Server / storage advice

Rusty · Post by **Rusty** » Wed Jun 20, 2012 1:23 pm

A question for the IT gurus on here if I may.

A friend of mine is a photographer and as she is getting busier, she is requiring more and better storage.

At the moment she is using an external drive from her laptop and backs up onto cd etc.
I have seen reasonably priced mini servers and was wondering what the best solution would be for her.
Ideally, she would have about 2-4 TB of storage. Mirrored would be safest, with cd/dvd writing.

What could you guys recommend.

Thank you for any help

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pvr · Post by **pvr** » Wed Jun 20, 2012 3:16 pm

RAID NAS should do. No need for server as what would you use the OS for when you only need the storage.

I have a number of Buffalo NAS units which I like. When one of the 1Tb disks failed, the red light came on - I pulled the disk out of the drawer and inserted a new one which was about £50 last year (before Thailand issues) and off it went again.

Rusty · Post by **Rusty** » Wed Jun 20, 2012 4:39 pm

[quote="pvr"]
RAID NAS should do. No need for server as what would you use the OS for when you only need the storage.

I have a number of Buffalo NAS units which I like. When one of the 1Tb disks failed, the red light came on - I pulled the disk out of the drawer and inserted a new one which was about £50 last year (before Thailand issues) and off it went again.
[/quote]

So, not being in the IT Game, how does a RAID NAS drive differ from the standard NAS drive in operation etc (prob a dumb question but there we go

)

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pvr · Post by **pvr** » Wed Jun 20, 2012 5:18 pm

Just that it has a number of drives in RAID formation

Some info here: http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2010/08/rai ... -tutorial/

X5Sport · Post by **X5Sport** » Wed Jun 20, 2012 6:18 pm

It's safer with certain RAID setups. The data is always in more than one place on different hard drives.

sramsay · Post by **sramsay** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 7:05 pm

RAID 1 aka mirror is probably the way to go and NAS saves the headache of having to understand the technology.

The alternative is to look at a true backup solution to cover theft / fire etc depending on what events (fire, theft etc) your friend wants to protect against. Could be as simple as a safe, keeping a copy on a USB drive at a friends or looking at an online backup solution, although probably a bit pricey today for a few TB's of data

dirtymonkey29 · Post by **dirtymonkey29** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 7:20 pm

How easy is it to recover data from a Linux based nas drive if the nas broke? Would you need the same device with the same version of firmware?

X5Sport · Post by **X5Sport** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 7:27 pm

I have a Linux based NAS and that is fine. If only one drive fails then the other still has an identical copy. Swap out the dead for a new one and the RAID Array rebuilds itself.

I had a cooling fan fail after a couple of years and just replaced it.

Obviously as your budget increases so do your options, BUT so does the complexity and potentially your ability to support it.

For multi-PC or MAC homes then a small server becomes a realistic option as they can completely back up not just files but complete PC images so allowing you to rebuild a failed PC drive from the backups. My server backs up all our PCs and itself. A rebuild takes about 30mins and all you need is the server loaded USB drive to get you going.

NAS systems come with all sorts of backup and recovery tools these days.

For the highest level of 'Disaster Recovery' then external hard drives or even DVDs and Blu-ray data backups are another option, storing up to 50GB. Or USB drives of course...

. And of course off-site options can be considered. I guess the 'ultimate' off-site option will be in 'The Cloud' although you need a good monthly data allowance and reasonable 'upload' speed or it will take days to upload the first backup. After that it's only incremental so not so bad. There is of course an ongoing cost implication though...

Rusty · Post by **Rusty** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 7:41 pm

Having done a but of reading, Raid 10 looks good but requires 4 drives, raid 3/5 looks like a good compromise do have suggested that to her. The Buffalo Terastation looks like reasonable value though for a raid 10 .

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Post by **sp3ctre** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 7:45 pm

I would not recommend RAID setups for people who don't really know what they are doing. They sound good but when things go wrong can be more hassle than they are worth. What does work quite well is UnRAID (lime-technology.com). Basically you throw several disks at it and as long as your parity drive is the biggest one you are covered in the event of drive failure.

If you do go down the RAID route I'd keep it simple, something like software RAID1. I also believe Windows Home Server is quite good for backups for the novice.

X5Sport · Post by **X5Sport** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 7:49 pm

[quote="sp3ctre"]
If you do go down the RAID route I'd keep it simple, something like software RAID1. I also believe Windows Home Server is quite good for backups for the novice.
[/quote]
Agreed......and WHS2011 is what I use, and you can do a lot more with it as you get used to its abilities. Ready built hardware is limited though, but you can self build if you know how to put a basic PC together. My NAS - albeit 'retired' is on a simple RAID1 mirror. It used a REISER file system which makes it impossible to put the drive in a PC to recover data if the unit itself failed.

Synology is another NAS manufacturer to consider.

Rusty · Post by **Rusty** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 8:30 pm

Now I have even more to look at, thanks guys

I have no problem assembling a PC, so will look into that at some point, un-raid, now that sound interesting so will look at that later.
I never realised safe storage was so varied.
I just remember sticking the old data tape in the server at the end of the day and clicking 'backup'

So much to look at, so thank you all

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Post by **sp3ctre** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 8:57 pm

[quote="Rusty Nail"]
Now I have even more to look at, thanks guys

I have no problem assembling a PC, so will look into that at some point, un-raid, now that sound interesting so will look at that later.
I never realised safe storage was so varied.
I just remember sticking the old data tape in the server at the end of the day and clicking 'backup'

So much to look at, so thank you all

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
[/quote]

I use unraid and have never had a problem, although I do backup the important bits elsewhere with crashplan too. It uses reiserfs on the disks and you can mount them read-only in windows (worst case scenario) using this tool:

http://p-nand-q.com/download/rfstool.html

dirtymonkey29 · Post by **dirtymonkey29** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 9:00 pm

[quote="X5Sport"]
I have a Linux based NAS and that is fine. If only one drive fails then the other still has an identical copy. Swap out the dead for a new one and the RAID Array rebuilds itself.

I had a cooling fan fail after a couple of years and just replaced it.
[/quote]

I get that... For example I have an LG N2B1 nas with blueray burner that I back up to and have it mirrored so if a drive fails I still have my backup on the other. Drives are hot swappable and will rebuild, but if the system board fails how easy would it be to get my data back? I assume plugging the drives into another linux based system wouldnt work? And can't plug it into a windows pc with a caddy either.

Post by **sp3ctre** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 9:01 pm

Incidentally, not to do the "hard sell" but I bought one of these:

http://www.serversplus.com/hp_proliant_microserver

£240 inc vat with £110 cash back from HP... £130 for a very reasonable server (plus drives, only comes with a 250Gb)... 4 bays in the front, one up top (if you get a caddy) and I slapped in an extra 2.5" drive in between for good measure.... run unraid of a usb stick on the internal port and have all 6 drives available for storage, all in a very near little unit!

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