Jump to content
  • 0

Hard drive enclosure or NAS?


Martini

Question

8 answers to this question

Recommended Posts

  • 1

Depends on what you're trying to do.  Personally, I prefer to keep all drives internal, as USB and eSATA are finicky. 

There are some computer cases that have a lot of drive bays that can be used. But server chassises may be the best option.  You can find 24-36 bay enclosures, and host all of those drives with a single controller or two. (HBA controllers, specifically)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

My son is doing a lot of YouTube videos and wants something for a lot of storage, but with some kind of back up.  StableBit sounds better than full on Raid 5, but I really am a novice.  I'm not even sure what a hard drive controller is.  I appreciate seeing example systems.  The goal would be to have a lot of storage 6TB or greater with some back up assurance.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0
On 3/18/2021 at 7:01 PM, Martini said:

The goal would be to have a lot of storage 6TB or greater with some back up assurance.

DrivePool is a great option for providing duplication on either the pool level or down to the folder level. However, DrivePool duplication is mainly used for drive loss failure on the pool itself, so you can rebuild the pool from the loss of a drive. It is not meant to be a backup system.

I backup my files to external USB drives which I store in my closet. If you are looking at 6TB storage, you can get an external 6TB (or larger) USB drive and backup the files there. That is about the simplest way to make an offline backup. If these files represent present or future revenue, then I would have more than one backup drive. One backup drive might be stored on location, but the second backup drive should be located offsite - in the rare case of fire, for example.

Some people use cloud backup, but the transfer time to the cloud might be really slow. I personally don't use any cloud backup service, but I do have a few free accounts for small files and limited file size.

@Shane has mentioned he uses a backup system that offers incremental backups. I cannot remember the program he uses, but maybe a shout out to him will help you. IF I was just starting my backup system, and had 6TB to backup, I might go with the system @Shane uses. But my DrivePool is currently about 80TB and I have lots of additional data stored offline. So I have not found my perfect backup system.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

I use FreeFileSync to nightly mirror the content of my file server (an 8-bay tower PC) to my backup server (another 8-bay tower PC) via a read-only network share on the former, using FreeFileSync's Versioning feature to keep old versions and deleted files for a couple of weeks.

If I was getting into serious amounts of video footage/editing I'd probably have hunted for a second-hand pair of the server rack chassis Christopher described rather than my two tower PCs; some research would definitely be required.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

Do you have a price point (aside from "as inexpensive as possible") and a sizing estimate?

You might look at something like the following for direct-attached or network-attached storage:

https://www.amazon.com/stores/TerraMaster/page/5E802F2F-5AC0-4C37-B11D-61028DB9AB95?ref_=ast_bln

Then you can find some relatively inexpensive 6 or 8 TiB internal drives or you can "schuck" a couple of external hard drives (remove the drive from its case) like this one:

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-easystore-12tb-external-usb-3-0-hard-drive-black/6425301.p?skuId=6425301

Hope this helps.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

Thanks for replying, I appreciate it.  I was reading about FreeNAS today but I’m terrified of Linux. The links you shared are probably my most plausible route.  I love the idea of taking an old PC and turning into a hard drive farm, but I’m not very savvy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0
13 hours ago, Martini said:

I was reading about FreeNAS today but I’m terrified of Linux.

I used to run a Windows Storage Spaces server for about 7 years. The last 2 years, as my pool kept larger and larger, I had more and more problems with Storage Spaces. I spent a long time considering other options including FreeNAS. I talked to people who were running, or used to use, FreeNAS and learned that FreeNAS has problems like Storage Spaces when the pool gets large.

At that time, I was just over 80TB on the pool and having significant problems with Storage Spaces that I did not have when the pool was much smaller. The people I talked to about FreeNAS told me similar stories, it worked fine to a point and then when the pool got larger, they started having significant problems. In fact, the guys I talked to had already given up on FreeNAS and moved on to other options.

I moved on to DrivePool and my experience has been much better. I am now over 80TB on my DrivePool server and, so far, have not seen the problems I experienced with Storage Spaces. There are some things I miss about the "promise" of Storage Spaces, but in real life, the performance of Storage Spaces falls short. My friends running FreeNAS told me the same story with using FreeNAS.

I am not claiming that DrivePool is perfect, but it just seems to work better for me. After adding a SSD to DrivePool as a front end cache, I now get write speeds that exceeded my Storage Spaces setup. If you chose to duplicate some folders in DrivePool, then you have the option of using Read Striping and that can almost double your read speed in some scenarios.

However, I chose DrivePool over other options not because it was faster, but rather because it just worked better for me. When a pool drive fails in DrivePool, you only lose the data on that one drive, not the entire pool (as happened to me in Storage Spaces). If you have duplication set on either the entire pool or just certain folders, you can rebuild the pool from the duplicated data. Also, when I have had HDDs fail, sometimes most of the data on that drive is still available and can be transferred back to the pool. In one instance, I had only 2 or 3 corrupt files on a 3TB HDD that was failing. I was able to move all good files off the drive before it finally, totally, failed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Answer this question...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...