[s-cars] NAC- need advice on photo workstation, RAID and some other ???s

[matt ludwig]

Hey,

Sounds like you are shooting a lot. I have been through this  
situation before and can add to the mix a bit.

Kind of an over-arching item, but i feel that depending on XP SP2 is  
possibly the worst OS to manage a RAID config on. that said, it is  
fine if you are going to be using as a desktop solution and looking  
at the RAID, but i would definitly look at having a flavor of UNIX  
dictating how that data is written and be what dictates all automated  
jobs, etc.

Tape is good for backup, but it is limiting w/ size. anything over  
200Gb starts to add up $$ real quick. the other disadvantage to  
backing up in that large a chunk when it is for personal use, is the  
risk of loosing a whole huge amount of data rather than smaller, less  
harmful ones. DVD backup nice for this (or smaller tape volumes).

as for controller cards, i have heard good things from both you name.  
this is a pretty critical item in optimizing RAID so it is wise to  
invest here. as long as you are talking about personal, one-machine  
usage and not across a massive, automated network w/ lots of  
variable, either will be fine. generally speaking, you will be using  
very little of it's capability so either will work.

if you are really looking to keeping ALL your data live in addition  
to backups and going to go north of 2TB (i mean seriously going to  
commit to this), i would consider very strongly looking towards  
building out some sort of server farm (most likely RAID w/ hot- 
swapables and redundency cross-written to removeable media and/or off- 
site storage) as your costs will become quite high otherwise. in my  
experience doing this, it is multiple 1, 2U rack mounts all running  
UNIX working off a master controller behind another UNIX desktop  
machine.

you are getting some cool stuff for sure! : ) good luck with it and  
if you are looking for any assistance w/ it in the Boston area, i am  
happy to offer some contacts to help you with it if you like.

sincerely,


matt.
1995.5 S6 Avant
Lima, Peru (soon to be Portland, ME... )


On 10Jun , 2006, at 4:33 PM, Taka Mizutani wrote:

> Are you talking about RAID off a MB or using a dedicated controller  
> card?
>
> I was going with a fairly high-end controller card (for a  
> workstation) to
> maximize
> reliability. I'm wondering if going with Adaptec would be safer  
> than Areca,
> which is
> not the same size of company.
>
> I'm running Win XP Pro SP2. No wireless networks, but I could  
> easily network
> to a
> second PC via a 100MBs switch. These a RAW photo files, maybe 20MB  
> each, but
> will eventually number into the thousands. That's the problem- manual
> backups are
> fine with small chunks of data, but when you are talking about  
> hundreds of
> GBs,
> that DVD backup won't cut it.
>
> I'm looking toward the future as well- that's why RAID and tape  
> backups are
> really the
> only thing I can see that will scale well when I'm talking about a  
> potential
> 2TB setup in
> a few years. Even tape doesn't have the density that I'd really  
> want- the
> affordable systems
> max out around 200GB per tape and I'm not able to buy nor do I  
> really want
> an autoloader.
>
> Taka
>
>
> On 6/10/06, Kent McLean <kentmclean at mindspring.com> wrote:
>>
>> Taka Mizutani wrote:
>>> I'm building a dedicated photo workstation for maximum reliability
>>> and redundancy so as to avert any potential data loss. However,
>>> I have to do this in a reasonable budget, so I can't afford to drop
>>> multi thousands on this setup.
>>
>> I may be wrong, but...  I haved heard horror stories about RAID
>> setups where data got corrupted on the first drive, and it was
>> copied that way to the redundent drives, destroying what had
>> been good data.
>>
>> If it were me,  I'd rely on frequent manual backups.  I'd just copy
>> the work data to a second drive in the PC after every session.
>> I'd also get a removable (USB/Firewire) drive and copy to that,
>> too, then store that drive off-site.  And to make sure that a stray
>> magnet or flood doesn't screw up the drives, I'd burn the data
>> to DVD(s) on a regular (weekly, monthly) basis, and store those
>> off-site.
>>
>> That's my two cents, and worth every penny.
>>
>> Some questions that didn' arise:  what OS are you using?
>> Do you have a wireless network to back-up to a 2nd PC?
>> How much data are you talking about?  Some ISPs provide
>> lots of storage for little money (easy access and off-site).
>>
>> --
>> Kent McLean
>> '94 100 S Avant, "Moody"
>> '89 200 TQ, "Bad Puppy" up in smoke
>> _______________________________________________
>> S-CAR-List mailing list
>> S-CAR-List at audifans.com
>> http://www.audifans.com/mailman/listinfo/s-car-list
>>
> _______________________________________________
> S-CAR-List mailing list
> S-CAR-List at audifans.com
> http://www.audifans.com/mailman/listinfo/s-car-list