Topic: Advice on good external hard drive for backup?

[rigpimp]

Why use a hard drive at all?  2TB on a postage stamp and no moving parts.

http://www.sdcard.org/developers/tech/sdxc

[Brian Skalinder]

Why use a hard drive at all?  2TB on a postage stamp and no moving parts.

Because 2TB SDXC cards aren't available yet, nor are the devices that may take advantage utilize the new SDXC standard?

[lastubbe]

The best way to go is obviously going to be an internal raid array with a good raid controller, RAID-5 would be optimal for write performance and redundancy. If you cant afford to get multiple drives to RAID together in a RAID-5 configuration I would suggest at least getting 2 and doing a RAID-1(mirror) configuration, this is 2:1 relationship. The 2 drives mirror all data so if one fails you still have your data and can insert a new drive and rebuild the array. If you just are looking for a simple non-redundant drive, I have been loving my "MyBook"

available in: 1 TB, USB 2.0, FireWire 400, eSATA

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=357

Easy to add on, looks sleek, hides nicely. I encrypted mine so if anyone steals it, sorry charlie.

J

Do you have RAID set up with this drive or do you use the full 1 TB?

I have been contemplating setting mine to RAID 1 and getting another to set to RAID 1 in a daisy chain.  I called WD pre sale support today to better understand what my options are.  I started thinking about the 4 TB.....

[rigpimp]

Why use a hard drive at all?  2TB on a postage stamp and no moving parts.

Because 2TB SDXC cards aren't available yet, nor are the devices that may take advantage utilize the new SDXC standard?

It was a rhetorical question, Brian.  I suppose my tone of voice didn't give away the get-ready-for-better-technology-coming-soon-to-a-box-store-near-you sarcasm.

[Brian Skalinder]

It was a rhetorical question, Brian.  I suppose my tone of voice didn't give away the get-ready-for-better-technology-coming-soon-to-a-box-store-near-you sarcasm.

Right!  Makes perfect sense, now.  I should've .  Good stuff!  Technology is amazing...

[taperj]

Heya lastubbe, no I don't have mine raided at present. I run a software RAID-1 configuration on a local linux box with some smaller drives as a partial backup, the terabyte drive is a relatively recent addition and I'm about to get another and entertain raiding them together, that would give me a solid 1TB of RAID-1 storage and would free up my smaller software raided drives that currently act as a partial backup for a redundant work area. 

[rigpimp]

In all sincere honesty I am like Brian.  I run scripts that back up from one PC to another, and from one PC's hard drive to another in the same PC.  I personally think that RAID is overkill and I hate the feeling of not knowing whether a drive is bad or not.  (does a red light flash overhead or something?)

I also back up all of my masters to multiple locations.  I burn copies to DVD, an external drive, and offsite to a sub-domain that I created on our work web host.  (Shh dont tell on me)

I can guarantee with 100% confidence that I will never lose any data until December 21, 2012.  It will literally take the end of the world for it to happen.

My office backups consist of 3 scripts that backup our network drive to 3 different workstation drives, another to backup duplicate copies to an 1TB Lacie external drive, and another that sends one copy off site to cold storage in Utah.  And everyone knows that Utah is the Switzerland of the USA.  Oh yah, did I mention that the server is two 75GB raptors in RAID?  Don't get me started on my Acronis images or my bi-annual DVD backups of critical files.

I think that I might have my bases covered...

If you are looking for a particular brand I have been happy with WD Black, WD Essential, Lacie Porsche, etc.

[rjp]

I personally think that RAID is overkill and I hate the feeling of not knowing whether a drive is bad or not.  (does a red light flash overhead or something?)

I can only speak for the Linux built-in software RAID, but it has worked very well for me using off-the-shelf SATA drives with motherboard ports and/or generic PCI SATA cards. It is possible to set up the system to monitor array health and automatically email you when a drive fails; that has saved my bacon more than once. I'm currently running 4x500 GB drives in a RAID5 configuration for 1.5 TB capacity, after upgrading from 4x120 GB when I had a drive failure. The RAID5 kept on chugging in degraded mode, which gave me time for one last backup and then the upgrade.

RAID is not backup, however! I have a single drive in a USB enclosure for backups; I use rsync to make the backups.

[AHappyHourHero]

I can convey personal experience and preference.  I have used Seagate, Maxtor, Hitachi, Toshiba and Western Digital Drives for various applications.  I stick to Western Digital for reliability.  I have not experienced sustained reliability with any of the others, although Maxtor comes close.

My personal philosophy with external drives is many smaller drives, vice fewer huge drives, because as we all know, electronics will eventually fail (usually right before the planned back-up that you were meaning to get to)  I do mirror image the drives from time to time, in a manual RAID, if you will, disconnect, and place in safe storage as back-up for impending disaster recovery.  This is time consuming, but not nearly as time consuming as recovering what was lost. I have suffered the loss of a 320GB drive, and the time spent to recreate the files, reconstruct what I already had is time that you will never get back, twice.  In the long run, it is cost effective to me, to have a redundant back-up, because the music really is that important to me.  Thank God for archive.org, saving my butt in the long run.
I think (and I have been recommended by many to stop doing this) that the MOST relaiable way to back it up securely is one of the many reliable online data back-up companies.  They multi-RAID (sic) their servers, have insurance, etc.  Experience here is that I can quickly and easily access my information at anytime, from anywhere, without lugging a drive around with me.