Our server in the basement houses all our household photos, music, movies, installers, docs, backups, etc. The main workstation Lu and I share dual boots xp/ubuntu and in it I've got a backup drive. Whenever I boot into ubuntu an rsync runs to freshen up the backup drive. At this point I feel pretty safe since all the data is on two different machines. But in the event a catastrophe, I have a smaller external drive which I keep in a fireproof safe and update every month with just the vital stuff (docs, the db from our household wiki, home videos, and photos). Someday we're going to get a deposit box at a bank for it and our other important jazz, or maybe colo a server in a data center somewhere.

thanks, ry.

i think i am so anal because my father kept copies of all his negatives from family photos in safe deposit boxes. in the event of a fire or some tragedy he didn't want to lose those memories.

i already keep our photos on a server hosted by he.net so don't worry too much about them except to back them up to dvd once or twice a year.

most of the data i am talking about backing up is music [which is backed up in triplicate], video and working docs.

all told in the house i'm looking at ~3.5TB due to all the video/audio libraries i keep - it's a little more than usual right now just because i'm nearing completion on another project.

i'm looking at an offering by linksys - a rack mountable, RAID array that can accommodate up to 6TB.

the questions i have are about the management of such a device and the long term value as opposed to the two machines i currently use. with those, i have complete control over the os, the scripts, etc.

my main question is: is anyone familiar with any of these NAS devices and what in your experience are their pros and cons?

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w

which NAS are you looking into?

right now this is the most appealing for the $$$, with four of these tho i am looking for something similar with redundant power supplies.

of course, i'm beginning to think about a small rack that accommodates 10Us and just bite the bullet and install the proper solution.

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w

what protocols do you want the NAS to support? SMB, NFS, etc? do you want to mount as a native drive, via an iSCSI sort of protocol?

SMB works just fine, tho the iSCSI is appealing just because of the throughput capabilities for video.

currently i offload any video to a second server and copy the data to the backup machine via that so as not to take up resources on my main editing machine. it's slow and clunky and would ideally work better to go direct.

do you have any suggestions, colin?

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w

you could do this:

phase1:
2x 1.6GHz dual-core CPU, 1GB ram (2x 512MB), supermicro X7DBE-X motherboard, supermicro SC836TQ-R800V case, dvdrw, floppy.

That case has redundant PS. The mobo has five pcix slots and six sata onboard, so plenty of room for various drive controllers. For a fileserver the dual-core CPUs would make mincemeat out of any type of raid you put on the onboards. I priced these parts out at http://www.interpromicro.com and they come to $2100 but you could probably get 'em for less if you wanted to assemble yourself. Or if you wanted to save even more money you could use a dual-P3 mobo, or even just a single CPU like those NAS solutions.

then, phase2:
Up to 16 harddrives, and a few controllers. Maybe you just get two 8-channel 3ware cards and 16 of those 750GB seagate server drives for a 10TB raid6, or maybe while you save pennies you just fill the case with whatever you have lying around.

Of course, the box will be pretty damn loud, so hopefully you can put it in a basement or something. And I guess it'll use a bit of electricity too! And then of course the real question: backups of your backups!?

that is a suhweet setup, for sure, altho it still holds the dilemmas i'm trying to get away from - noise and power consumption.

which is why the single CPU config of the NAS is well thought out - as you said, the dual-core[s] would shred any request made of them and so to me that is overkill in the proc dept, which is why i would prolly go a little lighter on that side.

still, i like the configurability [new word?] of what you propose. i also like that everything can be my choice, from the hd's to RAM, et al. and building them would be an easy way to save some dollars. the performance of all this is outstanding, too. you always had the good eye for diy hardware, ry.

the price is great, too! this is by far, pound for pound, the best value. if i recall correctly, interpro doesn't provide the warranty on these machines. rather the three-year manufacturer warranties apply. is that correct? if so, that is smart, too, as i've always felt dealing directly with manufacturers is less hassle than going through a third party.

thanks, geeks, for all your input thus far.

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w

At this time I don't have any suggestions. I looked awhile ago at Open iSCSI for linux and it just doesn't look production ready at this point, as there are no stable releases quite yet. On the latest RedHat release page there is iSCSI listed although I don't know what implementation that is. I would check out the CentOS project as this is a completely free RHEL source derived work and would have the same stuff but instead be supported by the community.

Also awhile back I looked at GFS as a way of possibly putting alot of unused storage from all servers in a big common pool, but decided that at this time it wasn't necessary and was a bit complicated. That and it probably didn't fit our usage model.

I think you're best off just creating a big SMB/CIFS share - for your home / small office it's simple, well tested, and works for Linux, Mac, and Windows. Spend the time/energy/money in getting a good gigabit LAN network + decent performing hardware w/ redundant RAID. For backup, I think I would use a large external harddrive. Anything important I would upload to an offsite server or dump to media and put it someplace safe.

indeed, i've spent a good chunk wiring the loft with cat6/gigabit throughout and that will have value for a long time to come, not to mention will support whatever solution i decide to go with.

the backups i'm most concerned with are finalcut working files, of course, and i know RAID 5 or 6 is the best way to go tho it looks like no one has any experience with any purist *NAS* solution to speak of.

i will definitely let you know what i decide to do.

i will make my decision soon...

thanks, again, geeks!

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w

Just remember - RAID != backup. Get the important stuff on another volume / medium, preferably on something that is easily recoverable without another RAID card, etc.

Also, CAT6 is so 2006. You gotta go DOG7 nowadays to stay ahead of the curve.