Storage options

[Bluemist]

Hi,

I am just wondering what storage options people are using.

I was considering the DROBO (http://www.drobo.com/) but have since found out that once you use a drive in it- it can't be read in any other drive. Not sure if this would be an issue for me or not.
Any one have one?

Also thinking about the CalDigit (http://www.caldigit.com/CalDigit_VR/index.html)


there are other systems too- I guess my question is- what do you have? Pros? Cons?

TIA Bluemist.

[Faolan]

Look at Netgear/Infrant ReadyNAS series of NAS systems. Expensive sure but the X-RAID is such a nice feature that allows you to grow the space as you need it.

They are also pretty fast on throughput.

Drop into their fora to get a feel for the information/capabilities of their systems:

http://www.readynas.com/

[Bluemist]

Thanks for that checking it out now before the kidlets wake up :)

[tim]

There was a thread on raid, storage, and drobo recently, it'll be near the top of this forum. My summary: don't waste your time - drobo protects against drive failures, but often drives fail at the same time. Just have good offsite backups.

[MaxxuM]

If you have an old computer laying around that can take SATA drives you can place 4 SATA drives, under clock your CPU to save power and then load up FreeNAS (Google it) and you're set. A giga-speed network is a big plus.

[strmrdr]

NAS
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/85/93/

Check out the forums also.

[HankScorpio]

I bought an ancient Pentium 3 PC with windows 2000 Pro from ebay for next to nothing and also got a batch of 10 external hard drive enclosures then bought 10 used hard drives around 250-360GB and hooked it all up in the loft. It has software to automatically mirror things onto 3 different drives. It's been running for nearly 2 years without a reboot or failure plus I got brownie points from the Mrs for recycling.

[Bluemist]

NAS
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/85/93/

Check out the forums also.

Oh thanks for this its a great site.

[strmrdr]

Oh thanks for this its a great site.
welcome

[Damian75]

I have become quite a fan of Drobo, having run large complex NAS raid arrays the simplicity of using the drobo is very nice also the ability to mix and match drive sizes and swap drives at will is nice the fact that you can start with drives in a size that is cheap now like 250gb then one at a time swap them out with bigger drives without the need to reformat or rebuild a raid array is great. I know what tends to happen with a standard raid is you start to fill it up and want to increase it's capacity but have nowhere to put all your data while you rebuild the array. Also agree with Tim if you are really serious about protecting your data and or are doing professional work you must have off site storage as well just incase of something like theft or fire. Just my two cents worth.

[BestVisuals]

I use intermittent network storage. What that means is that the drives/servers are only turned on for access, otherwise they stay turned off. This greatly extends the life of the device.

I also recommend non-magnetic storage such as CD-R or DVD-R.