Long-term storage

[UrbanFreestyle]

Hi all,

So i wanted to run this by some people before i pull the trigger. I have been thinking for a while about running some kind of long term storage for my photography library (currently approx 1.3tb)

I had the idea of using tape for archiving and backup as it will very rarely be needed. I currently have a normal desktop PC but oriented to my photo editing. This machine only has m.2 and SATA ports for drives however i do have spare pcie slots available.

 

I was looking at getting an LTO4 drive and a pcie SAS HBA card. I assume that any hba card would be ok or are some propriatary connections?

[Electronics Wizardy]

lto4 is ancient, id stay away.

 

FOr that small of storage, just get some hdds and store them in different locations and check them any once in a while.

[GoldenLag]

Upload them to google drive or have an HDD with them or an SSD that will je powered (must be powered or else you might risk loosing data after 6 month tl a year)

[UrbanFreestyle]

well it is soon to grow (only to about 3tb or so) however the price of tapes is very attractive.

 

[UrbanFreestyle]

sadly cloud is not an option for me. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, UrbanFreestyle said:

well it is soon to grow (only to about 3tb or so) however the price of tapes is very attractive.

 

8tb hdds are also very cheaper per tb, and those lto4 drives are gonna be pretty old when you get them, tape just doesn't make sense here.

[UrbanFreestyle]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

8tb hdds are also very cheaper per tb, and those lto4 drives are gonna be pretty old when you get them, tape just doesn't make sense here.

can i leave these just disconnected or do i have to fire them up every so often?

 

[unsungheroist]

Just now, UrbanFreestyle said:

can i leave these just disconnected or do i have to fire them up every so often?

 

why not Raid this? i know raid is more an uptime solution than back up. but if the machine will be off the network then i see no reason not to and have drive intergy checked run monthly

[UrbanFreestyle]

it will be on network. i'm looking to have something i can remove and store offsite for a long amount of time.

[unsungheroist]

4 minutes ago, UrbanFreestyle said:

it will be on network. i'm looking to have something i can remove and store offsite for a long amount of time.

the issue is you need to check the data intergy a couple times a year to ensure no data loss. you could label the drives and remove them thru a hot swappable drive bays

[UrbanFreestyle]

so maybe worth getting a 5.25 bay hotswap bay.

[spyderbite9001]

Here's what I would do in your shoes: Create a Raid 1 array of archive class hdd's. 6TB ~$150 each on newegg (Seagate ST6000AS0002). It'll future proof your storage needs (over capacity), preserve your data (archive class) and just get an LSI 920x adapter depending on internal or external requirements. If internal, you'll need a LSI 920x-8i with a rosewill rsv-sata-cage-34 (personal favorite) and the correct cables. You can either use LSI utilities for the RAID or software RAID with your OS.

[RayLeech]

We use removable USB3 docs with quality drives for most off-line archiving (with a periodic refresh). Its most affordable to have spare drives / docs on the shelf in case of hardware failure.

 

That said, we have client where an LTO drive was required. We went with a Unitex  LTO8 drive (USB3/SAS). That way it could be moved to other machines without having to install SAS cards first. You pay a little performance with USB3, but the flexibility was a fair trade-off. They are pretty pricey compared to docks/drives. They use mostly LTO7 tapes because quantities of LTO8 tapes were impossible to find. Unitex also makes cheaper LTO6 drives, YMMV.

[Guest]

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