[Somnambulist]

Oh, btw, there might be a way round that. Would I be correct in assuming that if I were to get a small wireless bridge/gigabit switch, that I could connect the Mac and a NAS to the switch and have a speedy wired connection that way, but still get the wireless from the router via the switch?

 

[Somnambulist]

Orrrrr I can just connect a NAS via the Macs ethernet switch, then faff about with the settings so I can use that but still use the Airport, or something. Confusing.

 

[DaBomb77766]

Last time I checked, there was one company working on porting ZFS over to OSX after Apple dropped their efforts entirely.  ZFS would be wonderful though, if it really did cut down on filesystem errors.

 

[DougofTheAbaci]

Somnabulist, that's exactly why I went with ZFS. The only real difference is it's not as automated. The other reason is if you do end up going with an NAS down the road you don't have to start fresh with an entirely new system. You just find a bigger enclosure for the drives and attach them to some little micro PC to run Linux and control them. It's not a pretty server box but it'll do the exact same thing.
 
Right now, I would recommend Drobos to my parents. All they need is worry and thought-free storage without having to work at it. But for anyone who's either planning on it eventually being more or has a basic level of technical knowhow, I'm starting to think ZFS is the way to go. I know it is for me. You should seriously check it out.

 

[DougofTheAbaci]

 
Quote:

Last time I checked, there was one company working on porting ZFS over to OSX after Apple dropped their efforts entirely.  ZFS would be wonderful though, if it really did cut down on filesystem errors.

There is a company who are bringing a commercial version of ZFS to the Mac. The guy who's running it is the guy who lead the team that made HFS+ and was on the team that started Apple's efforts to include ZFS. I've been in e-mail contact with them, they have an open beta coming rather soon. I didn't get a date but I expect it before June comes and goes.
 
Until then, there's MacZFS, which is an open-source implementation of ZFS. It's not as up-to-date as Z-410 from Ten's Compliment is going to be, but it's based of a mature, stable iteration of ZFS. Bonus points for the two will be compatible when Z-410 hits the market.
 
As for errors in the filesystem, every file has a checksum and as files are read and written the checksum is... well... checked. If an error is found and you're using mirroring or RAIDZ if will fix the problem automatically. It won't corrupt it further as it's based of a valid checksum. That part is pretty nifty. But it gets better. ZFS uses copy-on-write whenever you do anything that involved editing the directory (rename, copy, move, delete, ect.) which makes it virtually impossible to lose data if, say, your power went out right as it was writing to the drives. With RAID you could be looking at a dead array quite easily. ZFS? Well, the files you were moving won't have been moved.
 
Seriously, I've been reading up on this and asking around for the past week and right now I'm waiting for the catch. Because I can't find one.

 

[t3haxle]

Quote:

Hey Now,
 
Yeppers! I backup to a 1TB Mirrored Raid 0 once a day and when I am done adding to the current state of the library it is backed up to an external 1TB naked drive through a Newer Technology Voyager for off-site storage. I'm a bit paranoid. I lost several years worth of gathering/ripping tunes when a backup job when terribly awry 8^(. 
 
Whenever anyone asks me about buying a computer, I tell them include the cost of a backup solution.
 
--
Finest kind,
Chris who paid the stupid tax

A little off topic but what do you use to tag/embed artwork?

 

[Somnambulist]

Quote:

 

There is a company who are bringing a commercial version of ZFS to the Mac. The guy who's running it is the guy who lead the team that made HFS+ and was on the team that started Apple's efforts to include ZFS. I've been in e-mail contact with them, they have an open beta coming rather soon. I didn't get a date but I expect it before June comes and goes.
 
Until then, there's MacZFS, which is an open-source implementation of ZFS. It's not as up-to-date as Z-410 from Ten's Compliment is going to be, but it's based of a mature, stable iteration of ZFS. Bonus points for the two will be compatible when Z-410 hits the market.
 
As for errors in the filesystem, every file has a checksum and as files are read and written the checksum is... well... checked. If an error is found and you're using mirroring or RAIDZ if will fix the problem automatically. It won't corrupt it further as it's based of a valid checksum. That part is pretty nifty. But it gets better. ZFS uses copy-on-write whenever you do anything that involved editing the directory (rename, copy, move, delete, ect.) which makes it virtually impossible to lose data if, say, your power went out right as it was writing to the drives. With RAID you could be looking at a dead array quite easily. ZFS? Well, the files you were moving won't have been moved.
 
Seriously, I've been reading up on this and asking around for the past week and right now I'm waiting for the catch. Because I can't find one.

The only thing is that it makes me think of these kinds of home setups:
 

 
Which is completely OTT for what I need! I see what you mean though and will check it out. Right now something like the Synology DS411J would suit me fine but I'm comfortable with the idea of making my own thing too (which is why I was looking at UnRAID. User-friendliness is important though! As is it being fairly inexpensive!

 

[Somnambulist]

Okay Z-410 looks impressive (lol@the theoretical capacity), definitely something for the future! So basically, if I'm reading it right, you could just get the biggest JBOD you could find, format it to Z-410 w/mirroring or whatever it uses, and you'd basically be sorted with something that's Drobo-esque, but far better?
 
EDIT - so basically:
Get an iMac in future w/Thunderbolt port
Get some kind of server case w/Thunderbolt, doing the whole Z-410 w/RaidZ(n) - where n = number of parity drives (up to 3)
Epic win ensues
 
Pretty cool. I'll probably just stick with Synology for now, but in future when I have my own place and want a lot of HD video stored digitally this looks like the future!

 

[DougofTheAbaci]

You don't even need a JBOD enclosure. What I'm going to be doing is picking up three of these Macally cases:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817347025
 
Then I'm going to drop some 2 TB Samsung drives in. With a RAIDZ zpool I'll have 4 TB of usable storage. Then, as I want more, I'll just add another enclosure and drive to the mix.
 
I chose that case because it's FW800 and you can daisy-chain those the same way you can now do with Thunderbolt (granted, at half the speed) so you only need one port. In this case I'm not worried about speed, I'm worried about data integrity so for me this is the king of solutions.
 
As for Synology, I was looking at them and QNAP. QNAP tends to run a bit cheaper but those two are always at the top when you compare speeds for NAS boxes. I ended up deciding to go in another direction due to the cost of the box.
 
Anyway, I'm not about to do this just yet but once I have it up and running I'll report back and tell people how the experience went.

 

[Somnambulist]

I added the Z-410 head honcho to my Twitter feed so I can keep abreast of updates. Daisy-chaining FW800 devices is good idea, although it's a pity there aren't more 4+ bay enclosures that do it. I guess you could make a huge stack of iOmega MiniMax's haha. Noise and temps would be a concern with lots of small devices though, hence why I'd prefer to grab a case with 120mm fans, swap the drive bays out for 4-in-3 or 5-in-3 hotswap bays and do things that way.

 

[DougofTheAbaci]

I can see that. Though, I'm going to be dropping mine inside a cabinet next to the desk. I'm not overly worried about heat simply because I'm not really going to be accessing the drives all the time. Though, what I might do is cut out the back of the cabinet and attach a fan. That way there's some air-flow in there.
 
Damn, now I'm thinking DIY drive cabinet... Wonder what Ikea has... Hmm...

 

[Somnambulist]

Since I think the maximum amount of daisy-chaining you can do comes to 63(?) devices, I'd work round that up to 64 and buy/make something that would fit: 8 rows of 8 / 4 rows of 16  or vice versa if you wanted to go vertical rather than horizontal. Some holes at the back to run the cables out of, and yeah some fans - perhaps a few 180mm or even 240mm ones, since larger fans can pull more air at slow rpms than smaller fans and create less noise.

 

[DougofTheAbaci]

I don't think I'll be going that extreme, not for a long time. I use up around 600-1,000 GB a year and I'm about to add another 2 TB of total space. That gives me 2-3 years of storage at my current rate of expansion. By that time I'm more likely to be looking to buy a new computer, in which case Thunderbolt will be acquired. That gives me a limit of seven devices, which will likely be one external display and six hard drives. Even if I stuck with 2 TB drives that'd still give me 10 TB of usable space under RAIDZ.
 
Man, I can't wait for Thunderbolt!

 

[Somnambulist]

Yeah I only got my Mac Mini last year. I know it WILL be replaced by a 27" iMac (and hence Thunderbolt compatibility), but that won't be for another 4+ years I guess, unless I come into some serious money or something.

 

[DougofTheAbaci]

Definitely. That's another reason I'm going individual cases right now. When the time comes all I have to do is drop them in a JBOD Thunderbolt box or grab six single-drive enclosures. Then, I don't know, sell the extra enclosures as I won't need them anymore.