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

[Theodore Chen]

mine is win2k server.  as i said, old machine.  you don't have to do this.
i did it because i wanted a central repository for files in my house.  i
can get to them from any machine behind my firewall, and it's the backup
repository for several machines - including laptops, which are more likely
to experience HD failures.

the drives can be attached directly to your photo workstation in a
RAID configuration.  Retrospect backup will work fine on a single machine.

what RAID level were you thinking of running?  1, 4, 5?  i just saw that
there are many flavors of RAID, described in wikipedia.  another way to
do this, though somewhat more expensive, is to buy USB external HDs.
i bought a western digital 250GB external with Retrospect Express bundled
for $90 (after rebte).  it has 1-touch pushbutton backup.  i've seen 
500GB externals for $200 - that's only $10 more than an internal.

there are many different ways to skin this cat.  my preference would be
to rely on backup software (like Retrospect) first before relying on RAID,
because RAID doesn't protect you against application or user errors, only
disk failures.  i can't remember the last time i had a desktop HD fail,
but i've had OS/software errors that resulted in file corruption.  with
a RAID 1 configuration, for example, you'll just have two copies of the
corrupted file.  RAID 4 and 5 will give you the corrupted file striped
across several disks.

-teddy

--- Taka Mizutani <t44tqtro at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
> >
> 


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