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Back-up RAID/Harddrive Recommendations?
I apologize for posting on the FCP editing forum, but I thought many editors are or have had similar problems and have come up with satisfying solutions.
I want recommendations on RAID back-up hard drives. I record entirely on digital media so I use harddrives for HD video storage. I have had such a high rate of drive failure using the LaCie Big Disk Extremes, and without backup, that I am now looking for reliable redundant storage. I want a large RAID, either 8 or 12 TB and use it in whatever configuration is most recommended (RAID 0 with backup drives, RAID 1 or RAID 5). I have about 9 TB of data and expanding to store.
I have been looking at the LaCie 4Big Quadra and 4Big Quadra Enterprise Class, the Seagate BlackArmor 440 (affordability) and Sonnet’s Fusion D400QR5, Fusion D400Q, Fusion D800Raid and Fusion D800P2 and the new G-Speed Q coming in June. I am editing with Final Cut Pro on a PowerBook G4 laptop and I don’t want to replace it at this time. It has Firewire 400 ports, but I only use the Firewire 800 ports for video editing. Some of the harddrives listed only have SATA interface, but I can get a eSATA cardBus adapter to use in my laptop slot, so I’m not limited by the Firewire ports.
Any feedback recommendations from the group?
DanDaniel Monskey
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5 Replies
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first thing is to stop thinking that hard drives are the best backup solution – they’re not.
As you have noted yourself, you are having loads of drive failures, so why expect a backup drive solution to be any different?I use a tape based backup and in the past three years it has saved my bacon twice when major failures on hard drives caused total data loss (two different incidents on two different raids).
On one incident, i had two enterprise grade Seagates go down causing the Raid 5 to become unrecoverable and fortunately, i only really lost a days work (there were 4 years worth of projects on that raid). Its worth checking your raid drives warranty because although my Seagates were over a year old, they had 5 yr warranties, and were replaced free of charge.I would never trust my data to a hard drive only setup.
I use an Overland Arcvault 24 LTO3 tape library along with Bakbone Netvault backup software.
Essentially, this gives me an automatic backup solution which i can set to do backups at evenings and weekends when i’m not working. It holds 24 x 400gb tapes (total 9.6 tb), and this allows me to do backups from three mac hard drives and 2 Raids.
Obviously you can get larger tape drives to backup larger systems. Also i think the Arcvault is no longer in manufacture, but the current models should have something with the connections you need.
Its worth remembering that tape is still the prefered method of backing up at all the banks, financial institutions and Governments. Its a proven storage method with much longer lifetime than hard discs.
rgds
AdamAdam Taylor
Video Editor/Audio Mixer/ Compositor/Motion GFX/Barista
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UKhttp://www.sculptedbliss.co.uk
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The writing is on the walls….on this page.
Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Vice President
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group -
hunh?
Adam Taylor
Video Editor/Audio Mixer/ Compositor/Motion GFX/Barista
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UKhttp://www.sculptedbliss.co.uk
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Doesn’t anyone look at the banner ads?
Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Vice President
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group -
Back-up storage and redundant storage are two separate things. RAID 1 and RAID 5, for example, offer redundant storage which helps minimize downtime if a drive fails but they are not a back-up solution. If a power spike fries your gear or you accidently delete a file a mirrored RAID won’t help. For back-up and/or archival storage data tape is the best way to go. If that’s not an option for you then I’d suggest mirrored hard disk back-ups.
For example, what we use at work is a WiebeTech RTX-200 QR enclosure to make mirrored, HDD back-ups. This enclosure is designed to swap drives in and out so we just pop in pair of drives, back-up the data, pop the drives out and store them on a shelf (WiebeTech also sells plastic cases to store the drives in). We spin the drives periodically to check their integrity and the only problem we’ve run into so far is the firmware problem that some Seagate drives had a year or so ago.
I’d find a quality RAID that’s big enough to hold your active projects and then keep all of your back-ups and/or archived material on a completely different system. And remember, if it’s not saved in two different places it’s not saved at all. 😉
-Andrew
3.2GHz 8-core, FCP 6.0.4, 10.5.5
Blackmagic Multibridge Eclipse (6.8.1)
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