Storage for archive?

[jorwex]

My dad's a photographer and needs a way to archive his old photos incase he or his clients ever need them again. he was hurting for space a few weeks ago, so, in a pinch, i grabbed him a 320gb wd hdd and an external sata enclosure that ran over sata to a pc card for his laptop. he might grab another soon if it continues to go well, and he could raid them later in the G5 he's gonna get eventually.

i asked him what he's using to store things longterm, out of curiousity, and he opened up a drawer and has a BUNCH of taiyo yuden dvd-r's that he's been burning with nero using the "verify disc" option.

there HAS to be a better solution than this. is it just raid-1 with a bunch of big drives? is it tape backup? some other weird proprietary media?

Thanks,

-jorwex

 

[Navid]

I don't have any answers to your questions. but, I just like to point out that RAID1 is not backup!

If a virus deletes a file from a RAID1 setup, the file will be deleted from both drives. The mirror is not going to save the file.
The only reason for the RAID1 existence is for a system that cannot be turned off during the restore of a failed drive. The other drive keeps the system going while the other one is being replaced. But, that is very different from backup.

 

[dsa1971]

it depends. how much storage space does he need? how long does he need to keep the photos for? hard drives are pretty cheap now and convenient with an external enclosure. creating a dvd with each clients photos on it is also not a bad way to organize things. With dvds he could also store them off-site.

 

[jorwex]

it just seems like dvd's are pretty volatile, not to mention HOW to store dvd's can be a problem too--binders or dvd cases, upright, or flat--stuff like that.

he needs a LOT of storage. currently he has a 60 gig internal 7200 rpm laptop drive, one 120 gig wd external, one 160 gig maxtor external, and one other 120 gig seagate external. so thats 400 gigs right there, and he's running low--not to mention that he's got soo many drives. there seems like there's gotta be a more elegant solution, in terms of minimizing the number of thing on his desk, being able to expand whatever system he might choose to accommodate the need for more space, etc..

o and if harddrives are the way to go, wouldnt it be nice to have some sort of data protection? itd be an extra level of redundancy i guess. maybe a backup would suffice.

any ideas?

 

[ElFenix]

hard drvies are more volatile than DVDs, iirc. tape is the best solution if you want very long term storage, though.

i store dvds and cds that i probably won't need any time soon on old spindles. takes up the least space.

and if they're really important he'll store them off site.

 

[jorwex]

isnt tape technology really limited by the amount of stuff it can store?

 

[w00t]

I belive you have raid 5 mixed up with raid 1.

 

[RedCOMET]

I think a raid 5 box with hot swap drives with incremental backups to a tape drive would be the best solution.

 

[corkyg]

I have upwards of 10,000 digital photos stored (archived) on CDRs and DVDs by event or subject. I have a good retrieval system for those disks, and also have at least 2 copies of each.

As digital images get larger (now upwards of 8 MP), then the CDR becomes insufficient for a complete event. When the capacity requires it, I use DVD+R for that.

I store all of the archived image disks in inexpensive, but tough and mailable plastic clamshells.

For quick access, I also keep copies of the same images on external Firewire HDDs. I can shift those from 1 machine to another.

I tried SATA, but gave up on it because on my mobo, it requires RAID, and that is silly for a single drive. But, with that encumbrance, it constantly generated Delayed Write Failure messages because the external SATA enclosure was connected to an internal port and it had to be used as RAID 0 - and that made it impossible to turn off write caching - hence the rror messages.

 

[jorwex]

is raid 5 what's used in servers? and would tape be better than say, one of those 90gb iomega backup drives?

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: jorwex
isnt tape technology really limited by the amount of stuff it can store?

cheap ones about 40 GB per tape.

expensive ones up to 260 GB per tape, it seems

 

[RedCOMET]

Originally posted by: jorwex
is raid 5 what's used in servers? and would tape be better than say, one of those 90gb iomega backup drives?

Yes, Raid 5 are mainly see in servers iirc. I would say raid 5 is good, because you use build a computer and then attach it to a network and have reliable, fault tolerant storage solution. I also say having a tape backup is good becuase if the raid array is fubarred in some way, you still have a back up of the data. For the amount of pictures and the fact that is is for a business, you don't want to be cheap with having reliable storage and a good backup solution (tape drive) just in case your main storage system crashes.

 

[Vegito]

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: jorwex
isnt tape technology really limited by the amount of stuff it can store?

cheap ones about 40 GB per tape.

expensive ones up to 260 GB per tape, it seems

I use a quantum sdlt 320 gb.. its 160 native 320 compressed. Drive runs about 700-1100.. tapes are 40 for each 160/320. Not a bad deal.. but expensive investment.. but what cost more.. ur data or a 1100 drive. I mean data recovery cost 2000+ per drive .. 500-700 minimum..

 

[Sy]

At work I have one These. Its a 30 drive LTO tape autoloader. We use LTO2 tapes that can hold 200G uncompressed/400G compressed. We buy tapes in a 20 pack for bout $1000 so thats $50/tape. There are also available LTO3 tapes and drives that can hold 400G/800G. You don't have to buy an autoloader like ours which cost upwards of $25,000. They sell single tape drives as well... the LTO3 drive goes for about $5000 but the older gen LTO2 drives can be had for half that.

BTW I wouldn't suggest DVD-R/+R's for Long term storage. Try googleing the phrase "DVD Rot". If you want cheap long term storage put your stuff on a hard drive, unplug it and stick it some place safe.

~Sy

 

[Navid]

There is no advantage in having any kind of RAID for that application unless your father cannot tolerate his computer to go down ever! If he can tolerate it, RAID would just be a waste of hard drive disk space.

RAID is used in a company where highly-paid employees will be sitting and doing nothing if the computer system goes down. The company cannot afford that. That is why they use RAID. Now, if a drive dies, the file system is still up and running (because of RAID mirror) while the IT guy is replacing the failed hard drive. No one will even know that there was a hard drive failure (other than the IT of course).

No RAID setup can replace backup.

 

[Auric]

Duplicate everything to DVD-RAM and removeable HDD's (don't bother with RAID) and at least store in a fire-safe, if not at two different locations -perhaps one being a bank safety deposit box. PAR files could be used for a li'l extra safety.

 

[jorwex]

so if he has tape backups theres absolutely no reason to complement the setup with a raid array? i'm a fan of the reply with the post with the $40 tapes that are 160/320. do most people use compression with tapes? or is it riskier for any reason? thanks for all the replies!