External backup solutions (PC)

Hi all, here's a question that's been bugging me for a bigger part of two years now, and I've been getting a lot of conflicting reports from different people.

As photogs we all need backup solutions for our data. Time machine on mac, windows storage spaces, internal and external raid controllers and full fledged servers etc.

So here's my question... is there a reliable external RAID controller / enclosure out there that has USB 3.0 for direct connectivity that is fast enough for my lightroom catalogue (on internal PC SSD) to access content inside the RAID-ed disks for editing?

What other solutions have you guys been using that is automated? I do not care for manually copy-pasting everything over every few days or weeks.

I use a Synology NAS unit. I set it up with (2) Western Digital Red 2TB drives in RAID 1 (mirrored) configuration. My box is couple of years old, has USB 2 - the newer ones probably have USB 3 now.

Can't comment on using it as a LR server because I only use it for backup. But the backup is automated. I use Goodsync software which syncs all the files on my workstation to the NAS. You can program in how frequently that happens, I have it set for every hour.

The first time you sync, the software will copy all the files you select to the NAS box. The subsequent syncs are only new and changed files, so it happens pretty quickly in the background. You can also set how long the sync'd set will keep files that are deleted, so if you accidentally delete something, you can go back and retrieve the sync copy.

In my config, I can work on and access my files as fast as my workstation is capable of, yet have a full automated backup.

Hope some of this is helpful.

Headshotzx wrote in post #16968809
Hi all, here's a question that's been bugging me for a bigger part of two years now, and I've been getting a lot of conflicting reports from different people.

As photogs we all need backup solutions for our data. Time machine on mac, windows storage spaces, internal and external raid controllers and full fledged servers etc.

So here's my question... is there a reliable external RAID controller / enclosure out there that has USB 3.0 for direct connectivity that is fast enough for my lightroom catalogue (on internal PC SSD) to access content inside the RAID-ed disks for editing?

What other solutions have you guys been using that is automated? I do not care for manually copy-pasting everything over every few days or weeks.

I use a 16GB i5 PC running FreeNAS on five 2TB drives with a dual gigabit ethernet connection. This gives me seven+ TB of storage. Works for me.

^ Same here, Freenas

Just want to point out that RAID is not a backup. RAID is an availability, high capacity, and/or performance solution. You still need a backup even with RAID or a storage server.

Yes indeed, it's not the be-all-end-all. I want a raid setup so that I have at least some reliability in terms of backing up when I have a drive failure.

It'll be as such:

- Current projects in computer SSD
- Current and archived projects in RAID enclosure (external)
- Archived projects in HDD stored in pelican case (fire/water proof)

tkbslc wrote in post #16972404
Just want to point out that RAID is not a backup. RAID is an availability, high capacity, and/or performance solution. You still need a backup even with RAID or a storage server.

Well, that depends. It certainly can be a hot backup. The only issue is that it's not reliable long term storage*, but it is doubly redundant, and it's capable of healing itself if it breaks. I just have to replace the broken drive.

I don't have a client financial or personal database, I just have a bunch of images that I'd prefer not to lose, which are all stored in at least two locations. The RAID is striped and mirrored, so doubly backed up, and a minimum of one copy of the original elsewhere; in my Home Folder on a separate drive (which is incrementally backed up every hour), or in yet another "work" folder.

This works for me, but then I'm neither commercial, nor do I regard my my images as things that need to be preserved for all eternity.



* On the other hand, I don't know what other kind of reliable backup storage for multi-gigabyte datasets than multiple disk copies is available. Tape? Nope - it isn't reliable long term. DVD? Nope - too small, even @ 25GB, not when you're storing terrabytes of data. So what else but another disk drive?

Hen3Ry wrote in post #16969212
I use a 16GB i5 PC running FreeNAS on five 2TB drives with a dual gigabit ethernet connection. This gives me seven+ TB of storage. Works for me.

Was toying with an idea of building a FreeNAS box as a fun project / backup storage, but after reading FreeNAS forums and learning about ZFS a bit it sounded like ECC RAM was pretty important. With that it seemed that before adding the drives the system would cost me ~$1k and that was way over my "fun" budget.

Put your catalog on an internal SSD, not an external RAID array.

Also, you've said you want a backup solution, but RAID is merely a tool to ensure greater uptime in the event of a disk failure. RAID is not a backup (google that phrase and you'll get millions of hits). A virus or user error can wipe out everything easily. Cryptolocker for example.

Proper backups are offsite. I'm considering something like this.

Hen3Ry wrote in post #16981339
Well, that depends. It certainly can be a hot backup.

RAID can house a backup, but it is not a backup. That's all I meant. As long as you have two copies in different places on fairly reliable media, it doesn't really matter the technology.

DiMAn0684 wrote in post #16984250
Was toying with an idea of building a FreeNAS box as a fun project / backup storage, but after reading FreeNAS forums and learning about ZFS a bit it sounded like ECC RAM was pretty important. With that it seemed that before adding the drives the system would cost me ~$1k and that was way over my "fun" budget.

Nope. Just regular RAM, whatever your box supports, but the more, the better. I'm running 16GB. WD Red 2TB drives are $100 each.

It also pays to keep an eye on folks disposing of corporate servers too, I recently grabbed a HP DL185 G5 server with 7x 1TB drives & 2x 300GB drives for NZ$100 (about US$85)
Plan is to keep it switched off & only fire it up every week or so to do a complete copy of my data.
My main P.C. has 2x 2TB drives that get replicated daily (and occasionally I'll take one of those drives to work to hold as an offsite backup, and slip in a third 2TB drive to continue the daily sequence.)

I use "Karen's Replicator" to auto-copy from main drive to secondary.