Need to upgrade server storage, suggestions?

[jimbob200521]

So I currently have 2x500gb WD drives in RAID1 for redundancy for important stuff such as documents, pictures, etc. I then also have 1.5tb and a 2tb drives for movies and tv shows. This is all fine and good except my bulk storage drives have ZERO redundancy. Coupled with the fact that these drives are showing 58k+ & 15k+ hours each respectively as well as beginning to show reallocated sectors, uncorrectable sectors, etc, I think it's time to look into something newer. My current thought process goes with replacing the 1.5tb and 2tb drives with either 3x2tb in RAID5 for 4tb total usable space or 2x4tb in RAID1 for the same 4tb usable storage. I've been kind of eyeballing the drives listed below:

2tb:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA5AD4RB3611
for a total cost of roughly $165

or

4tb
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA5AD4DP0316
for a total cost of roughly $228

Any thoughts on this or other drives I should be looking at? Any other alternatives or possibly higher capacity options in the above price range I should consider? I just want to get the best bang for my buck with some redundancy in all this. Any thoughts or suggestions are appreciated!

 

[Elixer]

You really shouldn't use RAID1 instead of an actual backup, RAID1 don't protect you in case of malware and things of that nature.
The drives with bad sectors should only be used for scrap drives.

I would say Hitachi/Toshiba, WD/HGST, and seagate bringing up the rear.
I don't think you need RAID at all, you would use 1 HD for important stuff, then either cloud backups and or another HD for actual local backups. Then, for the other use case, you could just rotate out HDs as they get full.

 

[PliotronX]

RAID-5 for anything larger than 600GB is at risk for UREs during the rebuild process. For super important stuff, it does not get better than bluray m-disc blanks. Tapes are too expensive. Elixer is right with the cloud as a secondary backup but I would still take physical copies. RAID-1 is fine though in a dedicated backup as long as one of the drives is solid but since both are pretty beat up, I'd be sweating a little.

 

[XavierMace]

For super important stuff, it does not get better than bluray m-disc blanks. Tapes are too expensive.

Not if you know how to shop. 100Gb M-Disc BD-XL singles are ~$20. 5 packs ~$80. $60 for the burner. 800Gb/1.6Tb LTO4 tapes are ~$20. Single tape drives can be had for ~$50. Autoloaders for $170. That makes them substantially cheaper per GB than M disc. There's obviously other considerations (such as having a SAS or FC card to plug the drive into) but you can get surplus tape stuff for dirt cheap and depending on the LTO4 drive/setup it's faster than M-disc too.

That said, for most people I'd just recommend a better disk to disk backup setup.

 

[jimbob200521]

You really shouldn't use RAID1 instead of an actual backup, RAID1 don't protect you in case of malware and things of that nature.
The drives with bad sectors should only be used for scrap drives.

I would say Hitachi/Toshiba, WD/HGST, and seagate bringing up the rear.
I don't think you need RAID at all, you would use 1 HD for important stuff, then either cloud backups and or another HD for actual local backups. Then, for the other use case, you could just rotate out HDs as they get full.

The two drive I currently have in RAID1 (2xWD 500gb) are regularly backed up to an external medium so I'm not to worried about them. I know an offsite backup is ideal but at this point I haven't gotten anything like that set up...yet.

As for the "need" for RAID, it just makes me feel better to have two copies of data than one (duh but hear me out). The data I'm proposing to put on the new RAID setup isn't exactly life critical stuff that I couldn't replace if need be; TV Shows, Movies, Music, etc. For me, that stuff is not worth paying for 4tb of offsite backup, I'd rather just have two copies of it in house and be done with it. All that being said, I guess I don't see the difference between having say 2x4tb in RAID1 vs 1 4tb with another 4tb either external or internal backing it up on a regular basis. Why not just throw two large drives in a RAID1 and be done with it? Barring any unforeseen extraordinary hardware failure (PSU blowing up, lightning strike, etc), that level of data "protection" would be fine for my useage case. I'm not trying to necessarily argue the point, just looking for other ideas or clarification on your point.

RAID-5 for anything larger than 600GB is at risk for UREs during the rebuild process. For super important stuff, it does not get better than bluray m-disc blanks. Tapes are too expensive. Elixer is right with the cloud as a secondary backup but I would still take physical copies. RAID-1 is fine though in a dedicated backup as long as one of the drives is solid but since both are pretty beat up, I'd be sweating a little.

I've heard about URE's during rebuild process and to be honest, RAID5 was kind of my last preferred option. The only reason I was considering it is because it comes out cheaper to get a total of 4tb to buy 3x2tb for RAID5 than it does to buy 2x4tb for RAID1. I'm also leery about RAID5 because let's say my onboard RAID controller goes poof; I've heard horror stories about getting another RAID controller to recognize and actually work with the array. So all that being said, I think I'll cross RAID5 off my options list.

Not if you know how to shop. 100Gb M-Disc BD-XL singles are ~$20. 5 packs ~$80. $60 for the burner. 800Gb/1.6Tb LTO4 tapes are ~$20. Single tape drives can be had for ~$50. Autoloaders for $170. That makes them substantially cheaper per GB than M disc. There's obviously other considerations (such as having a SAS or FC card to plug the drive into) but you can get surplus tape stuff for dirt cheap and depending on the LTO4 drive/setup it's faster than M-disc too.

That said, for most people I'd just recommend a better disk to disk backup setup.

See above: the data in question for this setup isn't life critical so I'm not too worried about having an offsite or cold storage method of backing it up. I just want a little redundancy in case a drive fails.

 

[PliotronX]

Not if you know how to shop. 100Gb M-Disc BD-XL singles are ~$20. 5 packs ~$80. $60 for the burner. 800Gb/1.6Tb LTO4 tapes are ~$20. Single tape drives can be had for ~$50. Autoloaders for $170. That makes them substantially cheaper per GB than M disc. There's obviously other considerations (such as having a SAS or FC card to plug the drive into) but you can get surplus tape stuff for dirt cheap and depending on the LTO4 drive/setup it's faster than M-disc too.

That said, for most people I'd just recommend a better disk to disk backup setup.

Where in the dickens are you seeing LTO4 drives for $50? Is this what you had in mind? That doesn't look like it will fit into a standard chassis nor work with a standard controller.

 

[PliotronX]

The two drive I currently have in RAID1 (2xWD 500gb) are regularly backed up to an external medium so I'm not to worried about them. I know an offsite backup is ideal but at this point I haven't gotten anything like that set up...yet.

See above: the data in question for this setup isn't life critical so I'm not too worried about having an offsite or cold storage method of backing it up. I just want a little redundancy in case a drive fails.

RAID-1 is just fine, bud. The simpler the better but if you are okay with the idea of the whole thing going belly up, RAID-5 would be fine I suppose. There is a chance that it will work fine when a drive fails and you will get what you expect out of it but yeah, you don't want to be tearing your hair out trying to get those two files off a pooched RAID-5 array.

 

[jimbob200521]

RAID-1 is just fine, bud. The simpler the better but if you are okay with the idea of the whole thing going belly up, RAID-5 would be fine I suppose. There is a chance that it will work fine when a drive fails and you will get what you expect out of it but yeah, you don't want to be tearing your hair out trying to get those two files off a pooched RAID-5 array.

I'll be honest about the RAID5 option, I was mostly interested in it simply because I've never had a RAID5 array before and I like to try and tinker with new things. But things being as they are, I think I'll stick with a simpler setup just to, well, keep things simple.

 

[XavierMace]

Where in the dickens are you seeing LTO4 drives for $50? Is this what you had in mind? That doesn't look like it will fit into a standard chassis nor work with a standard controller.

Not that particular model, but yes, surplus drives. HH drives fit in a standard 5.25 bay. FH use two bays. Available as pulls from a variety of brands (HP, Dell, IBM). Or you can go the external/standalone route. As I mentioned most will require a either a SAS controller or a FC HBA both of which can also be found dirt cheap and even with that factored in LTO4 will still be way below M disc for $/gb. I paid $145 over 2 years ago for a 24 slot LTO3 autoloader (Powervault TL2000) and $12 for a 4Gb FC HBA to connect it to. Paid $9/ea for 400/800Gb RW tapes. LTO4 is just about to that point now.