External Storage for Video Editing

[MissFangs]

Hi all!

 

My question is two-fold...

1: I'm trying to find the cheapest way to store my raw editing footage (I'm expecting to have 10TB of footage, give or take) in an external enclosure. It seems that RAID arrays are quite expensive and too complicated for what I'm looking to do. Can I use an external hard drive docking station like this one to connect my hard drives and then put them into a RAID configuration in Windows? From my point of view, this seems like a great way to have a large amount of storage with some redundancy. Really, what I'm asking is: are there any glaring downsides or problems with this setup?

2: What is a NAS hard drive and do I need it for this setup? In other words, can I just buy a standard, high capacity HDD? 

 

Thank you in advance!

 

Best Regards,
Erin Joan

[Windows7ge]

Your cheapest reliable option would be to shuck drives. You can look into WD Element drives. Just pull them out of their enclosures and put the in a dock or internal to your PC.

 

No NAS drives are not explicitly necessary. They just come with extra features. Vibration mitigation, higher write rating before failure, lower heat produced (in some cases), etc. They aren't a "got to have", just a nice to have.

 

Windows Storage Spaces would work though 1 bit parity (RAID5) will yield not great write performance. If low write performance doesn't bother you it's your best option for the most usable storage for your dollar.

 

It does appear though Storage Spaces may not play friendly with USB connected drive as they're marked "removable" and Storage Spaces won't like that. If you can make sure they're never unplugged marking them as Fixed should enable Storage Spaces to let you make a pool out of them.

 

IMO I'd build a low power GNU/Linux based NAS out of a junked PC. If the parts are in decent nick it'd be more reliable than a RAID of drives in a dock held together by Windows.