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

[Taka Mizutani]

Thanks, Teddy.

What I don't understand about running a separate machine are the
requirements- are you running this "file server" under Win XP?

I have at least one MB that can run 4 SATA drives, so that's not a problem.

I'll probably do the belt and suspenders, because I can RAID the workstation
for less than settting up the file server and can setup the file server down
the road as a backup system.

Taka


On 6/12/06, Theodore Chen <tedebearp at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> well, that's the great thing about Retrospect (which came from Dantz, the
> company
> acquired by EMC).  it'll run on a winXP machine.  as long as your storage
> computer
> has winXP, you're set.  of course, the various flavors of windows server
> will work,
> too.  check the EMC website for Retrospect system requirements.
>
> i would set up an old machine with an IDE or SATA controller (cheap) and
> a bunch of 300 GB IDE or SATA drives.  right now, 300 GB provides the best
> bang for the buck in high density storage (500 GB is $190, 300 GB is
> $90).  for
> example, i have an old AT tower with a 900 MHz AMD athlon CPU, 512 MB RAM,
> and five HDs.  it works just fine as a fileserver, because it doesn't get
> a lot of
> utilization.  5x300GB would cost you $450 and give you 1.5TB of storage.
> i have only 100baseT hardware and i find that 50MB files move pretty
> quickly with
> this setup.  gigabit stuff is cheap and i'd upgrade, but i ran cat5 cable
> in my
> house, which is all that was available at the time.  i've thought about
> replacing
> it with new cable, but i haven't felt the need for faster network speeds
> so far.
>
> you should understand that RAID and Retrospect provide different kinds of
> protection
> and they can be complementary.  it's probably overkill for you to use RAID
> and
> backup software, but RAID will give you another layer of protection.  if
> you're
> a belt and suspenders man, you may like this approach.  RAID controllers
> are
> pretty cheap now anyway.
>
> you might want to do a web search for discussion on Retrospect and RAID.
> note that Retrospect was focused on the Apple market for years before it
> became available for windows, so you may see a lot of Apple-related
> discussion.
>
> -teddy
>