Building a new RAID and archiving the old drives

[Alex Gerulaitis]

[Andrew MacRae] “So I’m looking for suggestions of retailers who have a history of non sales weaselness”

Pretty much extinct given the economy and the general state of affairs. Appreciation of knowledge and experience has declined considerably even during my 15 years in the industry, and with that – the “non sales weaselness” salespeople went on to do better things, mostly.

How about post your questions here? (The ones you wanted to ask that salesperson.) If anyone gives you any BS, there is always a BZ (Bob Zelin) to call them on it. 🙂

[Andrew MacRae] “I’ve got close to 30 TB that needs to be backed up… I was actually considering buying a number of internal drives and cloning everything, but I know how not permanent that is, and don’t really relish copying everything to fresh drives again in 5 years, or however long hard drive expected spans are now.”

I’d look into getting a reliable fail-safe box or two or three that won’t break the bank. Drobo 8- or 12-bay comes to mind, especially with dual drive failure resistance (equiv. to RAID6). These boxes don’t require RAID-qualified drives, will happily run with 5400rpm drives, and will alarm you if the drive failed (or even about to fail). Way better that cloning every drive every 5 years.

Alex (DV411)

[Andrew Macrae]

Thanks Alex. Ok here’s my thoughts.

First off I was more or less set to pick up a Stardom ST8-U5 with an R680 card. Fill it with 2 TB drives for 16TB of storage, or roughly 12TB of usable space in a RAID 6 configuration, or so I’m told. This would do for quite a while, but one of my questions is, what happens when it does inevitably fill up? Can you swap out drives like on a drobo to add space? By the time it would fill up, 4TB drives or bigger would be the norm. Is there a max size for these types of RAID?

Before I could even get these questions answered mr sales was telling me about cineRAID products. Which is all well and good, they seem to be very good products, but they also seem to be a bit more expensive. Although I don’t even really know as I couldn’t even get a price for the Stardom products. So my biggest question was- what’s the difference between the two? Is one superior, and if so why?

For archiving I’ve looked at the drobo before, and then kind of forgot about it. If I were to get an 8 bay unit loaded with 16TB, how much actual usable space would it have? I know it wouldn’t be suitable as an edit bay, but would it work fine for doing simple edits and re-exports of old projects? Obviously for a full overhaul the media would have to be moved to the new RAID.

I’m sure I’ll have some other questions, but that’s all I can think of right now.

Thanks for you help.

Andrew MacRae
Audio Engineer, Outreach Productions

[Alex Gerulaitis]

R680 isn’t generally associated with archive storage; but I wouldn’t stop you if you’d want to go that route: it’s great that it can serve both as archive class (fail-safe but not necessarily fast) – and performance (fast but not necesarily fail-safe) storage.

For expansion, you’d want to get Mini-SAS expander-style boxes; once a box fills up, connect another one to the back – this way you can create a new RAID set or expand the existing one seamlessly, with the R680.

(As I mentioned before, there is a cost associated with R680: RAID-qualified drives are generally more expensive than desktop ones.)

ST8-U5 is the non-expander type. Raidon/Stardom doesn’t make expander type boxes AFAIK. I’ll check if Areca / CinemaRAID does.

Alex (DV411)

[Ron Amborn]

Andrew
Send me an email or a phone call. I will put you on the phone with Bob Z and we will give you real answers with no BS. I think DV411 can sell our gear to you as well. ron@maxxdigital.com or 714-374-4944

Hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely,
Ron Amborn President
Maxx Entertainment Digital
21562 Newland Street
Huntington Beach , Ca 92646
Direct 714-374-4944
Cell 714-713-4492 Fax 714-374-3404
ron@maxxdigital.com
http://www.maxxdigital.com

[Alex Gerulaitis]

[Andrew MacRae] “First off I was more or less set to pick up a Stardom ST8-U5 with an R680 card. Fill it with 2 TB drives for 16TB of storage, or roughly 12TB of usable space in a RAID 6 configuration, or so I’m told. This would do for quite a while, but one of my questions is, what happens when it does inevitably fill up? Can you swap out drives like on a drobo to add space?”

No. With ST8-U5 you take the existing set (of drives), put a new set in, format it. That’s the only way to “expand” it.

[Andrew MacRae] “4TB drives or bigger would be the norm. Is there a max size for these types of RAID? “

Up to 128 total drives with ATTO R680, and I don’t believe it has a limit of its own where it comes to individual drive capacity. If it does, it’s likely far beyond 4TB.

[Andrew MacRae] “So my biggest question was- what’s the difference between the two? Is one superior, and if so why?”

Areca and its division CineRAID is a far more established company with a much wider range of products, including SAS expanders. Stardom/ RAIDON doesn’t have a single SAS expander in its lineup. That doesn’t mean ST8-U5 is not a good product – in fact it is.

[Andrew MacRae] “For archiving I’ve looked at the drobo before, and then kind of forgot about it. If I were to get an 8 bay unit loaded with 16TB, how much actual usable space would it have?”

14TB with a single drive failure protection, 12TB with dual; minus 2-4% for US overhead. Same goes for any 8-bay box (RAID5 and 6, respectively).

[Andrew MacRae] ” I know it wouldn’t be suitable as an edit bay, but would it work fine for doing simple edits and re-exports of old projects?”

Depends on the model, how it’s set up, what drives are in it – but generally, yes for single layer timelines with compressed footage and without expectations of print-to-tape smoothness. You may get dropped frames and stutters.

Alex (DV411)

[Alex Gerulaitis]

[Ron Amborn] “Send me an email or a phone call. I will put you on the phone with Bob Z and we will give you real answers with no BS”

I thought I was already doing that here on the forum – “real answers with no BS”? 😉

Alex (DV411)

[Alex Gerulaitis]

[Alex Gerulaitis] “ST8-U5 is the non-expander type. Raidon/Stardom doesn’t make expander type boxes AFAIK. I’ll check if Areca / CinemaRAID does”

CinemaRAID does have multiple SAS expander type products: most of the towers and racks in the bottom half of their product list are SAS expanders. I haven’t had any experience with them but from the look of it, they know what they are doing, and provide decent support for their products.

Alex (DV411)

[Ron Amborn]

Andrew
The stardom is good product if you do not want to expand in the future. we here at Maxx Digital make a wide range of expandable SAS products that are being used of many high end feature films,commercials,large and small post production studios around the globe and the support level we provide is second to none. Just ask around the industry and you will not have look far for a great success story about Maxx Digital.

I ask you to contact us because we can not be completely open about any other gear on the Cow as it violates the ethic of the Cow and something we say not sit well with another sponsor. So pick up the phone or email me privately and I will conference Bob Zelin in and you will get a free education with no obligation about what is good for your needs.

Sincerely,
Ron Amborn President
Maxx Entertainment Digital
21562 Newland Street
Huntington Beach , Ca 92646
Direct 714-374-4944
Cell 714-713-4492 Fax 714-374-3404
ron@maxxdigital.com
http://www.maxxdigital.com

[Andrew Macrae]

Thanks guys, I really appreciate your info. I’ll try to be in touch later this week Ron.

Andrew MacRae
Audio Engineer, Outreach Productions

[Andrew Macrae]

So I’m working away still researching all this, sent you an email Ron. One thing though, Drobo seems like a great solution for my archiving needs, but are there any competitors with similar features/price point that I should be considering?

Thanks

Andrew

Andrew MacRae
Audio Engineer, Outreach Productions