Hi guys.

Since Im in need of a few new drives and gingerly awaiting click of death on a couple of drives, Im looking for something robust, but cost effective in terms of space vs redundancy to dump my data on. Ive spent a good deal of time this weekend reading up on various solutions and pondering the best route to take for storing a lot of data with some redundancy for peace of mind should the worst happen.

To put this in perspective I currently have 2x 750Gb Samsung Spinpoint drives, 1 is the boot partition (this drive is developing bad sectors and suchlike and desperately wants an RMA). I also have an external Seagate FreeAgent Pro 750Gb, this was connected via eSATA that is having problems and I can only get to read sporadically at present. Like the first Samsung drive, its due an RMA.

So realistically I have 1.5Gb of data I need to rescue quite soon.

Options and considerations Ive come up with so far are:

1) External NAS device with RAID (e.g. QNAP TS-410)
Pros: External and therefore easy to maintain or expand seperate from the main rig. Security. Minimal downtime. Often use proven/reliable base hardware. Multiple RAID levels (e.g. 10/1+0, 5/6 for peace of mind)
Cons: Expensive. Capacity wall can be quickly reached, meaning another additional device/solution is needed.

2) Homebrew NAS server
Pros: Cheap (relative to an external NAS device). Potentially more expandable as requirements grow assuming a good RAID controller.
Cons: Needs much more time in setup and configuration. More time needed maintaining the OS on the boot drive. Likely much bigger form factor and power drain.

3) Combination of onboard RAID in my current rig and external HDDs for backup
Pros: Cheapest option to implement. Everything housed in one machine so less space/power needed.
Cons: Reliability could be a factor. Drain on the system. The array will need to be rebuilt if I upgrade mainboards in the future I assume (unless at that stage I turn the old hardware into homebrew NAS)?

Whatever option I take, im probably going to purchase a 2Tb drive this month to rescue my data while I work out the best long term solution.

Also, in terms of the hardware available at the moment, is it worth waiting for SATA3 compatible RAID cards/NAS devices for a bit more future proofing?

All thoughts, opinions and ideas welcome!

No I havnt tried that, it should still be under warranty. I only need to get it working once to copy the data off onto the 2Gb, then I can send it off to Seagate to replace. Maybe theyll be kind and send me something better!

My preference would always be for a NAS raid solution. Slow power consumption, separate from your main rig so added security. Can also access it form all computers not just the one its in, as well as stream any media or photos if you have any need for that.

Down side is its probably the most expensive and non-expandable as youve already said but a 4gb version, 3gb data and 1gb for redundancy you should have a decent amount of headroom.

Im currently running a 300Gb Maxtor Shareddrive i bought from someone on here (sorry, cant remember) with two 1tb drives attached to it via USB, works well but an integrated solution would be better.

Having recently gone through a similar loop for all my data, media and HTPC requirements Ill offer you this:

Is "fail over" really that necessary to you ? Or could you actually cope with maybe a day or two of downtime in a worst case scenario ?

I asked myself the same question and I decided that I could survive with having to rebuild if I really had to. As a result the solution I came up with for my backup needs was:

1) Replaced power hungry Dell PowerEdge server and Pentium D HTPC with an Acer Revo !
2) Hooked up an IcyBox Dual SATA USB enclosure (2 * 1TB HDD) and a Western Digital Elements 500GB USB HDD to the Revo.
3) All movies and TV onto the HDDs in the Icy Box
4) All Music, Pictures and Documents to the WD Elements
5) EVERYTHING thats important to me is backed up to Carbonite; "Cloud backup" service.

Now the "cunning" bit:
My "important" work machine runs Acronis and automagically generates an image of the boot partition which is stored onto the WD HDD connected to the Revo. Other "bits and pieces" from my work machine are also backed up onto the same WD HDD. Remember this is then uploaded to Carbonite.

I then make use of all of the "unused" space on other devices that I own (a laptop and a netbook).
Using SyncBack I keep an up-to-date copy of my entire music and picture collections on my netbook and laptop.
I also have a complete copy of all of my "work stuff" synchornised between the WD HDD and my laptop.

Here are my failure scenarios:
"ergh" case - The HDD in my Revo dies:
   Replace HDD, restore boot partition from Acronis which is located on a local USB HDD.

"annoying" case - My IcyBox dies taking the 2 SATA disks with it:
   All of my movies and TV are lost; until I restore them from Carbonites service.

"omg" case - Someone steals my entire living room:
   Restore everything except Movies and TV from other devices. Movies and TV are downloaded from Carbonite.

"seriously?" case - An EMP wipes out all electronics in my house:
   Buy new hardware and restore everything from Carbonite.


Hopefully Ill never need the carbonite service but the whole offsite storage thing just seems better than purely relying on local RAID and USB disks; plus its not all that expensive.

No doubt theres a scenario that Ive missed but hey, when it happens...Ill cry

Its spot on, with a couple of caveats:

1) Its a "Backup" service and not an "Archiving" service. Its designed to keep a 30 day delayed mirror of your actual files backed up. That is to say that if you delete file x from your pc, 30 days later file x will be removed from carbonite.
This also means that their software will not let you backup from a USB device; as you could simpily unplug the USB device but to their software this would look like the file being deleted...

...but how then are you doing exactly that ? (I hear you say )
Ive actually mounted the USB disks to NTFS folders rather than drive letters. Each of the USB mount points are located within a folder that is on a "static" HDD.
Their software has no problems with this

So basically for the money it does seem really good. Just as long as you work around the fact that its a live backup.

The restore is pretty good too (had to try it out); pretty nippy downloads and you pick particular files/folders, not just the whole thing.

Online backups work great but they eat lots of bandwidth - Ive used them before... tbh you might as well plug a usb drive in and run a daily backup job. Unless you really want an offsite solution

Id do what alan said, although you could go for a SS drive for the OS and apps and then just use onboard RAID to mirror 2 2gb drives.

Wow, that Synology DiskStation DS1010+ is £700 with no disks, thats some crazy investment, i guess if you use 2tb disks it should be fine for a long time but wow.

Despite it not being quite as perfect, not expandable etc something like Buffalo 4TB LinkStation Quad Network Hard Drive, at £400ish with 4Tb, even if you buy a second one when youre out of space its going to be cheaper.

EDIT: Also, nimrod, thanks for the info, im not sure its for me right now but if i decide otherwise ill be sure to put your name down.

Hmm, good point Alan. Maybe a controller card is the way to go then since 6Gb/s SAS PCIe 2.0 cards are available now, although having just checked it seems thats £400 on its own too!

What sexytw said is true too, The Synology thing is twice the cost of a QNAP TS-410, which is 4 bay. I could get two of those for the same money! Admittedly its only just come out but thats still a lot of money of an empty set of bays.

The more I read the more its looking like daydreaming and prohibitely expensive to actually set something worthwhile up in this way.

Perhaps the most sensible solution is just to RAID 1 my data drives until Im rich enough for one of these bigger boys. The only thing I really dont like about considering onboard is that when I upgrade it could mean backing up all the data and reconfiguring the array on a new onboard controller - I have no idea if you can transplant RAID 1 arrays, although Ive read things that suggest you can since mirrored drives are intended to be readable individually too as failsafe if the raid dies - but again Im not certain on this. Again, it may not even be possible at all if I opted for a RAID 5/10 at some point too.

I guess I could get a cheapie PCI controller, then I can shift the whole lot in one go to another machine and only need worry about drivers I guess.