compared to a non-RAID solution you are a lot safer.

That's not to suggest for one moment that RAID is a substitute for a proper backup strategy, it's not, but it is a reasonable element of such a strategy (IE as one of the multiple copies of your data).

What has made RAID 5 less attractive nowadays is the combination of high performance drives, and, more importantly, high capacity drives - you can readily purchase 3+Tb drives, so can get a large RAID 1 array where previously you would have needed a RAID 5 array to get the capacity.
 
@Faldrax I agree the use of the word is valid but even the experts agree RAID 5 is a very bad choice.

As said before many times, unless you have at the very least a boxed ready to go disk or preferably a configured hot spare.
then no array is redundant.

Direct From the WIKI

RAID 5
RAID 5 consists of block-level striping with distributed parity. Unlike RAID 4, parity information is distributed among the drives, requiring all drives but one to be present to operate. Upon failure of a single drive, subsequent reads can be calculated from the distributed parity such that no data is lost. RAID 5 requires at least three disks.[11] RAID 5 implementations are susceptible to system failures because of trends regarding array rebuild time and the chance of drive failure during rebuild (see "Increasing rebuild time and failure probability" section, below).[22] Rebuilding an array requires reading all data from all disks, opening a chance for a second drive failure and the loss of the entire array. In August 2012, Dell posted an advisory against the use of RAID 5 in any configuration on Dell EqualLogic arrays and RAID 50 with "Class 2 7200 RPM drives of 1 TB and higher capacity" for business-critical data.[23
 
@Mr Bump There is a difference between a business critical case, and a home user case.

For business critical you cannot afford to stop using the array if there is a drive failure - and the issue with RAID 5 is the performance and possibility of secondary failures if you continue to use it while 1 disk is down.

In a home use scenario, if a disk fails, you can simply shutdown the array, order a new disk from Amazon next day, then when the replacement arrives plug it in and you're good to go once it's rebuilt.

There is a failure window while the rebuild occurs - but provided you let it rebuild without otherwise accessing the array, it's a relatively low risk.
It's a tad inconvenient not to have access for a day or two, but a lot less inconvenient than NOT using a RAID option and having to get a replacement disk and hoping your backup is up to date!

The Dell EqualLogic arrays mentioned in the WIKI are a very different level of storage than a typical home used will have (or need), and it's the potentially high levels of access that will continue to occur while the array has a disk down that provide the risk of a cascade failure.
 
This whole shift to anti raid 5 is a bit of a storm in a teacup if you ask me especially for consumer use. Been running it at home and in enterprise for years with no bother..

Whatever raid level you use you should have a backup in place to mitigate risks, no raid level is infallible. I've had multiple spare raid sets go completely on the wonk.
 
This whole shift to anti raid 5 is a bit of a storm in a teacup if you ask me especially for consumer use. Been running it at home and in enterprise for years with no bother..

Whatever raid level you use you should have a backup in place to mitigate risks, no raid level is infallible. I've had multiple spare raid sets go completely on the wonk.

Does 2 drives setup in RAID1 not qualify as a backup solution? Forgive the basic question but I’m still catching up. My (possibly incorrect) understanding was that as it copies the same thing to both drives, if 1 failed you would still have another as a backup.
 
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