Cheaper alternative to external RAID 1?

[Mortis Angelus]

Hello,

First off I want to tell that I'm very new to this with RAID and I'm not sure of how everything works in a software/hardware level, apart from that I know the basic differences between different RAID-configs (thank you wikipedia).

Now the question: Is there a cheaper alternative to external RAID-controllers?

My case:

I photograph and do video, and I've collected quite a lot of material soon to fill up my 1 TB of data. I want to expand the storage to 2 TB, but to have so many eggs in the same basket is dangerous without a backup. Even if the photos and videos were divided onto different disks they still can fail one and one, and every single photo that is not a product pic is irreplaceable imho.

So I want an automated backup system that is not affected by whichever computer I plug it into.

Now from what I understand, if I use the Windows software RAID it only works with the correct computer - i.e. the one that you set up the RAID - or have I misunderstood the concept here?

My storage plan:

2 x 2 TB 3.5" HDD 7200 RPM in RAID 1 to ensure backup.

PROBLEM: This is a really, REALLY expensive setup, and I'm looking for alternatives that could do what I want without costing a kidney or two.

 

[salecar3]

can u get 2 interanl wd blue drives and place them in raid?

[d3sl91]

My storage plan:

2 x 2 TB 3.5" HDD 7200 RPM in RAID 1 to ensure backup.

PROBLEM: This is a really, REALLY expensive setup, and I'm looking for alternatives that could do what I want without costing a kidney or two.

 

It shouldn't be expensive. 

 

1. Are you going to work off of it? or just as backups? 

2. If mainly backups, just get an external raid enclosure that supports USB 3.0 and eSata. 

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816322012

 

What you are seeing, that is expensive, is external raid arrays that will be as fast if not faster than an internal - and yes, those get spendy. 

 

Another option, just get a single External USB drive and do backups to that, and have nightly backups to a cloud service (OneDrive, Google Drive, etc).

[Hoppa]

@Mortis Angelus

What's your motherboard?

Pretty much all motherboards these days can handle raid 1

 

EDIT: does it have to be external? why not internal?

 

EDIT 2: microsoft synctoy is a decent way to auto sync things to a location.

And you could share your raid 1 array on your PC to other devices on your network

[Mortis Angelus]

can u get 2 interanl wd blue drives and place them in raid?

 

It shouldn't be expensive. 

 

1. Are you going to work off of it? or just as backups? 

2. If mainly backups, just get an external raid enclosure that supports USB 3.0 and eSata. 

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816322012

 

What you are seeing, that is expensive, is external raid arrays that will be as fast if not faster than an internal - and yes, those get spendy. 

 

Another option, just get a single External USB drive and do backups to that, and have nightly backups to a cloud service (OneDrive, Google Drive, etc).

 

@Mortis Angelus

What's your motherboard?

Pretty much all motherboards these days can handle raid 1

 

EDIT: does it have to be external? why not internal?

 

EDIT 2: microsoft synctoy is a decent way to auto sync things to a location.

And you could share your raid 1 array on your PC to other devices on your network

 

 

Hello all and thanks for your swift replies!

 

Forgot to tell this (but I thought it would be understood as I said I want to couple the disks to different computers): I'm moving away from desktop to laptop, and I want to also be able to hook the harddrive to other computers if needed.

 

And yes: I would work directly off it - so both a backup and workdrive in one is how I would use it. I work with all my photos and videos directly from the external drive I have now; only issue with that is USB 2, but I have to accept that. The laptop I'm going to invest in do have USB 3.

 

BTW: Can you make partitions on a drive when doing RAID 1? And if one disk fails, and I replace it, will the system automatically re-build the content to the other one from the first one?

 

I see, however, that I have a lot of reading to do about the different sofware solutions.

 

 

EDIT 1: Would this also work? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816322005&cm_re=RAID_1-_-16-322-005-_-Product

The link d3sl91 send me earlier; the box looked so big and clunky, but this one looks more like something I could use.

[Hoppa]

EDIT 1: Would this also work? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816322005&cm_re=RAID_1-_-16-322-005-_-Product

The link d3sl91 send me earlier; the box looked so big and clunky, but this one looks more like something I could use.

Yeah that'd work, maybe check reviews to see how it performs.

Also maybe check out a WD my cloud

[Mortis Angelus]

Yeah that'd work, maybe check reviews to see how it performs.

Also maybe check out a WD my cloud

Looks legit. Now there's the issue of getting that from the states to Europe where I live without any additional taxes.... Do you guys know if you can avoid taxes by choosing the "send as gift" option?

[Hoppa]

Looks legit. Now there's the issue of getting that from the states to Europe where I live without any additional taxes.... Do you guys know if you can avoid taxes by choosing the "send as gift" option?

I've never used that option before.

I've also never been charged with taxes either.

A lot of people say that customs check items that cost over $1000 or something.

And they hold your item and charge you a tax.

But I've bought about $900 worth of stuff (at 1 time) from amazon and not had a problem.

[Mortis Angelus]

I've never used that option before.

I've also never been charged with taxes either.

A lot of people say that customs check items that cost over $1000 or something.

And they hold your item and charge you a tax.

But I've bought about $900 worth of stuff (at 1 time) from amazon and not had a problem.

That depends on the country. I have never been charged for taxes either, but the highest cost I've ordered was 50 dollars from hong kong. But officially the limit in my country is a small 21 euro (about 25 USD) as a tax-limit, and what worries me is that the custom service is, for some reason, much more thorough with stuff from the U.S. Than from anywhere else.

[kent1147]

Now the question: Is there a cheaper alternative to external RAID-controllers?

My case:

I photograph and do video, and I've collected quite a lot of material soon to fill up my 1 TB of data. I want to expand the storage to 2 TB, but to have so many eggs in the same basket is dangerous without a backup. Even if the photos and videos were divided onto different disks they still can fail one and one, and every single photo that is not a product pic is irreplaceable imho.

So I want an automated backup system that is not affected by whichever computer I plug it into.

 

For this setup, you'll want three things:

 

(1) External dual-drive enclosure that supports RAID-1 (mirroring)

(2) An extra mechanical HDD, for local backups

(3) Some kind of offsite / remote backup plan.

 

 

External Drive Enclosure

This is what you want for RAID.  They are basically USB / eSATA drive enclosures that support 2 mechanical HDDs, and has RAID capability built in.  The benefit to using an external drive enclosure (as opposed to RAID controllers or software-based Windows RAID) is that:

 

(1)  RAID becomes brainlessly simple.  You just configure the drive enclosure to use RAID-1, and then that's it.  No additional software configuration, RAID controller configuration, drivers, etc needed.  The entire enclosure is mounted to your computer as a single disk, making the RAID'ing completely transparent to you.

(2)  Give you data portability.  If your main computer dies for some reason, you can easily just plug the drive enclosure to another computer, and immediately access your data.  

 

There are a bunhc of different RAID drive enclosures out there.  But I've always been a fan of the Vantec flavor (link) 

 

 

 

 

An extra mechanical HDD, for local backups

 

You still need backups, even if you RAID.  RAID protects against drive failure.  RAID is not a backup.

If you accidentally delete an important file from a RAID-1 (mirrored) drive array, the only thing that RAID does for you is delete that file twice off of the two drives.  You need backups.

 

For this purpose, get an extra drive of the capacity that you're buying or larger (2.0TB or more).  Mount it in your computer as an internal drive.  Use backup software (I use Macrium) to schedule backups to copy your external RAID array to the internal backup drive.  You want backup software that supports file-level backups (and not just drive imaging), allows for differential backups, and can run automatically with a schedule.

 

This way, if you accidentally delete or corrupt an important file on your RAID array (or if your RAID array gets completely fried with an electrical short, for example), you can still recover that important data.  You want this, because you still need backups even if you're running RAID.

 

 

Offsite / Remote Backups

 

If your data is REALLY important, like irreplaceable personal files or business-related critical files, then you want some kind of offsite backup.  This way, if something catastrophic happens that completely destroys your computer setup (e.g. lighting strike, flood, fire, alien abduction), you still have your most important files located somewhere.

 

This level of backup can either be a portable hard drive that you periodically use to store backups, and physically store in a safe place outside your home (e.g. in your office, at a friends house, etc).  Or it could be a cloud-based backup service that you use.  Whatever you use, do some flavor offsite backups.

 

 

 

 

 

 

*** BTW, you're actually going to want WD Green or Red drives (5400rpm), instead of 7200rpm drives.  The reason is because you're storing bulk media content (photos, videos, music, pr0n, etc).  And for that type of content, speed doesn't matter.  A photo will display, and a movie will play back, equally well on a slow 5400rpm drive or the world's fastest storage system.  But 5400rpm drives generally are cooler and quieter, which has a pretty good chance of improving the lifespan of the drives.

[Mortis Angelus]

Wow. That was an excellent answer. Thank you!

 

So this what I can reply to this:

External Drive Enclosure

This is what you want for RAID.  They are basically USB / eSATA drive enclosures that support 2 mechanical HDDs, and has RAID capability built in.  The benefit to using an external drive enclosure (as opposed to RAID controllers or software-based Windows RAID) is that:

 

(1)  RAID becomes brainlessly simple.  You just configure the drive enclosure to use RAID-1, and then that's it.  No additional software configuration, RAID controller configuration, drivers, etc needed.  The entire enclosure is mounted to your computer as a single disk, making the RAID'ing completely transparent to you.

(2)  Give you data portability.  If your main computer dies for some reason, you can easily just plug the drive enclosure to another computer, and immediately access your data.  

 

There are a bunhc of different RAID drive enclosures out there.  But I've always been a fan of the Vantec flavor (link) 

 

 

EDIT: Wow... US amazon price for Vantec RAID-enclosure: $70;   German Amazon: $265

 

See why we Europeans are sometimes very jelous of you US-citizens? ...

 

This basically what I've been discussing with Hoppa:

 

EDIT 1: Would this also work? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816322005&cm_re=RAID_1-_-16-322-005-_-Product

The link d3sl91 send me earlier; the box looked so big and clunky, but this one looks more like something I could use.

 

I guess that is what you described. Any opinion on that model?

 

 

 

(2) An extra mechanical HDD, for local backups

(3) Some kind of offsite / remote backup plan.

 

 

 

This would be awesome, but I simply cannot afford that. Besides, I'm quite good at NOT deleting wrong files (should not jynx myself like this now...). The thing I'm afraid of is the things I don't have control over: i.e. storage failure, which is what RAID 1 is supposed to protect me from. The remote back-up would be good, and most likely will I start using some kind of cloud service. E.g. for all my school stuff and research stuff I have 3 physical copies + drop box.

 

 

*** BTW, you're actually going to want WD Green or Red drives (5400rpm), instead of 7200rpm drives.  The reason is because you're storing bulk media content (photos, videos, music, pr0n, etc).  And for that type of content, speed doesn't matter.  A photo will display, and a movie will play back, equally well on a slow 5400rpm drive or the world's fastest storage system.  But 5400rpm drives generally are cooler and quieter, which has a pretty good chance of improving the lifespan of the drives.

 

Will 5400 rpm be sufficient for working in e.g. Adobe Premiere and then rendering a movie directly to the external harddrives with USB 3? Greens don't go above 1 GB. Reds I have never seen. How are the purple ones which are made for surveilance systems?

 

 

 

EDIT: And yes: My dropbox folder would also be located on this drive.

[Mortis Angelus]

Semi-unrelated question: Can't RAID 1:s be made with exFAT-formating so it would be compatible with all systems? I'm so annoyed by today's issues with NFTS vs HSF+....

[asquirrel]

Hello,

First off I want to tell that I'm very new to this with RAID and I'm not sure of how everything works in a software/hardware level, apart from that I know the basic differences between different RAID-configs (thank you wikipedia).

Now the question: Is there a cheaper alternative to external RAID-controllers?

My case:

I photograph and do video, and I've collected quite a lot of material soon to fill up my 1 TB of data. I want to expand the storage to 2 TB, but to have so many eggs in the same basket is dangerous without a backup. Even if the photos and videos were divided onto different disks they still can fail one and one, and every single photo that is not a product pic is irreplaceable imho.

So I want an automated backup system that is not affected by whichever computer I plug it into.

Now from what I understand, if I use the Windows software RAID it only works with the correct computer - i.e. the one that you set up the RAID - or have I misunderstood the concept here?

My storage plan:

2 x 2 TB 3.5" HDD 7200 RPM in RAID 1 to ensure backup.

PROBLEM: This is a really, REALLY expensive setup, and I'm looking for alternatives that could do what I want without costing a kidney or two.

 

Ok. For what you are doing you want a backup drive, not a RAID drive. The backup and restore functionality built into windows 7 and later is perfectly capable of doing backups in the manner you desire. For windows backups to work correctly you ideally want a drive 3 times larger than the data you want to back up (smaller drives will have a shorter retention period, perhaps one month instead of 3). RAID is 100% unnecessary for what you are trying to do, a software backup is the direction to head. Also, backups will save you in case you accidentally delete a file, whereas in RAID it will be deleted from all devices in the RAID set.

[d3sl91]

Wow. That was an excellent answer. Thank you!

 

So this what I can reply to this:

 

EDIT: Wow... US amazon price for Vantec RAID-enclosure: $70;   German Amazon: $265

 

See why we Europeans are sometimes very jelous of you US-citizens? ...

 

This basically what I've been discussing with Hoppa:

 

 

I guess that is what you described. Any opinion on that model?

 

 

 

 

This would be awesome, but I simply cannot afford that. Besides, I'm quite good at NOT deleting wrong files (should not jynx myself like this now...). The thing I'm afraid of is the things I don't have control over: i.e. storage failure, which is what RAID 1 is supposed to protect me from. The remote back-up would be good, and most likely will I start using some kind of cloud service. E.g. for all my school stuff and research stuff I have 3 physical copies + drop box.

 

 

 

Will 5400 rpm be sufficient for working in e.g. Adobe Premiere and then rendering a movie directly to the external harddrives with USB 3? Greens don't go above 1 GB. Reds I have never seen. How are the purple ones which are made for surveilance systems?

 

 

 

EDIT: And yes: My dropbox folder would also be located on this drive.

That mediasonic looks great. 

 

This all will "work" over USB3, but there is also a reason why theres much faster options as well. But as you have found $$$$!!! I'd push for a 7200 RPM drive. 

 

Now, heres the biggest flaw... at this point, by working from these drives, you DO NOT have a backup.

 

RAID within a stationary tower/server is one thing - but even that is still almost always backed up to another external drive. But this is a portable, cheap enclosure. That enclosure fails - it doesnt matter if you have RAID. Its all gone. Essentially, you need to treat this as if its just a raid within your computer (just less safe). If you would feel comfortable not having an external backup to backup your computer onto, seperate from your computer, then go for this. otherwise, I'd reccomend yet another external drive to backup everything to a couple times a week. You could also then instead use that 

 

With this you can do a few things. You can experiment with RAID0 instead on that external raid. This would provide much needed speed for video editing. 

 

Then, you can get literally the cheapest WD or SEAGATE 2TB external USB drive you can find, and use that for full system backups. 

 

 

 

I know this may seem overkill - but while working as  PC repair tech, I saw too many people with RAID or External drive have their entire picture library fail, because someone bumped it off the table or spilled water on it. 

[Mortis Angelus]

That mediasonic looks great. 

 

This all will "work" over USB3, but there is also a reason why theres much faster options as well. But as you have found $$$$!!! I'd push for a 7200 RPM drive. 

 

Now, heres the biggest flaw... at this point, by working from these drives, you DO NOT have a backup.

 

RAID within a stationary tower/server is one thing - but even that is still almost always backed up to another external drive. But this is a portable, cheap enclosure. That enclosure fails - it doesnt matter if you have RAID. Its all gone. Essentially, you need to treat this as if its just a raid within your computer (just less safe). If you would feel comfortable not having an external backup to backup your computer onto, seperate from your computer, then go for this. otherwise, I'd reccomend yet another external drive to backup everything to a couple times a week. You could also then instead use that 

 

With this you can do a few things. You can experiment with RAID0 instead on that external raid. This would provide much needed speed for video editing. 

 

Then, you can get literally the cheapest WD or SEAGATE 2TB external USB drive you can find, and use that for full system backups. 

 

 

 

I know this may seem overkill - but while working as  PC repair tech, I saw too many people with RAID or External drive have their entire picture library fail, because someone bumped it off the table or spilled water on it. 

Yes, it seems that people really think a software backup with 2 external drives is better (yes; I want to keep everything external; laptop -remember? )

 

One thing I don't understand though; I know there is always the risk of the enclouser failing, but why would that kill the drives? And if this is the case, WHEN is RAID1 useful compared to a normal back-up?

 

So what I'm currently thinking is to get 2 of these (and for those not understanding Finnish; Ulkoinen kiintolevy = External hard drive ^^) and setting them up with automated backup somehow. But how does it work? If I actually want to delete a file, do I delete them manually from both drives then?

 

I just found this other WD-drive. Would it be good to buy 1x of the "normal" drive + 1x of the "My Book"-version and set that one up to automatically back up everything on the first drive? Could that be done?