What should I do with 4 HDDs?

[clientequator]

Hi everyone,

I recently acquired four 3.5" 1TB HHDs. They're not especially good or anything but I had a friend who was getting rid of them for cheap.

My question is - what do you think I should do with them? I take a lot of photos and videos, so I thought it might be a good idea to make some sort of backup system. However, I don't have any experience and I wanted to know what you all here think, and what I could do with them without breaking the bank for an expensive enclosure.

I use a Windows machine; used to have a desktop, but I have shifted to a laptop workflow for my photos and videos (nothing professional though). I currently do a backup once every week or so to an external USB drive, but I now have about a total of 3 drives of stuff on portable USB 2.5" drives. I was wondering if there was some sort of better solution.

What I think will be nice if I had some sort of WiFi backup / file storage solution, something like Apple's backup system. I also read a bit about Raid arrays (not good for backup), and NAS. I don't think I need a 'Home Server', but something like a 4-disk bay connected somehow to my router sounds like a great idea to me. I'm not sure if this is possible? Suppose I use a 4 bay enclosure, will this appear as 4 disks, or one big disk? And is it possible to a RAID 1 with my 4 drives, or is there a better solution? The idea is not to use the drive array as a working disc (I do all my processing on my laptop since the SSD is pretty fast), so the disc array will be more for backup.

Curious to know what suggestions you might have and what sort of setups you all have.

Thanks!

 

[Ken g6]

I also read a bit about Raid arrays (not good for backup), and NAS.

Let me guess: You read that "RAID is not a backup!"? Well, that's true, but RAID is not bad for storing backups. Confused?

RAID creates redundancy. Some people think that's equivalent to a backup. They think that if they RAID the disks in their main computer that's all the backup they need. You, clearly, are not one of those people. RAID on a backup NAS is not such a bad thing. RAID 5, in this case, feels right to me - 3TB on 4 drives with error correction.

As for hardware, do you have any left over from your desktop? If so, you could probably plug those drives in and run FreeNAS.

 

[KeithP]

Hi everyone,

I recently acquired four 3.5" 1TB HHDs. They're not especially good or anything but I had a friend who was getting rid of them for cheap.

My question is - what do you think I should do with them?

Do you have four doors that need to be held open?

I take a lot of photos and videos, so I thought it might be a good idea to make some sort of backup system.

Are you saying you have no current back up system at all? How much data do you have that needs to be backed up and, on average, how much additional data is added each month.

-KeithP

 

[postmortemIA]

sounds like a good raid 5 or raid 10 system

 

[ultimatebob]

Do you have a need for a 3 TB storage array? If so, add them to a PC and build one a RAID-5 array with them. If not, sell them on eBay instead.

 

[clientequator]

Thanks for the comments. I'm not super familiar with any of these setups since my only experience is basically just.. using a USB drive as a backup. My only backup solution I have at the moment is to use Allway Sync of my entire laptop disk onto one USB disk. This is basically my main 'active copy' backup.

The rest of my older stuff (e.g. archived stuff older than 6 months) then gets stored in two big USB disks, which I manually mirror everytime I have a big dump of data. (these are two 1TB disks). But they're almost full already.

So in total I have just about 1TB of archived stuff. I recently started a bit more video work, so it seems I might be getting 5 to 10GB of stuff a month or so depending on what I do. Like I said, nothing super high volume nor professional.

Thinking about it, it seems like a RAID is a good idea for storing a backup with redundancy. I like the idea of the 3TB RAID 5 setup with my 4 disks, even better if there is some sort of like solution I can plug into my router, but I guess USB could work. Just thinking that there must be a good way to do this efficiently without plugging cables all the time.

I think that there is also a difference between a cheap 4-bay USB drive box, and a RAID box which requires some sort of controller..? Does this also require a separate small computer to do the raid stuff? It seems like I can't just buy a 4-bay enclosure, but I need to make some sort of small PC which connects to the 4 drives (by.. a 4 bay enclosure?) and then the computer (running FreeNAS) connects to my network? (Although I just did a quick search and it seems... getting a raid setup is going to be expensive).

Apologies if I'm really asking basic questions - I don't expect full answers for the basic questions but I'd appreciate if anyone had a good resource for me to know where to look, because a lot of things I read about RAID or NAS seem a bit too focused on performance / small business, instead of a simple, affordable setup I was thinking about.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Since they're only 1TB drives I'd probably use them as separate backup drives, if you don't have a need for extra backups, then you could build a raid 5. Raid10 is an option too but you're only going to get about 1.8TB while with raid 5 you'll get about 2.7 or so. (keep in mind a 1TB drive is actually about 940GB). Depends if you need more space or not. I have a setup where I can use any stand alone drive to add to my backup pool. I just set it up and pick which backup job I want it to run, and I pop it in my removable drive dock and it runs the appropriate job. I rotate drives around every now and then. Not the best setup but works, and I have multiple copies of cold storage backups that way.

 

[ultimatebob]

In your case, I'd just get a cheap 4 port NAS box like the one below and plug that into your router:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822165611

If you have an old PC with 4 drive bays, you could make your own "free" NAS server with software like NAS 4 Free as well. That takes a lot more setup time, though.

 

[mfenn]

I think that there is also a difference between a cheap 4-bay USB drive box, and a RAID box which requires some sort of controller..? Does this also require a separate small computer to do the raid stuff? It seems like I can't just buy a 4-bay enclosure, but I need to make some sort of small PC which connects to the 4 drives (by.. a 4 bay enclosure?) and then the computer (running FreeNAS) connects to my network? (Although I just did a quick search and it seems... getting a raid setup is going to be expensive).

Yes, a NAS (Network Attached Storage) is basically a specialized computer that is dedicated to running a RAID array and serving that array out over the network. You can get dedicated boxes that you "just add drives" to or you can build one yourself and load your own NAS OS (such as FreeNAS). The advantage of a NAS is that it's completely independent of you computer and you can access the files from multiple machines at the same time.

A simple 4-bay box that attaches to your computer via USB is called a DAS (Direct-Attach Storage). You might also see the term JBOD (Just a Bunch of Disks). It relies on your computer to do most of the processing and is essentially 4 portable hard drive enclosures and a USB hub built into a single chassis.

There are also fancier DAS units that do have a RAID processor on board, but still connect to your computer via USB.

Personally, I like the NAS option the best because it is the most flexible option. It can cost you more than DAS, but the extra money is worth it IMHO.

 

[Paperdoc]

I think you have missed an important distinction between backups and extra copies. Putting those HDD's into some enclosure with a RAID controller to create an array that is always connected and turned on gives you an extra copy of all your data. But it does NOT provide some of the important properties of a good backup system.

Once a backup copy is made, it should be disconnected from your computer and, ideally, from all electrical power. That way no electrical disturbance can harm it. Moreover, NOT being connected and on-line means that no error on the computer, and no malware, can corrupt the data on the backup disk.

Ideally, a backup copy should be stored in a different location from your computer base. This protects against damage to it by fire, flood, theft, etc. at the original site. For example, the data backups I make of our retail store's Point of Sale system are stored in my home.

A good backup system keeps several copies of backed up data from different times. That way, if you discover that something is corrupted or missing in the most recent data backed up, you can try to recover it from an earlier backup set.

Many backup systems do it in two stages or levels. First there is a complete backup of ALL your data. Thereafter for a time you back up ONLY the files that have been changed or are new since the last time - this is called an Incremental Backup, and it is smaller than the full backup, so you can make and store many of them. Periodically, of course, one re-starts the process with a new full backup. Otherwise the pile-up of increment over increment over increment... becomes to long.

So you are in a good position to set up a good backup system. Consider this way. Buy a docking unit (not a complete external enclosure). If possible, see if you can get one that has fast data transfer, like USB3 or eSATA, but that depends on what your computer has for external ports. (Fast is nice, but not vital for backups that do not usually need to be completed NOW.) Label each of those four HDD units clearly. Using each in turn, plug it into the dock and make your backup. Then remove it and store it elsewhere, preferably in some safe box for protection.

Before starting, consider this carefully: for good reliable backups you need good reliable storage media. Are these four HDD's reliable? They are of no use - perhaps even a detriment! - if you cannot rely on them to give your data back to you with no problems.

 

[clientequator]

Thanks everyone - the advice has been very helpful.

I understand the point some of you had pointed out regarding backup etc. I think what might be useful to me would be a robust storage place, where I wouldn't need constant connectivity. So I do agree with what Paperdoc suggested. I note that I'm not too concerned about versioning, more of just a reliable backup + old archive stuff.

I think my idea is to have an affordable RAID5 setup, where I have 4 disks in a box with ~3TB of total storage. However, it doesn't need to be a NAS. It will sit unpowered for most of the time, perhaps only used for weekly / fortnightly backups.

My idea for using a RAID5 (vs simply a big JBOD of 4 disks) is that in case one of the 4 disks fails, I can buy a new disk and have some redundancy in my backup, so I don't need to worry about always mirroring my backups.

I think this is challenging because most RAID setups are pretty expensive since they do need to have their own RAM / controllers, or a separate computer to handle the processing. However, it seems like the 4-bay raid box (e.g. the Buffalo recommended below) looks to fit the bill. I can use it as my RAID array. When I need to use it, I'll turn it on and then I can connect it to my computer via USB3 to backup my stuff, and occasionally put stuff into archive.

This also gives me the flexibility to make it into a NAS if I decide to in the future. The downside is that it is quite a bit more expensive than a standard 4-bay DAS box. :\ Does my reasoning make sense?

 

[mfenn]

I think you have missed an important distinction between backups and extra copies. Putting those HDD's into some enclosure with a RAID controller to create an array that is always connected and turned on gives you an extra copy of all your data. But it does NOT provide some of the important properties of a good backup system.

The OP is in a pretty good place in this regard. In his earlier posts, he notes that he is making backup copies to several USB drives already.

 

[mfenn]

I think this is challenging because most RAID setups are pretty expensive since they do need to have their own RAM / controllers, or a separate computer to handle the processing. However, it seems like the 4-bay raid box (e.g. the Buffalo recommended below) looks to fit the bill. I can use it as my RAID array. When I need to use it, I'll turn it on and then I can connect it to my computer via USB3 to backup my stuff, and occasionally put stuff into archive.

This also gives me the flexibility to make it into a NAS if I decide to in the future. The downside is that it is quite a bit more expensive than a standard 4-bay DAS box. :\ Does my reasoning make sense?

The Buffalo box the ultimatebob linked is a NAS, not a DAS. Its USB ports are host ports, not device ports, meaning that the USB ports are used for attaching drives to Buffalo for expanding its storage.

A DAS is more like this CineRAID box for $180. It has an internal RAID controller and connects to the the PC with USB 3.0 or eSATA.