1.5TB - all eggs in one basket

jonstatt

jonstatt

jonstatt

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I have just ordered one of these..and I don't know if it is an Overlockers record, but my order went to shipped with a Citylink tracking number in 5 minutes!! I didn't even think that was humanly possible!

Anyway, my real concern is that we are getting into sizes where you lose an awful lot of data in the event of failure.

Although I have a NAS device which can act as a backup, it isn't currently big enough for 1.5TB.

I just wondered if those buying these kind of drives are implementing comprehensive backup strategies, or just buying two and mirroring etc?
 
I would definitely get a backup for it.. I doubt the entire 1.5gb of data will be valuable though? However the risk of failure is too great when you have 1.5Tb of information on the cliff edge.

I'm never going to go over 500 probably, and anything important is backed up on a 250gb USB harddrive. Though I had a hard drive fail recently and I was pretty annoyed, which prompted me to use a backup.

Just cover yourself :)
 
Personally I'd only keep data I can afford to lose on a 1.5TB drive. Backup the important stuff but backing up everything is another 1.5TB worth of space.

I aim to get a 1TB drive that will consist of all my TV/Films etc. Important stuff will be backed up to a 500GB USB drive while the other data will be classed as disposable.
 
Online backup is my answer, $4.95 for unlimited storage, the first backup would have taken an age over DSL (I dumped it in a datacenter on a gigabit connection overnight instead) but after that incremental backups will be manageable. Having it backed up on a drive sitting next to it on your desk isn't something that should ever be called a backup strategy.
 
bigredshark said:
Online backup is my answer, $4.95 for unlimited storage, the first backup would have taken an age over DSL (I dumped it in a datacenter on a gigabit connection overnight instead) but after that incremental backups will be manageable. Having it backed up on a drive sitting next to it on your desk isn't something that should ever be called a backup strategy.
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Not sure about anyone else but I wouldnt feel safe uploading all my data to a 3rd party. I much prefer an external caddy which I keep off-site.
 
what i have..

~1tb of data I'd like backed up..

so i have 2x 1tb drives holding the backups in my flat, and when i visit my mum's house, i take one with me and robocopy that onto the 5x400gb raid3 array that i have there
 
All my drives over 500GB are in RAID 1. Not to worried about file corruption etc but I can not be bothered with external drives for a "backup". I have important files copied to my laptop/other PC and family members in different locations.

I currently want two 1.5TB drives but waiting for a price drop :)
 
bigredshark said:
Online backup is my answer, $4.95 for unlimited storage, the first backup would have taken an age over DSL (I dumped it in a datacenter on a gigabit connection overnight instead) but after that incremental backups will be manageable. Having it backed up on a drive sitting next to it on your desk isn't something that should ever be called a backup strategy.
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Just out of interest where is this from? My current online backup service advertises as unlimited but the smallprint says 100gb.
 
Yup.. it's really not a problem as long as you have a backup. I have 2x1TB in raid0, but I couldn't give a hoots if the array fell over - all my really important stuff is backed up to my old 500AAKs and whatnot :)
 
moving gigabytes of stuff around takes an enormous amount of time. even to an external drive, it can take a significant amount of time.

I would really recommend using RAID 1 (or 5, if you can have 3 disks), you get:

- never having to bother doing a backup (as long as you risk both drives dying simultaneously)
- improved read performance
- as storage is so cheap, adding a second drive is a comparable cost to any external solutions.

I'm getting 2 1TB drives in raid 1 on my next upgrade. For £80 or something, it's worth the peace of mind, and never having to bother trying to do backups!
 
fross said:
I'm getting 2 1TB drives in raid 1 on my next upgrade. For £80 or something, it's worth the peace of mind, and never having to bother trying to do backups!
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Its been said thousands of time on this forum... RAID is not a substitute for backups! What if you accidentally delete a file, or it gets corrupted? What if your PC gets fried by an electrical surge, taking the drives with it?

Important data should be in 3 places - the original, a copy stored locally (eg external drive, disconnected when not in use), and a remote copy.
 
fross said:
moving gigabytes of stuff around takes an enormous amount of time. even to an external drive, it can take a significant amount of time.

I would really recommend using RAID 1 (or 5, if you can have 3 disks), you get:

- never having to bother doing a backup (as long as you risk both drives dying simultaneously) RAID is not a backup, what happens if you delete a file or it becomes corrupt? A virus might make all your files become unreadable etc.
- improved read performance Not on a cheap or integrated RAID controller, has worse writes as well
- as storage is so cheap, adding a second drive is a comparable cost to any external solutions.

I'm getting 2 1TB drives in raid 1 on my next upgrade. For £80 or something, it's worth the peace of mind, and never having to bother trying to do backups!
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The best easy method is to have a NAS and schedule weekly backups at 3am or similar.
 
TomL said:
Get a NAS box using RAID 5, I'd definitly get one if I cared about my data.
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RAID isn't a backup solution, it's an availiability solution

for most home users, having 2x discs with backup copies (scheduled) is far more sensible
 
Thanks for the interesting discussion.

I guess people's data falls into 3 categories

1) Unimportant - no disaster if lost
2) Important - collection of music and videos, holiday pictures, some documents - Extremely annoying if lost but no financial consequencies
3) Vital - Documents and collateral that has legal implications of financial impact if lost


In the case of type 2, which is probably the majority of "stuff" we have, an availability solution like RAID-1 may be enough. For example, the chances of both discs failing at the same time are very low (fire, power surge etc). The likelyhood is that one disc fails rather than both, in which case you maintain availability and although not a true back-up approach, is likely to be sufficient. For those a little more concerned, a NAS approach provides some level of additional protection.

For type 3, then you really need the 3 source approach mentioned above. Back-up locally to a NAS device and then have a 3rd copy that is kept off-site (could be uploaded to a service etc). I have a NAS device which is a terastation (Raided such that only 750GB is available).

I guess as we have more and more data, the requirement to split files into types 1,2 or 3 becomes more important. Right now I have always gone for the backup everything approach which is rapdily becoming untenable.

The one annoying thing is, that with the motherboard I have, an Asus Rampage Extreme, you cannot add a second drive to make a Raid-1 configuration without wiping the first disc! (at least with the supplied Asus software)
 
how on earth do you people manage to LEGALLY use 1.5tb of HDD space?

I've tried so hard to find a reason for a large hard drive but the maximum ive ever needed is a 300gb drive of which im only using about half of, i can understand if you do video editing but thats about it, what else is there?
 
I backup real important things on dvd-r, I think 500gb or less is good enough I'd rather have 2x 500gig than 1 x 1tb when one goes to rma at least you have some space to work with.
I currently have about 320 full up with much stuff that needs to be burned.
 
C64 said:
dvd-r
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Seriously though if its 1.5TB worth of home vids, films, TV and music like the most home users that most here have then DVD-R is your friend!

But if its files that continually being worked and are vital then you probably already have a proper solution such as a cloud service, NAS etc.
 
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