Posted by Matt Law

Tue, June 23, 2009

Hi Ron,

Data security is something that is all too often overlooked. In our house we've got an extensive media library (400GB), much of this is purchased content from iTunes, but also irreplaceable photos of holidays and family events. It's a constant worry that something might happen and we'd loose all our content!

At the moment, we're using one of these:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Iomega-UltraMax-Desktop-Hard-Drive/dp/B000L6186S

It has a feature called RAID, which means (in this instance) that is has two disks and they mirror each other. In the event that one of the disks should fail, the other disk should continue to function all by itself until you've replaced the faulty disk. Crucially, no content should be lost.

Even though this unit is 1TB in total (2x500GB Disks), when RAID ZERO is activated, because the two 500GB disks are mirroring each other, only 500GB of storage is actually available. This is the price of redundancy.

RAID ZERO for us is the bare minimum for storing our digital content. Using a single disk is just asking for trouble.

I plan in the coming months to upgrade to a 1TB NAS drive.
http://www.sqsdatastorage.co.uk/store/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=8

The principle benefits are:

1. It has its own recycle bin (which safeguards against accidental deletion)
2. It can replicate its content to another NAS drive over the internet
(which safeguards against theft)

Best Regards,

Matt

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Thu, July 02, 2009

Matt makes a good point about asking for trouble with a single disk - which is why we have the chore of creating extra backup copies.

Unfortunately this area of technology is a minefield. The RAID idea looks good, but if you read the reviews on the Amazon site from Matt's first link, you would question whether Iomega is the best manufacturer.

So far we have chickened out and, keeping to the single disk idea, bought the smart Wstern Digital "My Passport" 500GB for less than £80 see http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-WDME5000TE-Essential-Midnight/dp/B001GT7F84/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_2

It looks very easy to use and managed our data easily. I like the fact that it is small transportable and does not need a separate power source. Time will tell, but at least the reviews are good!

Posted by Matt Law

Thu, July 02, 2009

Hi Ron,

Indeed, those 1-star reviews are truly awful!

I can only say that ours is 12 months old, is connected to a Mac, hibernates, mounts and doesn't click or whirr!

However, by the looks of things, we were lucky, and this is a drive to avoid like the plague!

RAID as a feature, is not an exclusive Iomega technology, it's as old as the hills and almost every manufacturer will offer models with RAID support. All of our computers are using RAID disk arrays too. I personally consider it a bare minimum when purchasing a new computer for work, I'm prepared to scrimp on many aspects, but not the Disk configuration.

It's not so important on our Apple computers, not because they're more reliable (far from it), but we have an Apple "Time Machine" disk in the house too, and the Mac's will happily (and silently) snapshot themselves each hour to this drive - it's a terrific feature.

With regards to the Mills Archive, have you considered BluRay DVDs? This new format can hold up to 50GB of data on a single (double-sided) disk. Extremely good for archiving and transporting material.


Regards,

Matt

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Thu, July 02, 2009

The problems with disks such as CD and DVD are two-fold:

1 none has been around long enough to justify the various claims on how long they will last before they start deteriorating and data loss ensues

2 the technology keeps changing, making media obsolete (its not just slide film this happnes to!) In just 10 years I have used large and small floppy disks, large and small width audio tape VHS video tape Iomega Zip and Jazz drives and now CD and DVD. They have all become curiosities as reading and recording technology "improves" (oh, I forgot laser disks - remember them?) I'll keep an eye on Blu-Ray but I bet it only lasts another 5 years

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