I guess I'm a little surprised

[screenxpress]

Over 85 looks at the post I made for Synchroncity the other day.  Nobody made a comment so I guess nobody is keeping redundant copy backups.  Or maybe y'all are sending stuff out to a "cloud". 

I won't do that - (#1) - I'm too cheap and (#2) - don't like losing control of my data

Synchroncity is free (open source), is fast, and does a really nice job.  I keep my "stuff" on one drive in the "box" (not the "C" drive) and then duplicated on an externally plugged-in USB drive. 

I also have a docking station called "EZ-Dock"
http://www.kingwin.com/products/cate/docking_stations/ezdock_series.asp
that allows me to drop in (hot-swap) raw, uncased drives.  I'll be making a 3rd backup (for offsite) this weekend after I pick up another SATA drive (they're so cheap these days).

It's probably my OCD, but I've had drive failures with all the major brands and I'm fearful of losing my crap.

[tpitman]

Well, Wayne, I'll bite. I'm on a Macbook, using Carbonite, and while drive failures haven't been a problem for me, your involvement in IT is far more extensive than anything I'll ever approach, and it's not a matter of being OCD to recognize the value of redundancy in backup. To be honest, except for a couple of unsuccessful attempts at setting up a backup system over the years, the most expensive and futile being over $700 worth of JAZ drive crap in a moment of panic, quite frankly I never backed anything up. Dumb luck, I guess, but after 20 years of relying on a computer to make a living, I figured I'd cheated fate long enough and went with Carbonite, after considering setting up a RAID. I'm now considering setting up a simple backup drive on my desktop since Carbonite doesn't backup the system files, and for the convenience. I've got an unused Firewire external box with an 80GB drive in it, which I'll replace with something a little meatier, and use the backup utility Apple includes in the system software, that will back everything up. Just gotta crack my wallet for $50 or so.

[squeegee]

I'm tying it as I still haven't found a satisfactory off-site solution.

I'm in the midst of prepping an external drive to mirror, does Syncronicity run a mirror 24/7 to your external drive?  In other words is it automatic or do you have to initiate the backup each time you want to use it?

[Gilligan]

I almost chimed in but I didn't want to rain on the topic.

I personally have a raid 5 server setup and I've gonna build another server off site and I'll be just using rsync to keep them mirrored.  Probably the same thing that synchronicity is using for it's backend.

Like you I'm cheap, but I also don't like running a GUI on my servers and I'd rather have COMPLETE control over my data and that includes writing my own script to make sure things go where they should.  I can also script in email/text messages to be sent out in case of failure.  I currently do this for a few clients now and it's great!

[screenxpress]

I'm tying it as I still haven't found a satisfactory off-site solution.

I'm in the midst of prepping an external drive to mirror, does Syncronicity run a mirror 24/7 to your external drive?  In other words is it automatic or do you have to initiate the backup each time you want to use it?

Well this is pretty good stuff, but obviously since it's open source, there are more powerful things (on the marketplace).  You have to initiate it for the backups, but here's what I did.  My biggest concern is my screenxpress folder for all the artwork, etc. It's one of the bigger folders so I made it a PROFILE of it's own.  Then I gathered up all my other personal folders and stuff under 4 other PROFILES.  Those are ones that I don't change that much.

When I've made significant additions or changes to anything in one of them, I initiate the profile to PREVIEW.  Takes only seconds for it to gather and display the changes.  Then I can opt to SYNCHRONIZE or wait till later.

It's not a RAID type setup so it's not automatic.  In fact, for my setup, I'm not too real sure I would want something running all the time changing this and changing that. 

The even nicer thing about this is with the EZ-Dock device, I can just drop a SATA drive into the block, run a Sync, pull the drive out and set it on a shelf.  No electrical connectivity to the PC anymore in case a power spike gets past the protector or...even worse the internal power supply sends a spike to the hard drive as it's final 'gotcha'.

[screenxpress]

I almost chimed in but I didn't want to rain on the topic.

I personally have a raid 5 server setup and I've gonna build another server off site and I'll be just using rsync to keep them mirrored.  Probably the same thing that synchronicity is using for it's backend.

Like you I'm cheap, but I also don't like running a GUI on my servers and I'd rather have COMPLETE control over my data and that includes writing my own script to make sure things go where they should.  I can also script in email/text messages to be sent out in case of failure.  I currently do this for a few clients now and it's great!

No worries on the 'rain', but this is probably not for you.  Sounds to me like you're on the upper level as far as total equipment needs and a RAID system probably works better for your needs as it requires relatively little intervention once it's up and running.   

However, for the single PC users, without a network, a RAID system is usually either overkill, not cost effective, or more involved (effort) than they want to mess with.

My son is in the IT support department at El Paso Energy and came across this so we put it on my PC and I was pretty impressed.  Before that, being cheap, I was frequently making new (dated) folder copies gobbling up more and more of the secondary drive since I was reluctant to delete the old stuff (OCD)

[squeegee]

My NAS is a mirror RAID 0 I believe, so I've always got a live backup disc, so this software may just be what I need (for off site discs), wishing it was automatic, but I suppose that's not really necessary.

I was looking at a QNAP NAS (TS-239 Pro II turbo @ $500+) that has dual drives and RAID and a auto backup scheduler.  Then hooking up a sata dock via esata and just swapping drives now and then, but in the end this set up is not much different only I have to remember to do it.

It's definately going to be faster with this software than the way I was doing it (deleting whole back up drives and recopying the new data).  I just got a sata dock (with esata, yea  ) a couple weeks ago because my USB drives are running out of space, later on I'll just be using the internal sata drives (cheap as you said) for back up.

[Gilligan]

Rsync is a beast and can do everything you need.  It does take a little understanding/research.  It can be scripted to run on a schedule that would keep things "fresh" and it can and probably should be setup to only do an "update" type of backup for only files that have changed.  No need to recopy the 30 gigs of crap from last 3 years that is already backed up.  Drop box does do a great job of this... but that cost money and you give up some control.  For one of my clients we do FULL backups every weekend and incremental each day then on the 1st of the month we do a FULL backup and store it in a "permanent" folder on my server that doesn't get over written.  So we have a snap shot of his data on the 1st of each month forever.

I do IT work for my main gig and network/server consulting is one of those facets.

Though that being said... a raid isn't really that hard or expensive to setup.  I have four 2tb hard drives in my home server giving me 6 gigs of redundant storage.  Again though, that being said... a raid is NO substitute for a BACKUP!  Things CAN and WILL go wrong on a raid and you can lose it all.  They do have Raid 6 and Raid 10 that can add additional layers of redundancy... at and additional cost of course.

Raid 5 can be done in just software only and be "good enough".  In my research I realized that you probably WANT to do raid 5 in software because you can NOT rebuild that raid if the controller goes out and you don't have an identical controller to replace it with.  Those controllers are expensive so you would really need to purchase two (one to use and one as a back up)... that of course becomes cost prohibitive.  Because if it DOES go down... you really need to move the entire thing over to a "new" raid with an additional back up controller (assuming you can't get another backup controller as these products are of course phased out in time for new ones in the market.)

Raid 1 (a mirror setup) can be done either way for relatively cheap.  For my clients I typically setup a raid1 with a hardware card controller.  This allows you to mirror the OS as well as the data and a failed hard drive will not even cause the system to blink. It just sends me an email/text letting me know a drive went down and my client never even knows till I show up with the replacement.  Even then they are only down for about 30 mins while I swap the drive out and they can start working again even while it rebuilds.

The raid1 can also be done via software, like my Wife's new machine (which I sold to an embroidery guy in town before she even finished building it).  It has/had a solid state 60gig drive for the OS (C drive) and two 750 gig 7200RPM drives in a mirror (raid1) array for all the data.  This way all the critical data has a layer of redundancy and the OS is setup on a "fast" solid state drive (haven't noticed it to be that fast yet... but I haven't messed with it much as I sold the system).  This is the ideal setup for a single workstation setup and can be done for just the cost of a couple of drives (one OS drive and two data drives)... doesn't take MUCH computer knowledge to setup.

Again... raids are no substitute for a proper backup.  If your building catches fire, all is lost (or at least very expensive through a data recovery center).  BTW, if anyone is in need of such a service we have one local and I can get free estimates... be forewarned though... you are looking at least $800 bucks for recovery and possibly as much as $2k... so if you NEED that service let me know and I'll be happy to accept your drive and bring it over to them and have them look at it.  But if not prepared to pay those fees to recover don't waste my time or the recovery guy's time please.

[screenxpress]

I'm tying it as I still haven't found a satisfactory off-site solution.

I'm in the midst of prepping an external drive to mirror, does Syncronicity run a mirror 24/7 to your external drive?  In other words is it automatic or do you have to initiate the backup each time you want to use it?

There is a scheduling feature and you can set up each Profiles to automatically backup Daily, Weekly, or Monthly.  I didn't know how you meant 24/7.

[Gilligan]

My NAS is a mirror RAID 0 I believe, so I've always got a live backup disc, so this software may just be what I need (for off site discs), wishing it was automatic, but I suppose that's not really necessary.

I was looking at a QNAP NAS (TS-239 Pro II turbo @ $500+) that has dual drives and RAID and a auto backup scheduler.  Then hooking up a sata dock via esata and just swapping drives now and then, but in the end this set up is not much different only I have to remember to do it.

It's definately going to be faster with this software than the way I was doing it (deleting whole back up drives and recopying the new data).  I just got a sata dock (with esata, yea  ) a couple weeks ago because my USB drives are running out of space, later on I'll just be using the internal sata drives (cheap as you said) for back up.

Raid 0 is "spanned" raid.  That means the data is spread (somewhat randomly) across both drives.  This is designed for PERFORMANCE  and NOT safety.  If ONE of those drives decides to choke and go bad then you lose EVERYTHING on both drives.

Nothing REALLY wrong with a setup like that but to be honest, if it's on a NAS then the bottle neck isn't going to be the hard drives.  It will be the network.  So your hard drives will likely be sitting around waiting for the network to be ready for the data.  If you CAN (lots have config switches/options) you might look at backing up all that data and switching it to the raid 1 config and then moving all that data back on the drives.  You MUST backup the data because making that change WILL DESTROY all the data on the NAS.

A raid 0 setup can be great for performance systems (usually better if they are connected to the mobo SATA controller)... if you need FAST access to your data a raid 0 is the answer... BUT this should only be used for WORKING data and not data you want to store as it is VERY volatile and is multiplying your points of failure with each drive you add to the raid.  Again, if ONE drive goes ALL the data goes.  This is best setup for Audio/Video workstations where the datastreams being served is pretty heavy (especially with all this new HD footage so cheaply available.  I really couldn't see much benefit to raid 5 for PS or AI work.  Even with large RAW files and Lightroom, I'd think your money is better spent on massive amounts of ram and redundancy for your data.  Once a 20mb file is loaded then it's loaded.  You aren't pushing that data back and forth on the drives just manipulating it in RAM at that point.

Sorry for nerding out and getting all preachy about different configurations here... figured it was as good as a place as any.

[screenxpress]

I think all the conversations about backups are good.  Gets people thinking of their needs, their options and what might work best for them. 

Actually what I'm picking up on is that something like synchroncity might (almost) be more preferable than a Raid for the single PC user where they can just drop a drive in a dock or a usb hookup, run the sync and either put the drive on a shelf or take to Uncle Bob's for safekeeping. 

I guess it all comes down to what makes you feel safer if you're afraid of a crash.   

[Gilligan]

Yeah, Raid is essentially a redundant convenience... an EXTRA layer.  Things can and WILL still go wrong even with a well thought out raid solution.  You really want a backup.  That said... a "single" backup isn't much better, especially if you never disconnect it and bring it off site.

With a natural disaster or robbery you still lose it all if it's sitting on the shelf.  You really have to get it OUT of the building.  But if you have it at "uncle bobs" and your crap goes down... now you got to go get your backup.  With a raid, you would not even have to stop working.  You just replace the drive at your EARLIEST convenience and you are back at square one.  All the while that backup is tucked away off site in case it's not something simple like a computer malfunction.

I built that system I referenced earlier for under a grand... I SOLD it for 1300 cash to the embroidery guy... it had an AMD 6 core 3.3ghz CPU, 8 gigs of DDR3 ram (the good stuff), 60 gig solid state SATA drive, two WD BLACK 750gig drives in the raid 1, dvdrw, USB 3, a badass case with power supply on the bottom and LARGE fans all around (my home server with the 5 hard drives (one OS and the 4 in the raid 5) is in the same case, I love it), Win7 64bit.  Blah blah blah.

So for the single user/workstation setup that is a pretty sweet deal.  That is a beast of a system, it has an after market cooler in it so it could be over clocked and probably see 4ghz if one wanted and has TWO free slots for more RAM... another few bucks and you got 16 gigs of ram in a heart beat!

Taking orders now.

[squeegee]

No worries!  I like nerding out on computer stuff, especially on a Sat when I don't have customers and employees breathing down my neck!

I'm not really up on the RAID jargon, but I do know that mine is mirrored.  Just looked, it's set up RAID 1.  It's a cheap Dlink with dual 500GB drives, but it's worked fine for several years, even has an FTP which actually works.

The main hitch like you said is the GB interface.  I've looked and looked for a NAS that has GB + a local connection via esata but no luck except the QNAP one I mentioned which really isn't the same thing.

I would be *nice* if you could copy at esata speeds from a locally connected computer while have GB for the network at the same time.

What about a 4 drive NAS, is there such an animal that will allow 2 drives in RAID 0 as you said for SPEED, while the other 2 drives mirror?

[squeegee]

Oh and get this, I've tried Synchronicity now twice, once with the sata dock connected via esata, and also with a USB drive.

Data transfer rates:

USB 2-4 MB/s

Esata 6-7 MB/s

I was expecting better speed, my network is Cat 5e/Cat6 cable and GB switches.

Any ideas?

[Gilligan]

Well, what you are referring to is a Raid 0+1 or a Raid 1+0 (or Raid 10).

Difference is that in Raid 0+1 the pairs are striped (raid 0) THEN those pairs are mirrored (the raid 1 part).  In the Raid 10 you first mirror the pairs THEN stripe the mirrors (Raid 1 THEN Raid 0).

I haven't looked into it in a while but I'm betting the Raid 0+1 is a TINY bit faster than the Raid 10 BUT the Raid 10 is a good deal safer.  You have 6 combinations of the way two drives could fail... out of those six a Raid 10 will survive 4 where as the Raid 0+1 will only survive 2.

Granted, chances of a two drive failure is SLIM (IF you are paying attention)... but it is possible.

Not sure of out of the box commercial setups available like your dlink... but they can of course be built.   It would essentially be a medium size computer that would be running linux (like all of these NAS's do in a sense).  The added benefit to the "custom" solution is you can add more than just a NAS to your system.  And you could add network cards to make it redundant networking connections or even "trunking" would be possible given other factors.  Where you could share the network connection and have (in theory) 2gb network connection to the server.