Storage solution needed

JoHubb · 20 Aug 2014 at 09:49

I have a home build W7x64 PC - nearly 7 years old. I run a Q6600 2.4GHz in EP45-UD3P Gigabyte mobo with 4GB DDR2 and Radeon HD6670. This PC is mainly used for office work at home but I have a large collection of scanned maps, plans, photos.

My problem is I have almost filled a 1TB SATA drive. This is backed up to a 1TB external SATA drive. Both are 80 percent full and I dislike going much over 70 percent.

What is my best solution? I wondered about RAID, or even Drobo virtual RAID, or similar. Is my mobo up to the job of running these? Perhaps I should buy two 3TB HDDs and replace the 1TBs. I like things fairly simple but am not averse to trying something different.

I'd be grateful for advice.

John

Ploppy2k3 · 20 Aug 2014 at 10:04

you might be best served long term by getting a Synology/QNAP external NAS with your choice of HDD sizes.

If you put them in a mirror set lets say 2x3TB drives then at a later date you could pull the drives 1 y 1 and add larger ones if required. You also get the luxury of hardware RAID and both these manufactures are bullet proof.

costs a bit more but you get the piece of mind.

anthony566 · 20 Aug 2014 at 10:21

I have always had a NAS in my house as I wanted somewhere everyone could store data on and to use for backing up and this also give me a handy media hub for music and films to stream to anything,

This is my very recent replacement NAS

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18616460

the one thing I will say is if you are going to replace your drives then get NAS drives and at least 3 gig and mount them in Raid

JoHubb · 20 Aug 2014 at 15:40

Thanks to both. The Synology NAS looks the way to go except that I have no free router outlets. I'd like to avoid upgrading this if possible.

From anthony566's link I could see how easy the hardware is to install. The software side bothers me a bit..is it straightforward to install? My network has wired connections for 2PCs (W7), a Macbook Pro, and a W7 laptop. I use wireless around the house, but I find it troublesome in my study/office.

Flying_Hellfish · 20 Aug 2014 at 15:57

Should be very straightforward.

If you've no ports on your router at the moment, just buy a gigabit switch and attach it to the router. Then connect the NAS to either of those.

On Holiday · 20 Aug 2014 at 16:02

Ploppy2k3 said:
you might be best served long term by getting a Synology/QNAP external NAS with your choice of HDD sizes.

If you put them in a mirror set lets say 2x3TB drives then at a later date you could pull the drives 1 y 1 and add larger ones if required. You also get the luxury of hardware RAID and both these manufactures are bullet proof.

costs a bit more but you get the piece of mind.

Would that work?

If you have 2x 1TB in RAID 1, pull a 1TB and replace with 3TB then the RAID will re-build and only use 1TB of the 3TB ?

JoHubb · 20 Aug 2014 at 19:16

Not sure about that. I need at least 3TB for storage to allow 30 percent unused space. And, I need the same for backup.

On the gigabyte switch, do I need a PoE type to run Synology NAS?

Edit

Just noticed ransomeware issue with Synology on another thread. ??

Grrrrr · 20 Aug 2014 at 23:32

Drive bender allows you to pool multiple drives into a single volume. Or in other words, multiple hard drives appear as one drive and the files are distributed between them. Each time my storage pool fills up I add another drive to expand capacity.

Cheaper solution than buying a NAS and more flexible than a RAID array.

anthony566 · 20 Aug 2014 at 23:41

JoHubb said:
Thanks to both. The Synology NAS looks the way to go except that I have no free router outlets. I'd like to avoid upgrading this if possible.

From anthony566's link I could see how easy the hardware is to install. The software side bothers me a bit..is it straightforward to install? My network has wired connections for 2PCs (W7), a Macbook Pro, and a W7 laptop. I use wireless around the house, but I find it troublesome in my study/office.

The software is unbelievably easy to install and setup and there is quite a bit of it for free from the Synology download centre.

JoHubb · 21 Aug 2014 at 08:50

Grrrrr said:
Drive bender allows you to pool multiple drives into a single volume. Or in other words, multiple hard drives appear as one drive and the files are distributed between them. Each time my storage pool fills up I add another drive to expand capacity.

Thanks, I think this is like Drobo. As I understand it, it makes a single virtual drive out of the whole lot of them. I suppose Drive bender is similar.

Up to now I have used Truecrypt to protect volumes. Sadly, Truecrypt has caused me problems recently. It is no longer supported and I am looking for an alternative.
Can drives used in virtual setups be encrypted, or protected in some other way i.e. pin or password? I don't need high level protection.

John