Best deal on a 2TB Firewire External HD?

[Frank Petronio]

I've always bought nicer LaCie drives at Mac-like prices, but if I went over to the darkside and wanted just a tin box and a simple brute force mass storage device, what is the best bang for my buck?

I think I need to buy two 2TB HDs to get through next year...

Thanks

[Michael T. Murphy]

I have been stacking up 200GB drives, instead of using one larger drive. I buy them for $40 each when on sale, 10 at a time.

Just seems like too much risk with the large drives. There are some decent hot-swapable enclosures for multiple drives. Stack 5 200GB for a terabyte, about $450 or so. None off the top of my head right now, haven't looked for a year.

Best,
Michael

[Frank Petronio]

$400 for all that power draw and heat and noise... idk, I can find LaCie 2TB for $715. I am thinking more along the lines of having two big drives and using some of the old 500gb ones for off site critical back up.

[Ed Richards]

Is this backup or primary storage? If it is primary, and you are in the terabyte range, it is time to start thinking about a good RAID stack.

[Jeremy Moore]

Don't know how these are in terms of quality, but this is what's I've been looking at buying today:

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?pfp=cat3&product_code=338299

Only 1TB, though, as I've found it cheaper to pick up 2x 1TB than 1x 2TB.

[Jeremy Moore]

another option is to get 2 external drives and just have one clone the other using a program such as SuperDuper! instead of doing internal RAID.

[Ted Harris]

You can buy cases and naked drives from www.datamem.com (Data Memory Systems) for usually the lowest $$$ around. They are the "Midwest Photo" of the RAM and memory world. I have been buying memory and drives from them for 20 years and have always had terrific service and prices. I usually deal with Bud. An example, just paid them $338 for 4 GB of RAM for my new Mac Pro and got a 200 GB 2.5 external SATA drive and nice metal enclosure for ~ $120.

You can find cheaper drives but they will usually be in sealed plastic cases and you run the risk of damaging the drive if you need to chisel the case ope to get to the drive.Even then these cheap drives are not much cheaper.

[Michael Graves]

You might consider a NAS solution if you don't need super-high data transfer rates. Something like the Thermaltake N0001N will accomodate up to 4 1TB drives and connect via Ethernet. However, even with gigabit Ethernet, you won't get the transfer rates you get form local storage. The basic unit, without hard disks, will set you back in the vicinity of $450.00. Then pick your poison for drives.

[Daniel Geiger]

You might consider a NAS solution if you don't need super-high data transfer rates. Something like the Thermaltake N0001N will accomodate up to 4 1TB drives and connect via Ethernet. However, even with gigabit Ethernet, you won't get the transfer rates you get form local storage. The basic unit, without hard disks, will set you back in the vicinity of $450.00. Then pick your poison for drives.

Seems like the Thermalake is is RAID 0 and 1, but not RAID 5 like the Buffalo technologies terrastation. I have a 1TB terrastation in RAID 5 and am happy with it; currently the best value/$ is 2TB with them, but still a good grand. RAID 5 gives you more effective storage at full drive failure protection, so for me the preferred way to go.

[QT Luong]

I definitively wouldn't use the LaCie big drives as primary, as they are RAID 0.

At the moment, the most secure, least expensive, and fastest storage method is to have a set of separate eSATA 500GB drives mirrored.

[Jeffrey Sipress]

Raid 5 is the way to go if you want peace of mind. I use the LaCie 1TB raid, and when one drive crapped out, I put a new one in and it automatically rebuilt the entire array and no data was lost. Get one with four 500GB drives.

[David Carson]

http://wiebetech.com/includes/home/featuredproductx.php?item=11

These look cool. If I remember correctly, Mark Tucker posted a similar question on the old Rob Galbraith forums and people recommended the RT5. That was a year or so ago, ymmv.

[QT Luong]

In the research lab where I used to work, we had a RAID 5 controller fried. All the data in the array was wiped out. My recommendation that mirroring with separate enclosures is the safest method is supported by the Wiebetech white paper.

[roderick]

I have been using a Firewire 800 / USB mirrored Stardom RAID system for about 3 years. <http://www.synetic.net/New-Web-2/Small-Business-Products.htm> It monitors the drives for overheating and potential failures and auto rebuilds on the fly.

And I have been replacing the drives within the trays with larger capacity ones, as the prices in the marketplace slowly drop. I currently use ten trays that are halfway being upgraded from SATA 300Gb to 500GB.

For my situation I found this solution ideal because I can use the unit on any of my computers without special cards or cabling. And I can increase the storage, as needed, by buying a couple of trays and hard drives. It is very small and portable. I started with four trays in the beginning and have gone up to ten over the years. I keep track of over 75,000 images on the drives with Iview media pro.

I used to burn to CDs then to DVDs with Retrospect but there were often media problems with certain drives and it took days to burn to multiple DVDs. I was becoming more of an IT guy and less and less of a photographer.

When I am done I place the drives in an old aluminum padded photo case and place them in the safe. I have spoken with people who bring the mirrored drives home, so one half drives are off site.

Regards,

Roderick

[Ed Richards]

Just a Katrina anniversary note from Baton Rogue

Make damn sure you have off-site backup. Even if the levees do not break, your house can burn down, your valley can flood, the earthquake can happen, your angry pre-ex-spouse can soak all your stuff with gasoline and set it ablaze when he/she finds that you bought one more lens.

[Kirk Gittings]

Can someone explain the difference between Raid 1,0 and 5?

[Daniel Geiger]

Hi Kirk,

Have a look at wikipedia for details, but in a nutshell:
RAID0 = multiple drives making one megadrive (no security).
RAID1 = mirroring = all data gets written to two independent drives. Also eats half your storage capacity, but very good security.
RAID5 = all data gets distributed to multiple drives, in a way so that you loose less storage capacity. E.g., with 4 x 500 GB you end up with about 1.5TB effective storage space. Decent security (i.e., if a drive fails, you can re-generate the lost data), though as previous poster pointed out, if your controller for the data distribution goes, you are in deep trouble.

[Marko]

In very simple terms:

RAID 0 provides increased speed and capacity at a cost of increased risk. Combines - stripes - minimum of two disks with no parity. Minimum two disks, no parity.

RAID 1 provides data security and, under certain circumstances, better access performance. The cost is reduced writing speed.

RAID 5 is similar to RAID 0, but adds parity and requires three disks minimum. Decreases risk of a drive failure (one drive only).

This can be a contentious issue, as opinions on acceptable level of risk differ. I would use only RAID 0 in a personal (or small group) setting because of the increased speed, but only as a scratch disk, never for storage.

[Daniel Geiger]

I would like to add, that different RAID types serve particular purposes, there is not "the best" RAID type.
RAID0: faster access to data, but not for security. (see above for Marko's point).
RAID1: everything is immediately written to two drives, so no loss of data at any time. For those who are highly concerned about data security if used for storage of all modified files.
RAID5: Useful for daily/weekly backup from other drives, with a bit more security than just writing it to one stand-alone drive. [That's what I use is for].

[Kirk Gittings]

I am a bit confused about how to proceed. I currently run two 500GB eSATA external drives with full, non-mirrored, backups (one for art and one for commercial work) and a 350MB network drive and backup for crap like I tune folders.

I filled up the 500GB eSata commercial drive in a little less than one year. Since they are not mirrired, the backup filled a bit faster tha the primary. I like the simplicity and cost effectiveness of this system. I am no computer guru.

Just keep buying more and filling them up?

[Marko]

Kirk,

Backup redundancy is your best insurance policy, especially if you can keep one copy off site. Har disks are cheap and they copy well, so you can always rotate files to newer/faster media if need be. You should do that once a year anyway, especially with disks that sit in the storage. Don't forget they are magnetic media, after all.

I keep two identical copies of all the data I consider essential. Each copy resides on a separate external drive (with its own power supply). Each copy consists of daily incremental backups and weekly full backups, two weeks' worth altogether. Once the disks get full, off into the storage they go and get replaced with new ones, bigger and (usually) faster. Anything happens, like fire or a quake, I figure I'll have enough time to yank at least one brick out and take it with me. I can always put my shoes on outside. :)

PS scratch disk, on the other hand, is an ideal candidate for RAID 0. Big and fast, reliability is not (much of) an issue.

[Ted Harris]

Kirk,

Keep fillin' 'em up. When the drive is full take it out of the enclosure and store it in a plastic container. To be extra safe, copy it and store both of 'em. That is what I do.

[Kirk Gittings]

I guess part of my dlilema is organization of commercial files. I file by client then by project. Some of my clients I have had for 25 years and will go on another 20? Simply filling up drives and buying new ones means spreading their files over multiple HDs. A bit awkward??

On the other hand, after I deliver the files, unless their system crashes or there is a stock request, the files don't have much activity.

[Lenny Eiger]

Here's the secret. (At least on Mac.) Buy a case, buy some internal drives, get a SATA card and a copy of SOFTRaid. You'll save yourself a bundle. I just built a 5 TB RAID for under 2K. All you have to do is to screw in the internal drive to a bracket, slide the bracket into a case.

I find the LaCie RAID drviers - Bigger Disk, etc. are good for backup drives.

Lenny
eigerstudios.com

[Frank Petronio]

Compusa had a sale on 500gb externals for $119 and I just bought four...

Now to stash drives all over Upstate NY...

[Jeremy Moore]

Frank, are you talking about the 500gb lacie drives?

[Jeremy Moore]

Frank, are you talking about the 500gb lacie drives?

It seems these 500gb lacie's have dropped to $119 everywhere so if you can find them not in-state (i.e. no tax) with free shipping, that's quite a deal.

[Frank Petronio]

yeah, seems like the best gb per $ for a simple external HD yet

[Kirk Gittings]

Only thing is that eSata drives, which I switched to last year, are considerably faster than USBs. I use eSatas for the primary storage and the backups are USBs where I don't need the speed. I run two of each, one set for commercial images and one set for art images.

[Frank Petronio]

Agreed if you are running a tower, but I do everything from a MacBook only. I have a pair of 500gb Firewire HDs that suffice for scratch disk duty, so the USB drives will be for older archiving. It pains me to think the pair of 500s from last year (or so) were something like $600 each.

Funny, my whole career fits - just - onto 500gb here in 2007. I figure having it backed up into 3 spaces (two hard drives and a stack of DVDs) is OK.

But what I need to do next is to find a great off-site place to store my back-up back-up. And that isn't as easy as it sounds, since I want to store these drives in a cool, dry, safe space. Like someone's closet, like relatives. And I know I wouldn't appreciate getting my kid's junk stuck into my closet when I'm 70 years old. So hmmm.... I'm not going to rent a $100/mo storage locker. I almost wish I could send the drives miles away, just out of the worst paranoia.

Wonder how much it'll be next year? and beyond? It seems like only a few years ago we spoke of a gigabyte the way we talk about terrabytes... what is the next level called? I have no idea...

[Marko]

Frank, you can always pair up with someone like you. :)

If you keep each other's drives, it would be a zero-sum game space-wise and both of you will have additional security.

[Doug Dolde]

The Infrant Readynas NV+ uses XRaid. You can start with just two drives and go up to four. With four 1TB drives you'd net 3TB, with only 2 1TB drives you'd net 1TB. I have one and love it. Built like the proverbial brick shithouse.

[Frank Petronio]

Marko -- Yeah but what's your life expectancy and how will your heirs treat mine? and vice versa!

Also, I am running these $119 500 gb drives and yep, they're slow. I will probably be copying stuff once and leaving it on them forever....

[Marko]

Marko -- Yeah but what's your life expectancy and how will your heirs treat mine? and vice versa!

Once the issue comes down to that, it could only mean that the ideal of finding lifetime storage has been reached. Anything after that point won't matter, at least not from my perspective. ;)


Also, I am running these $119 500 gb drives and yep, they're slow. I will probably be copying stuff once and leaving it on them forever....

That's what the nights are for - have them earn their keep while you're away. :)