[NogBoy13]

I wonder if any of you folks would like to recommend some reliable HD storage? I have been very disappointed with the failure rate of the hard disc medium. I have just had a fourth HD fail... a 1Tb Western Digital Elements. The first copy of this failed in just three days and I had it replaced! This one (same brand/model) failed after 13 months. I guess I should have seen the writing on the wall then. I run backup, but it hardly reduces my nervousness... at this rate I could easily get a double fail. I am starting to seriously think about triple backup! Cloud storage is out as I have an expensive (relatively) limited capacity satellite connection. If you've ever lost precious images - and I have - this is obviously a vexed issue in relation to digital storage. So, I wonder if any of you have some ideas about the best way to go here? Nogster

[aT0Mx]

Enterprise drives are worth the money if you seem to have HD issues. Maybe a RAID solution if you want to keep everything on HD.

A BlueRay backup would be good as well.

And I'm not going to jinx myself

[Tom S.]

WD has been having a LOT of issues with their 1TB drives. I've had two die on me this year. I highly recommend you look into on line / off site storage, which will protect not only against hard drive failure, but theft and fire too. I use Carbonite, and since I signed up for 3 years, it costs about $50 a year. It paid off in spades when the first WD went belly up, since it contained all my photos.

[NogBoy13]

Tom S... So I'm not the only one obviously. I would be hard pressed to ever buy WD again. How do I access an offline site without uploading thru my satellite connection site? I'm limited to 1g/4g on & off peak with my satellite connection. (Exxie @ $45 mth). I have at least 2Tbs of data... which would make my upload cost astronomical...unless of course I'm missing something re your suggestion?

aTOMx... How much are the Enterprise HD's. Can I set up a RAID system om existing computer? I thought I would most likely have to upgrade the whole motherboard etc. Correct me if I'm wrong?

Nogster

[aT0Mx]

About twice the cost.

But if you have lost two already, what have you really saved?

Amazon.com: Western Digital 2 TB RE4 SATA 3 Gb/s 7200 RPM 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Enterprise Hard Drive - WD2003FYYS: Electronics
Amazon.com: Western Digital 2 TB RE4-GP SATA 3 Gb/s Intellipower 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Enterprise Hard Drive - WD2002FYPS: Electronics
(I'm not saying these are the ones you want, just a sample)

These drives are rated for:
24 hours/day - 7 days/week at 100% work load vs 8 hours/day - 5 days/week at 10-20% work load.

As for RAID.
I'm not too familiar with it but I'm sure if your computer's not too old it can still be done. You may need a consumer-level RAID adapter.

[NogBoy13]

aTOMx.... well you're right of course... broken HD's dont save you much. Will check out your suggestion. Thanks. Nogster

[lammie200]

I thought I would most likely have to upgrade the whole motherboard etc. Correct me if I'm wrong?

Nogster

I have RAID 0 set up on my machine. At least as far as using the Intel Rapid Storage Technology you need a mother board with the following:

Desktop chipsets:

• Intel® 6 Series Chipsets
• Intel® 5 Series Chipsets
• Intel® 4 Series Chipsets
• Intel® 3 Series Express Chipset family
• Intel® 965 Express Chipset family
• Intel® 975X Express Chipset
• Intel® 955X Express Chipset
• Intel® 945 Express Chipset family

I also just purchased a Seagate Go Flex USB 3.0 + 2.0 1TB hard drive. Seems to working fine. No external power supply is a nice feature. All powered off the USB connection.

[jatrax]

You might want to look into NAS or network access storage. Assuming you have a network of course. If not that is not too hard to set up.

I built a NAS box out of an old PC (does not have to be current, just functional) using FreeNAS software. There are any number of similar solutions including some off the shelf ones (but those are expensive). Freenas is pretty much setup and walk away once it is configured. My box has been running for over two years without a blip. Take a look at www.freenas.org for more information.

I set it up with 4 500gb drives in raid, so even after the raid overhead I have about 1.5 Tb of storage. Then I have a 1Tb USB drive hooked up to the raid box which does nightly backups from the raid to the USB. On a monthly (well sorta monthly) basis I make a complete copy to a separate USB drive and take it to the storage container I rent where it goes into a fire proof box. I am also looking into off site cloud storage but that sounds problematic for you. DVDs and even Blueray seem too limiting to me, but depending on your storage needs they can be another option.

Best thing to do is evaluate the potential causes of loss and try to make sure you are covered for each one.

1) HD failure
2) Fire, flood, theft or other loss of the computer
3) Accidental or malicious deletion
4) ???

Also keep in mind there are various grades of HD's and while you might not need enterprise class drives buying the cheapest one on sale might not be the optimal solution either. I have never had a problem with Western Digital drives, but have had multiple failures over the years with several other brands. I buy WD because I've had good luck with them but I also expect them to fail at any point. Any storage solution MUST allow for and expect drive failure. There are only two kinds of drives: those that have failed and those that have not failed yet.

Another thought is cooling in your box. Drive failures have a demonstrable correlation with box temperature. Make sure your fans and cooling system is functioning properly, all vents cleaned and open. Also look at where in the box the drive is located, some boxes are not well designed for internal cooling. The case and cooling design are important!

Ask or PM me if you need anything else, for many years part of my job was specifying and maintaining servers.

[wlachan]

HD fail, but I have found OEM ext HD fail more. For this reason, I always built my own ext HD now. I favour Hitachi 5K3000 for this purpose. Also, always have at least 2 copies of everything, 3 copies better. Use syncback to keep them identical. Keep them cool, don't move them when running, always disconnect in Windows b4 unplug the cable. For WD green drives, disable the 8s standby with widdle3.

[Snydly]

I believe it was Adam that recommended to me when I first joined here to buy and read the 'Dam' book. I didn't (although I intend to when it's available in my local book store), but that may be a source of help for you. I decided instead to build my own 'Trees' within Windows to manage my files as I've always been comfortable with that method and I believe Windows will always maintain that structure. I transfer from my SD card plugged directly into the computer to two HD's, the C drive and an external drive. At the beginning of the month I burn a data DVD (or two, or three) which contains the previous months images. I make two DVD copies and leave one with a family member for obvious reasons. I've done this for many years. When I only had a 4mp camera all I needed was CD's, but as the MP's and my photo rate grew I moved to DVD's. I know there are some who don't like DVD/CD storage media, but it works for me. I have a few SD Cards which I don't erase or format until I have all the images on DVD.

All this of course brings up the question of reliability of DVD's which is a broader related subject/discussion.

Bill

[George Lama]

It's impractical and unrealistic to expect any technology to be failure proof, particularly when it comes to hard drive storage. CDs and BD can fail too, so can tape backups. I manage enterprise drives (IT Admin) and I can tell you that although HD failure rates are lower overall, there are failure nonetheless and they're never timely. I've had Seagate and HP SAS drives, $300-500 drives with very low MTB failures, go belly-up on me within a month of implementation as well as within a year or three. Yet other drives have been on 24/7 for 7 years and they're still cranking.

That said, this is the reason why you want a RAID 1 or RAID 5 setup - redundancy so as to minimize downtime. One drive goes down, you can remove the bad drive and replace it with a new one.

At home I run RAID 1 for my OS plus RAID 1 for critical storage, plus a backup system. I also have a tool (Crystal Disk Info) running to check the SMART status and temperature on all my drives of my home server (4 internal and 6 external). As soon as I see anything get flagged, the drive gets replaced (usually under warranty).

My recommendations in general are:

a) If you don't want to build your own but need an out-of-the-box solution, get a NAS storage with at least 2 or 3 drives you can use in RAID configuration. Buffalo Tech has some very capable boxes (I use a 3 TB linkstation at work for ISO storage). Seagate, Western Digital, and Drobo are good too (Drobo but tends to be pricier for what you get comparatively speaking). Look for at least a 3 year warranty. Stick to RAID 1 or 5 for redundancy.

b) If you're tech savvy and want to build your own, buy SATA RAID cards and enclosures with eSata capabilities and build your own RAID array. Drives usually have 3-5 year warranties so look for external enclosures with at least that much warranty. OEM externals typically only have 1 year.

Also, download Crystal Disk Info (CrystalDiskInfo - Software - Crystal Dew World) and run it on your machines.

Lastly - RAID is not backup, it's redundancy. As it's conceivable that a full RAID array can fail (it happened to me when the RAID controller corrupted all drives in the array), you need to backup your files to an external source, whether you use DVDs or another hard drive or two. The more critical your info, the more backups you should have.

[aT0Mx]

I knew there would be someone here with a lot more knowledge about RAID than I.

But I've always loved the idea of burning set of BD and storing them in separate locations 'just in case'.

[rod_grant]

"Separate locations" is as critical as HD reliability, particularly if you live in a fire prone area or whereever any sort of disaster might hit. As well as storing files on multiple disks at home, my files are regularly backed up onto DVD and stored at my children's houses.

[George Lama]

aTOMx, I hadn't considered DB until recently due to the cost of the media and burners, but pricing has gone down considerably. You can get a good BD burner for under $100 so I'm considering the purchase so we can begin archiving as well as backing up for storage at remote locations. I could archive an entire shoot in one disc for about a $1.00. Great winter project :-)

Hopefully the 50GB media will go down soon. $10.00 a disc isn't likely to garner too many fans considering you can burn two standard BD for $2.00.

[Tom S.]

Tom S... So I'm not the only one obviously. I would be hard pressed to ever buy WD again. How do I access an offline site without uploading thru my satellite connection site? I'm limited to 1g/4g on & off peak with my satellite connection. (Exxie @ $45 mth). I have at least 2Tbs of data... which would make my upload cost astronomical...unless of course I'm missing something re your suggestion?

aTOMx... How much are the Enterprise HD's. Can I set up a RAID system om existing computer? I thought I would most likely have to upgrade the whole motherboard etc. Correct me if I'm wrong?

Nogster

No you're not missing anything. What I suggested works only if you have high speed connectivity available without upload limitations. Since onsite storage appears your only option, consider making your own LAN and storing your back up in a different area such as a out building to minimize loss potential.