Best way to access RAID-1 data remotely?

[rezilient]

Hi there.

I am planning to set up my home desktop with a RAID-1 configuration using two 250GB drives for storing important documents, and then Windows 2003 Server will run on a separate 60GB disk.

I do not want to store any important information on my laptop for security and reliability issues. Also it would be nice to keep all my important stuff in one place for better organization. So question is, what is the best method to remotely access my RAID when I am on the road with my laptop?

I was thinking about setting up a Domain Controller with Active Directory and having the laptop's My Documents point to the RAID array. This would also be good because I can store favorites and other profile stuff remotely. But I'm not sure if this is possible since the laptop is running Windows Media Center..? Will it be able to join the domain? Also will my work computer be able to join the domain?

Or maybe I can just "map" the network drive using some kind of start-up script.

Or perhaps simply Remote Desktop Connection every time I need to use that data?

Your advice and opinions are greatly appreciated!

Reza Rizvi
Rezilient.com

 

[Nothinman]

I don't believe MCE can join a domain so that kills that idea. And you'll never get a mapped drive working across the Internet anyway, any ISP with half a clue blocks all of the SMB/CIFS ports. You could VPN into home and mount the volume that way, but that'll be slower because of the encryption.

Personally, I would recommend just copying the documents onto your laptop and syncying them with the server periodically. You can use Windows EFS or some other encryption program to protect them as long as you make sure you have a secure passphrase.

Also remember that RAID1 isn't a backup, if you screw up a file on one of the volumes the screwup will be mirrored instantly so make sure you have a good backup solution. And that's doubly important if you're encrypting the files since if you lose the encryption key you lose the data.

 

[InlineFive]

Take a look into VPN and SFTP. Yes, they are slower because of encryption but that's the price you pay for mobile security.

 

[vorgusa]

take a look at this site http://www.sshtools.com/showSslExplorerCommunity.do you can set it up to connect to your server from anywhere on the internet securely and have it point to a file server or whatever else... not sure it will do exactly what you want but should do what you need

 

[RebateMonger]

The best choice for you will depend on how you want to work and what kind of data files and applications you are dealing with.

If you want to keep your data in one place and can always get an Internet connection when you are working remotely, then Remote Desktop to your work PC (assuming it's XP Professional) would be the most responsive technique. VPN connections are the fastest way to TRANSFER files across the Internet, but if you want to leave the files on the server, WORKING remotely via VPN can be pretty slow, especially with large files and databases.

As Nothingman notes, MCE 2005 doesn't join a Domain gracefully and when you "force it" (with Registry patches) you still don't get all the features you'd get with XP Professional joined to a Domain. But you don't need to join the Domain to work remotely with either Remote Desktop or VPN.

 

[rezilient]

What about this:

Have my desktop PC "upload" and sync all my documents to my web server (which has a static IP address, located at a proper data center) and then when I login to my laptop "download" and sync all documents to it. Is there any solution that does this type of synchronization effectively and in real time?

 

[Nothinman]

Have my desktop PC "upload" and sync all my documents to my web server (which has a static IP address, located at a proper data center) and then when I login to my laptop "download" and sync all documents to it. Is there any solution that does this type of synchronization effectively and in real time?

rsync is good and effecient, but I don't know how well the Windows port works.

 

[rezilient]

Ya my server is Linux (CentOS) and my desktop/laptop are Win2k3/Windows XP. So whatever I use needs to work across those platforms.

 

[skyking]

samba at home, ssh/sftp on the road. put the docs in the linux server ftw.

 

[Nothinman]

Ya my server is Linux (CentOS) and my desktop/laptop are Win2k3/Windows XP. So whatever I use needs to work across those platforms.

rsync will probably work well for you then, rsyncd was designed for unix so you'll just have to get a copy of the rsync client for Windows.