External RAID Storage

[BudgetEngineer]

Hi all,

 

I've been really needing a backup solution for myself and my family as we are avid photographers and I'm getting in to event live streaming and some video work myself.  I've started to explore a few options between pre-built and DIY, NAS vs HDD enclosures.

 

Minimum Requirements:

• At least 6TB of storage
• Redundancy, surviving 1 drive failure at least (RAID 5/6/10)
• USB 3.0 Interface
• Speed! something in the 120+ MB/s read and write
• 3-4 years before upgrading, dependent on price changes and other things, etc. but general goal
• $800 absolute max budget

I don't have any spare or older desktop components to recycle and save some money, so i'd have to be buying anything DIY (which I'm totally open to doing).  All the backup solutions I have right now are independent external drives ranging from 1-3TB but I want something dependable and centralized.

 

After exploring prebuilt options, I think a 4-5 bay solution is best and this is what I came up with.

• 5 x 2TB WD Reds, $100 each on Amazon.
• Sans Digital TowerRAID TR5UT+B enclosure. 5 bays and built-in raid/USB 3.0 interface
• RAID 5 + 1 hot-spare, 6TB or 8TB without the hot-spare.

Only drawback i see is possibly loss in performance over a home-built solution, and it isn't a true NAS as the tower is essentially just a bigger external drive (which is fine) without a gigabit interface.

 

Ideas on other solutions?  A good way to do this DIY without sacrificing capacity? Thanks.

[aidenrelkoff]

the 5 X WD red 2TB looks like a good option

[BudgetEngineer]

Yeah I think I'll stick with the WD Reds.  Curious if there is another 4-5 bay enclosure I could use that would suit my needs better.

 

I too am a loud and proud Windows 8.1 user 

Edited December 28, 2013 by BudgetEngineer

[BudgetEngineer]

Actually i just browsed NCIX, they have 3TB Seagate Barracudas for $100.  Good as WD Reds for a raid array?

[xXxYOLOxSWAGxXx_420BlazeIt]

$50 per TB seems very expensive. The Seagate Barracudas are much cheaper, $33 per TB.

[BudgetEngineer]

Been awhile but I got the Barracuda's in the enclosure for around $750.  In a Raid 10 for 6tb of storage plus one hotspare drive.  Crystal Disk speedtest:

If I need more space i can go 4 drives in a Raid 5 for 9tb plus hotspare, or all 5 in a Raid 5 for 12tb.  Pretty satisfied with this setup.

[TheTechGenius]

$50 per TB seems very expensive. The Seagate Barracudas are much cheaper, $33 per TB.

 

Yeah, but the Seagate drives are not built or tested for RAID Environments.  The WD RED drives are very well built, and they are tested for RAID Environments, so your not only paying for the storage space, your also paying for a drive that is built just for RAID Environments. Thay say you always get what you pay for.

 

WD RED drives is the only hard drives I use in my builds. I am also building a dedicated NAS system, but I am putting x5 4TB WD REDs in one NAS, prob RAID5.,   

[BudgetEngineer]

It doesn't run 24/7 so I'm not too worried about it.  Just when I do periodic video projects and weekly backups.