For a RAID-5 array, if you were to install 4 500gb hds, you will get a total of 1.5tb hd space.
Why not telling your wife to burn 1 DVD from the original footage and than burn 2 more as back-up … clean up the HDD once in a while … sooner or later the HDD’s will fail …
One DVD isn’t going to come anywhere close to backing up even one of her several video projects. We’re talking about over 100GB of video footage here (a finished video usually takes between 1 and 3GB, but a project takes a lot more space). A backup hard drive is the only practical medium, especially if it’s only used for occasional backup, not used as a working drive.
In 10 years of using computers I’ve only ever had one hard drive fail on me, and that was one I dropped while it was still spinning. I’ve had hard drives for 5 years without any drama. It’s still the most reliable form of mass storage for backups, other than horribly expensive enterprise level tape systems.
Is it possible to buy one online and have it shipped here?
From Australia, unlikely to the point of almost complete impossibility. I plan to buy from the US instead. It’s utterly idiotic that there should be such a dramatic price differential between Taiwan and Australia/the US. I can’t understand it at all.
I agree. Disk drives are at a 20% premium here compared to the USA. I was surprised though that the Q6600 CPU was at a 10% discount here compared to the USA. The sweet spot, if you can call it that, is 500GB.
The terabyte category, even in the USA, doesn’t have much competition in it, and prices remain at a premium. That should change if and when the Samsung F1 terabyte drive arrives in October. I don’t have any reading on Samsung reliability, but their TB drive will only need 3 platters, versus 4- and 5- platter drives from their competitors, so it will be both faster and cooler.
You’ll need something like this highpoint-tech.com/USA/rr2314ms.htm#top to go with that external box if that’s your plan.
I’d suggest getting a decent hardware raid card and then 3-4 drives in raid 10 or raid 5, raid 10 will make a duplicate on the second pair of drives, but you need 4 drives, raid 5 will keep enough data on the third drive and that way you get more usable drive space.
The kind of raid that comes on motherboards is software based and not nearly as good as a real hardware based card and people seem to have problems with the raids failing when they upgrade the motherboard bios or drivers.
A NAS is not a good idea for what your wife is doing as they’re way too slow for this kind of data apart from acting as a secure backup device.
[quote=“TheLostSwede”]You’ll need something like this highpoint-tech.com/USA/rr2314ms.htm#top to go with that external box if that’s your plan.
I’d suggest getting a decent hardware raid card and then 3-4 drives in raid 10 or raid 5, raid 10 will make a duplicate on the second pair of drives, but you need 4 drives, raid 5 will keep enough data on the third drive and that way you get more usable drive space.[/quote]
I’m not that sold on RAID 5, as I value backup over redundancy. A RAID 0 array which is imaged to a third drive once ever 24 hours is a far more economical and effective use of three hard drives in my opinion, as the third drive is only being used once every 24 hours and is far less likely to fail than the other two. Two 500GB drives in RAID and a terabyte drive to backup the data is what I have in mind.
Yes, I have in mind a good RAID card, rather than relying on the onboard RAID.
What I linked to is not actually a NAS. It’s an external hard drive box which is connected to the computer via e-SATA. My experience with e-SATA is that I get exactly the same performance as I do when the hard drive is connected directly to a motherboard SATA port. Which is hardly surprising, since when you use e-SATA that’s exactly what’s happening.
Recommendations for a 1 TB external drive (or something else in the ≥500 MB zone)?
I was thinking about picking up a Seagate; but some of the comments on Amazon made me pause.
Also: USB – I don’t have Firewire.
Single drive or RAID setup?
You can get RAID even over USB and if you run a RAID 1, then all your data will be safe if one drive goes down.
I like Seagate, never had any problems with their stuff, unlike WD, but I still buy their gear. Problem with hard drives are that they’re mechanical and they will break sooner or later.
Here’s a few shopping.pchome.com.tw/?mod=stor … _NO=AMAA1P to choose from.
Seagate just announced some brand new drives, but I don’t think some of them will be out until next month.
Unless you’re going to use all the fancy backup software etc. I’d recommend going for something a bit more basic, although I wouldn’t go too cheap either.
[quote=“TheLostSwede”]Single drive or RAID setup?
You can get RAID even over USB and if you run a RAID 1, then all your data will be safe if one drive goes down.[/quote]
Probably just a single drive, as I’m pretty hopeless when it comes to hardware. Also, I’m not tremendously concerned about having an up-to-date copy at all times. Mainly I want to make regular backups of everything, plus have lots of space for the many files I don’t have much room for on my main drive.
I’d prefer to keep this under NT$6,000, which seems quite possible from the link you provided.
Thanks for your help.
I bought a Seagate 1 TB FreeAgent for NT$5,000 tonight.
offered on the SeagateWell done, that’s a much better deal than website.
Did you get the Seagate 1TB FreeAgent in Taipei or online? I’m on a puny 120GB 2.5" cheapo from Nova so I’m thinking I need to upgrade soon.
Guanghua market in Taipei. I bought it from the large store on the east side of the second basement level of the underground shopping area. (Entrance along Xinsheng, just before Bade.)
That’s for the USB version. The Firewire one is more expensive.
Most drives at Guanghua around the 1 TB size available were Seagate and Maxtor.
My brother bought a Maxtor Basic Jade L 3.5 1TB HD at 3C on Roosevelt RD for NT$4,388.
We used my employer’s telephone number to get the 3C discount which was around 18%!