Raid 1 Storage backup - Reccomendations?

Adrianr

Adrianr

Adrianr

Soldato
Joined
3 Feb 2008
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5,565
Hi folks,

Looking to set up a 2 disk mirrored Raid 1 array consisting of two 500GB drives for photo backup and storage.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-160-MD&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=

These caught my eye for the 32mb cache, but i'm unsure of it's advantages in Raid? If any. Never used Maxtor before and i hear Seagate or Samsung thrown about way more. Anymore suggestions welcomed, though ideally i would like to keep this around the £100 mark.

Btw, if there is a better way to accomplish what i'm after, feel free to fire in those suggestions too!

Cheers.
 
I'd sidestep the whole Maxtor thing, they were purchased by Seagate a while ago and not a soul uses them now.
For 500GB drives the Samsung HD501LJ and Western Digital WD5000AAKS are the drives to consider. There's little difference between the two (WD is slighty faster, Samsung is slightly quieter) but my preference is for the Samsungs (I own around 50 of these) for the great RMA service.

Recently drives using larger platters have been released which perform a fair bit better than previous models. There are currently no 500GB versions out, although Samsung have one listed, but Western Digital and Samsung do have 640GB models available (also 1TB and 320GB but 640GB is closer to what you mention) - although they're over £70 when the current 500GB discs are <£50. To be honest though they're hardly worth it when the as-fast 1TB drives are nearly at £100.
 
Ahh okeydokey. Wondered why i hadn't seen their name about anywhere.

Speed isn't really an issue to be honest. It's purely for backup purposes so will be written to every so often and copied from when i need it. Price and reliability are the overiding factors. A good RMA service definately helps though, wouldn't want to be with only one disk for very long.

Thanks AbsenceJam, Sounds from that the Samsungs are the ones to go for, anyone else?
 
RAID1 for a backup is a bit of overkill in my opinion, you already have 2 copies in the original and the backup. You'd be better off having a single drive local backup and some kind of offsite backup - DVDs, another HDD, whatever takes your fancy.
 
Currently all my photos are just kept on an 250GB external USB Hardrive (Due to some faffin around and own stupidity), but this is also populated with various program installers, the odd movie etc. I'de be after just a pure photo solution. Or is data recovery good enough nowadays to not warrant raid? Is 2 copies really overkill?

There are too many for DVDs really, though i can't ever really have enough backup!
 
Adrianr said:
Currently all my photos are just kept on an 250GB external USB Hardrive (Due to some faffin around and own stupidity), but this is also populated with various program installers, the odd movie etc. I'de be after just a pure photo solution. Or is data recovery good enough nowadays to not warrant raid? Is 2 copies really overkill?
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I think we may be going at cross purposes here. Do you want a store or a backup - they're two very different things.

Adrianr said:
There are too many for DVDs really, though i can't ever really have enough backup!
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Trust me, you don't have too many for DVDs. I have all my photos backed up on DVDs (2 copies too) and I wouldn't even get last year's onto a 250Gb drive, let alone previous years. Sure there's a one off hit to get up to date but if you're organised backups just become part of your workflow and they're no real hassle.
 
Store or backup? Both (Though im not entirely sure of the difference you're implying). It would be a drive saved too at regular intervals, but there will also undoubtedly be times i need to access work on that drive. If by backup you mean a seperate entity from the PC alltogther, then no. It will still be constantly (internally) connected.

I may aswell start backing up to DVD too, do you recommend Dual layer 8GBs or normal 4.7s? I'l just need to get some form of safe holding device.
 
By store I mean where the primary copies of the files are, by backup I mean the copies you restore from when something happens to the primaries.

You might want to consider RAID1 for a store but only if you want something that can survive a disk failure without you having to resort to restoring from backups. RAID1 in itself is not a backup, it won't protect you from file system corruption, accidental or malicious deletion, fire, flood or theft.

Personally I use Taiyo Yuden 4.7Gb DVD-Rs, mainly because I always have and have never had a problem with them. I couldn't even tell you how much a dual layer blank costs these days.
 
AbsenceJam said:
I'd sidestep the whole Maxtor thing, they were purchased by Seagate a while ago and not a soul uses them now.
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If you're going to avoid Maxtor, then avoid Seagate as well.

Maxtor Diamondmax 22 500GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (STM3500320AS)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (ST3500320AS)
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Look at the part numbers - is the Seagate a rebadged Maxtor? or vice versa?
 
Seagate drives have always had a similar part number, if you look at the maxtor one it has a "M" in it, SeagaTe Maxtor perhaps? ;)
 
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