Wanted: Advice Concerning a New Rig and RAID!

[ChanceCoats123]

That's a lot better and going to give minimal headaches.

You won't need to store your media online, since you can re-rip or whatever easily. Backup your critical data (data you can't reproduce or re-obtain), which is going to be a lot less space, then invest in a backup plan. Blindly backing up everything is also asking for trouble. You need to know your data.

That's a good point about backing up everything. I'm a huge fan of WinDirStat, so I use that a few times a month to find big space-eaters and old installation files which never got cleaned up (lazy coders!). I just let the anti-virus take care of keeping an eye on smaller files.

It was never my plan to keep all of my files with multiple backups. The media will have a single backup in the form of the disk images, and critical data like you mentioned will most likely sit on multiple computers as well as flash drives (when it's not personal data that's dangerous to misplace or get stolen). I feel that this is a pretty robust way of handling the different "types" of data that I have on my rigs.


I'm glad you liked this final plan more than the previous options. I appreciate all the help you two have given me, and you definitely helped steer me away from 1) wasting a lot of money, and 2) potentially many, many headaches.

Edit for another quote:

Why fuss with a schedule and extra program when RAID 1 will automatically (and instantly) keep a backup?

Still don't see the need for the Pro over the EVO, I've carried my 840 EVO through multiple builds and had it for a few years now.
You're talking about two of the most reliable SSD's on the market.

My plan would be a 1TB 850 EVO with 2x 4TB WD Red in RAID 1.
That said, your newest plan is much better than the previous ones.

You bring up a good point about imaging vs RAID 1, but RAID 1 offers small (if at all) performance gains, and has small problems of its own including the write-hole upon power loss and potential to corrupt the entire array with a drive failure combined with undiscovered sector errors. Additionally, RAID 1 offers the worst possible space utilization and doubles the cost of storage.

One benefit I see to the imaging program is that using a 4tb drive, I could completely fill both my SSD and my WD black drive and still have space for backups of both drives. If I were to only use RAID 1 on the "storage" drives, then I would have to image my SSD to another drive (costs more money on top), or to the RAID 1 array which does have its potential setbacks. Considering you two both seemed to be moving me away from RAID earlier, I think it was a fair move on my part to avoid it all together. I know you both mentioned how unreliable RAID 0 is, but the same potential failures of the hardware/software controller are present with RAID 1.

Finally, I've mentioned my reasoning for the Pro vs Evo, and I don't feel it needs to be discussed much more. I appreciate you looking out for my wallet, but knowing that the warranty is twice as long, and the drive seems to be of a slightly higher quality is something I like. My current SSD is a 60gb OCZ Vertex, so I obviously don't upgrade my OS drive very often. I'm looking for something that will last a long time and be just as fast then as it is when I buy it. The Pro fits that bill well for me.

 

[Automata]

Why fuss with a schedule and extra program when RAID 1 will automatically (and instantly) keep a backup?

Because RAID Is Not A Backup. They are, fundamentally, two different things. If you need uptime, RAID is the best option. If you just want to protect against data loss, backup is what you need.

See here for a more detailed explanation:
http://www.overclockers.com/forums/...I-m-offsite-storage-for-Google#raid_notbackup

I'm glad you liked this final plan more than the previous options. I appreciate all the help you two have given me, and you definitely helped steer me away from 1) wasting a lot of money, and 2) potentially many, many headaches.

Your last pick for the drive configuration is certainly a lot better than what you started with. Storage is easy to mess up, and difficult to impossible to recover. Forethought will save you time, headaches, and your data.


EDIT: I also moved this thread to the storage forum.

 

[Janus67]

Fwiw, look up Veeam backup and recovery. The home license is free and works just fine.

Agreed with Thiddy throughout this thread to keep it simple.

 

[Automata]

If you don't want online backups, CrashPlan allows you to have a local server for free. You can have it exclude files based on the type/name, or by folder structure.

 

[cw823]

I have nothing new to add that hasn't been already stated ad nauseum, for the most part.

If you're serving over gigabit, you don't need more than a single drive. This cannot be stated often enough in these forums.