Hello all,
after much research, I decided to get a 6TB Lacie 2Big USB 3.0 hdd as an external backup archive for my wedding photography.
I own a late 2008 Mac Pro, the HDD comes with a PCIe card for the USB 3.
Unfortunately I have had many issues with this HDD so I decided to get a refund.
For those who are interested, the hdd just does not mount on the desktop when connected to the USB 3 ports unless you shut down the computer and restart.
This is unacceptable because the HDD is a plug & play device, and since I schedule my backup via software I could not really shut down and restart every time.
Furthermore, as soon as I connect the cable to the port the magic mouse become unusable for some reason that I couldn't realize.
Ok now I have to come up with a different solution for my backup.
If any of you have some suggestions that would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you in advance!
Guido
I just drop a naked internal hard drive into it and backup my files and then pull it out and put it on a shelf. Every month I do this. I'm on my 3rd drive now. The HD is only used when I'm actually backing stuff up so less chance of it dying from constant use.
I'm also considering get a Network drive to keep all my music on to free up space on my internal HD. I have an '09 iMac and upgrading the HD involves taking the entire thing apart. Not my cup of tea. But you can use a network HD to backup your files as well. And it would always be available. You could either mount it on your desktop to copy files over or use an FTP. Most have room for 2 drives that are copies of each other in case 1 drive dies.
Drobo. Super easy to use, and sorta takes care of itself. Anywhere from 4 to 8 drives, and can connect via ethernet, USB, or Firewire. I own 3, from a first gen, to a few second gens. All in all, I've had em for 4 or 5 years and the maintenance time on them is minimal, even when I've had issues.
You can upgrade the space on them without having to turn off the unit or reformat. My original pack of drives was 4 500gb drives in a Drobo Gen 1 that I upgraded over time first to 1TB x4 (in pairs), then to 1.5TB x2 and 1TB x2.
Downsides? It's proprietary. Not a big deal so far. Upgrading drives takes FOREVER. Every time I upgrade a 1TB or higher drive, my 2TB of data had to get laid out, so that takes over 2 days. BUT you do have access to all your files while this occurs, and it does not require the computer be on the whole time, as Drobo manages this on its own. You can move drives over in packs (a complete set of drives) from one Drobo to another, but you can't separate the pack, or you lose your data. Not a downside really just a caveat.
Drobo is also pricey. I buy used and haven't had a problem.
I have grown to hate external drives. In the past I have had 2 become un-readable for no good reason. One recovered with a $39.00 download program and the other so bad it would not even format. I now use 2 HD for back-up, one external and one internal plus upload 24 hrs a day to crashplan as a 3rd backup. Takes a few days for large events but it still gets done. Really hard to drag that external around to keep it off site for true protection not to mention the risk of dropping it is always a concern.
They run on Unix and your interface is you computers web browser.
Once setup they look after themselves. Set up is very simple.
The best thing about these is that they are a live type of storage. the data is continuously refreshed. The drives never need defragging or anything.
They connect to your computer via the network or directly to your computer via the network cable. The connection on the NAS is auto sensing. It can tell what it's connected to.
A hard drive can go bad and you will not lose anything. Just throw it out and put another one in.
it will re build in and hour or two.
Best to have at least two in two different locations.
You can even have one mirror another over the internet if your connection is fast enough.
You can even have a drive in the box on standby so it will automatically replace a drive gone bad.
They can also be setup to send you emails to warn you of any problems.
They also monitor the drives and warn you if one is showing early signs of problems.
Whatever you decide on, you need to do it twice - you need to back up your backup. Just because you're protected if a drive goes out does not mean you're protected if the entire file structure becomes corrupted. There is a thread in the General Photo section here about someone who is at that point with his Drobo. My feeling is that if you are going to use a Drobo, then back it up with a different system that is still RAID 5 and of similar capacity. And whatever you think is way too much capacity now, triple or quadruple that if you can, because you'll use it up much faster than you ever thought possible.
I take a different approach to minimize the time involved on a daily basis. I used the second optical drive bay on my Mac Pro to put in a kit that provides a bracket for two 2.5" hard drives and the electrical connectors needed. These I mirrored using the OS X of the computer so that all the data on the first 750GB hard drive is automatically duplicated on the second drive. Total cost for the bracket kit and the two 750GB drives was less than $200. With this approach both drives would need to fail for me to have any data lost. This is for my working data and I avoid having to do a daily backup with this approach.
Weekly I backup the data on the mirrored drives to a RAID NAS unit which is connected to the Mac Pro via 1GB Ethernet so it is very fast for moving data back and forth. This box holds 1.5TB (with the 25% lost with the RAID 5). With this NAS device when a drive fails I lose no data.
On a monthly basis I backup the NAS box to a cheap Iomega 2TB drive enclosure. The advantage of the Iomega is that it is cheap and it has a 1GB Ethernet port. I do an incremental backup from the NAS box to the Iomega and when done the Iomega goes offsite for security (theft or fire at my office).
The total cost of replicating this setup is about $1100 and once in place your data is on 4 different drives and the likelihood of data loss is very close to zero. It also minimizes the time required to do the backups. Hard to beat 1GB Ethernet and the data on the NAS box is available to every computer whether it is on the LAN or is wireless and accessing the box through a wireless router.
USB connections should be the last thing to use when no other options are available. Your Mac Pro has a 1GB Ethernet port so you might as well make use of it. Even for your current setup the Iomega "Home Media" 2TB drive enclosure with its 1GB Ethernet port would be a good place to start.
FredBGG is right on. Those consumer level external Drives arent something Id place my paycheck on. Get a network attached RAID 5 storage. These days they arent expensive. I use a Thecus N5200 and its been flawless. Ive also used buffalo terrastations and they are great. However dont leave it at that either...hanging off my NAS, I have a couple of 3 TB external drives (like the kind I dislike and mentioned above) that I back up to once in a while, just in case. Ive seen RAID arrays fail and take out all drives in the array. Keep in mind, the idea of RAID is to duplicate data amongst many drives, so when the data gets corrupt, you have it corrupt everywhere. I also back up to bluray every quarter or so and put it in a fireproof and waterproof safe. If you really value your pictures, dont rely on one of those external drives.
Look into windows home servers not only will they backup your whole computers daily but you can tell it to back up your photo to multiple hard drives, so you will end up with three copies of everything, one on your computer and two on the server. All automated, updates itself daily hands free.
I repurposed an old pc to a Windows Home Server. There was something of a learning curve, but once configured and up to speed it works great. Had an HDD go in the wife's laptop and it restored in under a half an hour after we put the replacement drive in. We have 5 pc's backing up automatically to it.
Because the WHS is a server, it, like most such solutions, has no sleep mode. Therefore I turn it off between shoots, and turn it back on for a couple of days when I am actively working. Just to save electricity and wear. Other than that it really takes care of itself.
I also back the WHS up to a usb drive once every few months, typically after a big shoot. The USB drive is kept off site. I have a pair of them. When I do a new backup I send the new one in to the offsite location (wife's office) and then have her bring the old one home. Therefore there is an offsite copy at all times. That copy is encrypted.
PShizzy wrote:
Drobo. Super easy to use, and sorta takes care of itself. Anywhere from 4 to 8 drives, and can connect via ethernet, USB, or Firewire. I own 3, from a first gen, to a few second gens. All in all, I've had em for 4 or 5 years and the maintenance time on them is minimal, even when I've had issues.
You can upgrade the space on them without having to turn off the unit or reformat. My original pack of drives was 4 500gb drives in a Drobo Gen 1 that I upgraded over time first to 1TB x4 (in pairs), then to 1.5TB x2 and 1TB x2.
Downsides? It's proprietary. Not a big deal so far. Upgrading drives takes FOREVER. Every time I upgrade a 1TB or higher drive, my 2TB of data had to get laid out, so that takes over 2 days. BUT you do have access to all your files while this occurs, and it does not require the computer be on the whole time, as Drobo manages this on its own. You can move drives over in packs (a complete set of drives) from one Drobo to another, but you can't separate the pack, or you lose your data. Not a downside really just a caveat.
Drobo is also pricey. I buy used and haven't had a problem....Show more →
Thanks Max..... I couldn't have said it better. "DROBO" I'm on my 3rd one, always updating to the current model. I currently use a 5 bay model with SATA connection.with a mix of WD black caviar HD's. That's whats nice just up size as you go no need to match HD sizes. If a drive blows up just replace it with no loss of info. even if 2 drives go simultaneously your covered.
The most cost-effective solution and one of the easiest to implement and maintain is a bare drive for backup. I use one in a bay in the computer that has its own door; this way the drive gets the benefit of case cooling but is removable. IF the house will be empty for more than a couple of hours I take the drive out and hide it.
Once a month I swap it with the identical drive in the safe deposit box at the bank.
The mantra to understand and use is: Each file on three drives, one of them off-site.
mxquattro wrote:
FredBGG is right on. Those consumer level external Drives arent something Id place my paycheck on
I don't "place my paycheck on" consumer drives, but they are the only kind I buy or need to buy. Let me explain.
Since we expect drives to fail, we need an approach that doesn't spend money depending on expensive drives that [hopefully] won't fail. Instead, an inexpensive approach uses inexpensive drives that are cheap to replace. I use bare drives and avoid expensive Drobos (which have their problems too) and NAS units.
The key is to have three copies of every file, one of them off-site.
A RAID, or their variant Drobo / NAS, does not count as more than one copy, regardless of how many stripes and/or mirrors it contains. If a file is corrupted or deleted in one of those units, then the stripes and/or mirrors quickly get corrupted or deleted in exactly the same way.
RAID is for high availability and performance. If you are running an on-line business or database that needs to be up 24/7 for multiple users to access, then RAID is good. But RAID is not a magic backup machine. It's just a box of disks that together can hold a file in a highly available and fast way.
Even though I only use 'consumer' grade drives, I've never had one fail in a couple of decades of PC computing. These days I exclusively use Western Digital.
LaCie are expensively and artistically packaged, but they are off-brand drives repackaged by LaCie. Not worth the money.
With the DROBO, check the settings on the Dashboard and there is an option to notify when there are software or firmware updates available. I also use Cronosync to auto back up selected folder from the DROBO to a Nas.
In house keep original raw discs, edited raw discs, processed to Tiff discs...Tiff files copied to WD externals AND Tiffs off site on discs. No problems in 8 years...
