Hard Drive Pricing going up at an alarming rate!!!!

I use Amahi with Greyhole, which basically does the same thing. JBOD has many advantages, the only advantage to hardware RAID that I can think of is better performance...but who needs that for a file/media server? :)

I'll probably move to Windows 8 Server if it really does have a new version of Drive Extender that uses parity instead of duplication - it'd be so much more efficient in terms of drive space!
 
easyrider said:
BS Post alert!


So people are not buying HD cameras?

I have TB's of home movies from the Birth of my daughter to her 11 years later playing with her new puppy..I have my Graduation, christmas, birthdays, holidays...Go Pro HD projects Memories

I have many many photo's all need backing up. I guess some of us have real memories to treasure not TV shows and Movies:rolleyes:

I have all my data backed up...why? Anyone who doesn't back up is a noob...I don't want to download stuff again..I have better things to do...I don't want to rip stuff again...Once I have the media on the server I want it protected.

There is no excuse not to back up..Its not cool, big or clever not to in fact only noobs don't do it.
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Of course their is a reason and quite a simple one .... COST!!

You must have spent several hundred pounds backing your media and memories up - not everybody can afford to do that.;)
 
rikky said:
Of course their is a reason and quite a simple one .... COST!!

You must have spent several hundred pounds backing your media and memories up - not everybody can afford to do that.;)
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The you ditch the stuff you don't need that can be downloaded and deleted and use this space for backups.

Simples.

And 2TB drives were 54 quid...A night out of the pub and saved and one bought every couple of months there is no excuse.
 
rikky said:
Of course their is a reason and quite a simple one .... COST!!

You must have spent several hundred pounds backing your media and memories up - not everybody can afford to do that.;)
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If people spend hundreds or thousands of pounds on CD's, DVD's and Blu-Rays, and then countless hours ripping them, they should find a few quid to spend to back up the data.

And what price do you put on all the home photos and videos that are irreplaceable?
 
Got to agree with others on here. I have spent many hours ripping my blurays and I would hate to lose them. It took me a whole weekend to rip a hundred blurays when I first bought my NAS. I now have 190 blurays. That would take me 4 full days of ripping discs. No way do I want to lose that kind of data. I also noticed that there are still 2tb hard drives going for £78 with free delivery form a reputable store.
 
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One problem I have noted with a lot retailers is that they sell hard disks which are grey imports. What this means is that your warranty is no longer with the manufacturer, but with the retailer, only.

Normally, I use the advanced RMA services...but if your drive is a grey import, you won't be able to do this.
 
Of course the major disadvantage to WHS's replication, is that it's basically like mirroring in that it will need the same amount of space as your data uses to protect it. Thus if you had for example 3 x 2TB hard drives, you would get 3TB of storage and 3TB would be used to replicate that data. Where as if you were using a RAID 5 array, you would get 4TB of storage and only 2Tb would be needed to protect the data, due to it using parity bits rather than replication. Much more efficient.

For those that don't know, this is basically because using parity bits doesn't replicate everything it just records weather there should be an odd or an even ...1 or 0 in a given data block. Thus recording enough data to know what the missing data will be.

I may be getting slightly off topic now I realise :)
 
Moeks said:
Of course the major disadvantage to WHS's replication, is that it's basically like mirroring in that it will need the same amount of space as your data uses to protect it. Thus if you had for example 3 x 2TB hard drives, you would get 3TB of storage and 3TB would be used to replicate that data. Where as if you were using a RAID 5 array, you would get 4TB of storage and only 2Tb would be needed to protect the data, due to it using parity bits rather than replication. Much more efficient.

For those that don't know, this is basically because using parity bits doesn't replicate everything it just records weather there should be an odd or an even ...1 or 0 in a given data block. Thus recording enough data to know what the missing data will be.

I may be getting slightly off topic now I realise :)
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Raid controllers cost more than a whole windows home server in some cases.

Also Raid is a PITA when you want to add more space...You have to migrate the data and rebuild the array...This can become even more costly...where do you migrate the data to?


With WHS you can just add more disks to the pool regardless of size shape creed or colour and read these drives on other PC's if the worst happens.

My First Server had 1TB drives in when the 2TB dropped in priced I sold them and bought 2 TB all without loss of data.

I would not rely on software mobo raid controllers either. Was only last week I had 2 x F1 500GB in Raid 0 for my steam apps folder. One afternoon I booted my PC and got a BSOD (driver related changed bewteen ATI and NV to many times lol) the PC wouldn't boot not even in safe mode.I lost my array instantly after geting back online. I hate RAID :(

Fortunately the steam apps folder was backed up to the server meaning I could install a SSD install steam, copy steam apps from server and be back online in a Jiffy

Fact is when storage was cheap bunging in a couple more 2TB disk was not an issue. Just wished I'd checked space on mine a few weeks back lol
 
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easyrider said:
Raid controllers cost more than a whole windows home server in some cases.

Also Raid is a PITA when you want to add more space...You have to migrate the data and rebuild the array...This can become even more costly...where do you migrate the data to?


With WHS you can just add more disks to the pool regardless of size shape creed or colour and read these drives on other PC's if the worst happens.

My First Server had 1TB drives in when the 2TB dropped in priced I sold them and bought 2 TB all without loss of data.

I would not rely on software mobo raid controllers either. Was only last week I had 2 x F1 500GB in Raid 0 for my steam apps folder. One afternoon I booted my PC and got a BSOD (driver related changed bewteen ATI and NV to many times lol) the PC wouldn't boot not even in safe mode.I lost my array instantly after geting back online. I hate RAID :(

Fortunately the steam apps folder was backed up to the server meaning I could install a SSD install steam, copy steam apps from server and be back online in a Jiffy

Fact is when storage was cheap bunging in a couple more 2TB disk was not an issue. Just wished I'd checked space on mine a few weeks back lol
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Can you not afford £78 for a new 2tb hard drive? I'm sure a couple of those would last you a few months.
 
easyrider said:
Raid controllers cost more than a whole windows home server in some cases.
I would not rely on software mobo raid controllers either.
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True, but I wasn't suggesting people should go and buy expensive hardware raid controllers, although they are the 'best' solution of course.

I wouldn't rely on that naff 'fake raid' that you can do using the motherboard controller either, that's the worst sort you can use for reliability.

Pure software raid (i.e. not using those Intel 'fake raid' chips to fool the system into thinking it has a raid controller) under Linux is pretty solid, and you can replicate the setup again if need be.

No doubt for ease of use, and fast setup WHS seems like a great all round solution, my only issue is that it uses replication rather than parity and thus uses so much more space to protect your data. Otherwise, from what I can tell it seems like a great solution. However it does also somewhat depend on exactly how you want to use the system.
 
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I've been thinking of buying an 8 bay raid storage tower which supports jbod and has a port multiplier. Model number is CFI-B8283ER. The plan is to keep it in a hidden location and to connect it to the pc via e-sata weekly to do incremental backups. I have 8 drives in the PC that would need backing up and I now have the 8 backup drives of the same capacity. Can anyone comment on whether this would be a good solution.
 
easyrider said:
The you ditch the stuff you don't need that can be downloaded and deleted and use this space for backups.

Simples.

And 2TB drives were 54 quid...A night out of the pub and saved and one bought every couple of months there is no excuse.
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Hang on isn't it you who is looking for a 2TB drive??? :D
 
easyrider said:
Raid controllers cost more than a whole windows home server in some cases.

Also Raid is a PITA when you want to add more space...You have to migrate the data and rebuild the array...This can become even more costly...where do you migrate the data to?


With WHS you can just add more disks to the pool regardless of size shape creed or colour and read these drives on other PC's if the worst happens.

My First Server had 1TB drives in when the 2TB dropped in priced I sold them and bought 2 TB all without loss of data.

I would not rely on software mobo raid controllers either. Was only last week I had 2 x F1 500GB in Raid 0 for my steam apps folder. One afternoon I booted my PC and got a BSOD (driver related changed bewteen ATI and NV to many times lol) the PC wouldn't boot not even in safe mode.I lost my array instantly after geting back online. I hate RAID :(

Fortunately the steam apps folder was backed up to the server meaning I could install a SSD install steam, copy steam apps from server and be back online in a Jiffy

Fact is when storage was cheap bunging in a couple more 2TB disk was not an issue. Just wished I'd checked space on mine a few weeks back lol
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You do realise that raid controllers have offered live expansion for quite some time now? You can just add more disks to the pool and it goes about its business.

Areca cards are expensive but you can pick up a sas expander + an adaptec raid card for a reasonable sum if you know where to look. While the performance won't be as high as the areca cards its still much higher than a single drive and will go nicely with a teamed gige connection.

I do use WHSv1 though on an ancient p45/q6600 setup, with a stack of 2tb samsungs (the absolute horror of western digital greens is going to take a while to forget). Will most likely move to a xeon SB-E WHSv2 setup with a nice R6 array. As my whs struggles with streaming lossless/1080pHP bd's for some reason.

UL on the R0 loss, I had that on my desktop the night before an assignment deadline. :( Luckily I had a good amount of the data on my laptop which I'd been using in class. Never again though. R10 now, R1 otherwise. The R10 array has already 'paid' for itself when a drive power cycled during intense use.
 
got a second hand 2.5" 640 GB drive off an auction site for £37.50 inc delivery.

Western Digital Scorpio Blue 640 GB,Internal,5400 RPM (WD6400BEVT)

what do you think guys under the current market? good deal or not, remember this is a laptop drive so a lot more expensive than 3.5" drives.
 
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