Anyone using RAID arrays?

[Uncle Erik]

I run RAID 1 and 5 on various machines here. I like it very much.

Instead of trying to run RAID on a laptop, why not get/build a cheapo x86 box and set it up as a music server? You can get a used P4 box dirt cheap these days, or a new Sempron box. Four 300GB drives will run about $400 or so, and you can get an inexpensive RAID 5 card. That'll give you 900GB with plenty of security. Add it to your wireless network and that'll be it. Set it up under Linux and you'll have a rock solid server.

One nice thing about the MacBook is that it comes with Apple's Front Row/Bonjour software. It's designed to pull media seamlessly off of networks, which is where your server would come in. Works fine here; I use it with an Intel Mini. I think that'd be your best solution.

 

[5Kurt]

Whatever system you use, I strongly suggest that you keep your backup files off-site.

Another room in your house, in the bank safe, your parents' house etc.etc.

 

[d-cee]

i think what you're after is NAS (network attached storage) usually in the form of an appliance that connects to your network via ethernet, the configurations vary widely - RAID or not depends on your preference is available in very large sizes, terrabyte+ and plugged into a UPS and surge supressor you'd be pretty right.

most of them run off simple unix kernels and are basically their own independant machine but without a screen or keyboard or anything. most use a utility on your pc or have a little web server to configure through the browser. maybe just what you need

 

[hackeron]

I agree with the NAS idea and here's what I did.

1) Buy a coolermaster stacker
2) Buy a 1kW PSU (Don't worry, that's only for peak use and they are very efficient).
3) Buy an nforce4 motherboard with 8 onboard sata
4) Buy an additional SATA controller
5) Buy 12 300GB drives
6) Install a noob friendly linux distribution and configure a software raid6 on all those drives (raid6 means it can handle 2 simultaneous drive failures without data loss)
7) Use mount_nfs on the Mac to mount it over a network

Then you have around 3tB of reliable storage at a total cost of around $2k - a ready made SAN solution with half the disk space costs upward of $10k

 

[daggerlee]

a little bit off track, but if you're going to be using a backup program on the Mac, I highly recommend super duper!

there was a shoot out on various Mac backup software, and Super duper! came out on top, while other mainstays such as carbon copy cloner didn't do so well - I sure wish I'd known about this program back when I swapped my powerbook's hard drive, c'est la vie

 

[CaptSnuffy]

Definitely go with a backup server if you've got the cash (And if you're on this site, you'd better). Even if you might not have experience with setting these things up, the ease of use will be much greater if you should choose this option.

 

[hackeron]

Quote:

Originally Posted by daggerlee a little bit off track, but if you're going to be using a backup program on the Mac, I highly recommend super duper! there was a shoot out on various Mac backup software, and Super duper! came out on top, while other mainstays such as carbon copy cloner didn't do so well - I sure wish I'd known about this program back when I swapped my powerbook's hard drive, c'est la vie

If you have a Mac you don't need any particular software, everything you need is already built in for backups. Try running rsync -aP ~ /Volumes/Drive-Name -- that will copy across changes only to save your media (I use flash) or cut bandwidth. I copy across 20GB of data over a typical ADSL line and it takes 5-10 seconds because it only copies the several documents I modified. Unix like systems are grand

 

[LeonvB]

For 1Tb, get a bigger external enclosure like f.i. an Intel SS4000
http://www.intel.com/design/servers/...00-E/index.htm

It supports f.i. 4x500Gb in RAID 5, making it a 1.5Tb storage server. It has 2 Gigabit ports for speed, so all you need extra is a switch to hook up your computer or laptop and power conditioning against spikes like APC's PF11VNT3 (for both power and ethernet).
It's much easier than building a PC and maintaining it, and more reliable than the real simple NAS devices. Downside: it's more expensive.

 

[hackeron]

Quote:

Originally Posted by LeonvB For 1Tb, get a bigger external enclosure like f.i. an Intel SS4000 http://www.intel.com/design/servers/...00-E/index.htm It supports f.i. 4x500Gb in RAID 5, making it a 1.5Tb storage server. It has 2 Gigabit ports for speed, so all you need extra is a switch to hook up your computer or laptop and power conditioning against spikes like APC's PF11VNT3 (for both power and ethernet). It's much easier than building a PC and maintaining it, and more reliable than the real simple NAS devices. Downside: it's more expensive.

Looks to be around $1850 for 1.5TB ready made, while you can have the same storage for around $1200 if you build it yourself.

Advantages of building yourself:
1) $600 in your pocket.
2) Flexibility of configuration (i.e. you can get emailed when a drive fails)
3) Multi function, the box can be a general purpose server or a desktop or a kick ass gaming box or of course a standalone fileserver.
4) More expansion posibilities, i.e. putting in a wireless pci card, more ram for more cache and better performance.

Advantages of ready made:
1) Much easier, building yourself can take a full day's work
2) Each drive slides out individually so easier to replace drivees (rather than the bay from where you replace the drive and put the bay back in)
3) Probably higher uptime, I wouldn't hotplug a self build PC even though it's possible in theory.
4) Smaller size.

So there you have it, obviously both are appealing to different people but regardless of what you do, remember: when buying hard drives, please make sure they come from different batches! - If you have 2 drives from the same batch, they can fail within 15 minutes of eachother 8 months down the line - order different drives from different places.

 

[LeonvB]

Now you're not being realistic.
1. 500Gb drives cost around 230$ each. You need 4 of them, cause you want RAID 5 and 1+Tb. That leaves you 280$ to get a PC that not only includes a good RAID 5 controller, but is also reliable enough to act as an server.
2. The SS4000E costs less than 600$. So a full system including 4x500Gb should be around 1520$. It really isn't that easy to build a server grade PC with ability of 4 drives, hardware RAID 5, hotswap drivebays, etc for that 600$.

Of course upgrading a good PC is cheaper than those 600$, but do remind we're talking about a notebook here. There really is NO way a notebook can get 1+Tb of storage at the moment without going external.

Note: If you have that much problems with drives failing you're buying from the wrong source or the wrong type (or both). If you want to build a 24x7 or RAID equipped machine, use the servergrade disks (about +10$ each to that 230$). Do it right, and you get better results: I've NEVER seen a 2 harddrive failure in 20 years amongst hunderds of servers.

 

[hackeron]

Quote:

Originally Posted by LeonvB Now you're not being realistic. 1. 500Gb drives cost around 230$ each. You need 4 of them, cause you want RAID 5 and 1+Tb. That leaves you 280$ to get a PC that not only includes a good RAID 5 controller, but is also reliable enough to act as an server.

Where can you find them for 230? - I'm seeing $280-$300. When building custom, I would get 300GB drives since I have more space in a regular case - that's the point of custom building.

Quote:

2. The SS4000E costs less than 600$. So a full system including 4x500Gb should be around 1520$. It really isn't that easy to build a server grade PC with ability of 4 drives, hardware RAID 5, hotswap drivebays, etc for that 600$.

Again, where? - I'm not seeing it for under $620 and of course it's easy to build a server grade PC, get an nforce4 motherboard with 8 onboard SATA - $90 - with some ram and cpu, add $150 more. A server grade PC is a pentium1 133mhz

- show me higher uptime than freebsd on an old pentium1.

Quote:

Note: If you have that much problems with drives failing you're buying from the wrong source or the wrong type (or both). If you want to build a 24x7 or RAID equipped machine, use the servergrade disks (about +10$ each to that 230$). Do it right, and you get better results: I've NEVER seen a 2 harddrive failure in 20 years amongst hunderds of servers.

I'm a sysadmin in a media company, we buy expensive SCSI IBM drives and we have several fail a year because of the huge loads. Drives at home don't fail as often, but all I am saying is you can't defy physics and drives made in the same batch fail within a very short period of eachother when they fail. I've seen 2 drives fail within 15 minutes of eachother 8 months down the line - this would not happen if each drive came from different batches.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of drives, bad quality drives have a higher failure rate but as long as they are from different batches, you won't have 2 fail simultaneously.

 

[LeonvB]

Newegg: WD5000KS for 229.99$
PageComputer: SS4000E for 564.93$
- There's a reason most chassis can't hold so much drives. A normal chassis will cause thermal + vibration problems in the long run. You need a server grade enclosure, something like a enlight SR-5032. But you won't like the sound of it...
- That's NOT a server grade PC. Believe me, you do not want to trust your 1+Tb collection to the on-board RAID controller of a desktop board.

You propably won't get fired for buying big blue, but they do use more parts in their SCSI drives than competing solutions. We've seen their failrate being higher than other brands in the past years.
Note: I would look at the enclosure design also. 100% load is pretty normal for some types of servers, unless you're administring hunderds of servers you still shouldn't see so much failures (I take it the drives aren't 4+ years old).

P.S. good luck slammin that P133 into that board

 

[daggerlee]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hackeron If you have a Mac you don't need any particular software, everything you need is already built in for backups. Try running rsync -aP ~ /Volumes/Drive-Name -- that will copy across changes only to save your media (I use flash) or cut bandwidth. I copy across 20GB of data over a typical ADSL line and it takes 5-10 seconds because it only copies the several documents I modified. Unix like systems are grand

hmm, I'm not really a unix guy so I'll have to take that for granted - here is the article that did the comparison, as well as another one which has interesting things to say about (among other things) rsync


http://blog.plasticsfuture.org/2006/...tware-harmful/

http://blog.plasticsfuture.org/2006/...nder-mac-os-x/

edit: another link re: rsync added
http://discussions.apple.com/thread....hreadID=383125