External HD and Raid Help setting up 1 Terrrabyte

  • Thread starter Thread starter L.S
  • Start date Start date
L

L.S

Hi I have a storage problem and I was wondering if anyone could give
me some advice on a storage.

My problem is I work with digital photographers who capture on H25
backs which make 30meg raw files and 60meg processed files, which when
you shoot 30-60 gigs a day you soon start to run out of space.

What I need is a external rack solution either a Raid or ideally a
External Casing that will allow me to add 4 internal 250gig Serial ATA
HD's (ideally) or 4 Parallel ATA HD's. which I will use to store and
process files. Could anyone advice me a cheap solution as I don't want
to spend more than £800 including the HD's.

I know there is some External Casing for single drives like Lacie
which I where I work already have about 10 of them, but I really need
some help setting a little tower with hard drives.

I'm also worried about setting up a raid just in case one drive goes
down then I will lose all clients work..

Im also working on a MAC. OS X 10.2.8

Any Advice.
 
L.S said:
Hi I have a storage problem and I was wondering if anyone could give
me some advice on a storage.

My problem is I work with digital photographers who capture on H25
backs which make 30meg raw files and 60meg processed files, which when
you shoot 30-60 gigs a day you soon start to run out of space.

What I need is a external rack solution either a Raid or ideally a
External Casing that will allow me to add 4 internal 250gig Serial ATA
HD's (ideally) or 4 Parallel ATA HD's. which I will use to store and
process files. Could anyone advice me a cheap solution as I don't want
to spend more than £800 including the HD's.

I know there is some External Casing for single drives like Lacie
which I where I work already have about 10 of them, but I really need
some help setting a little tower with hard drives.

I'm also worried about setting up a raid just in case one drive goes
down then I will lose all clients work..

Im also working on a MAC. OS X 10.2.8

Any Advice.
Click to expand...

For 800 pounds _including_ the drives? I doubt that very much.
However, you might look at simply getting four external FireWire
drives, and using software RAID 0. (Actually, I would recommend a
fifth parity drive and RAID 5, since otherwise if you have one drive
failure you lose the entire RAID.)
 
Any specific reason why you want an external rack solution?
A big computer case that can hold the extra disks is likely the
cheapest solution by far.

Maybe even a second computer acting as server, with a gigabit
networkcard?
For 800 pounds _including_ the drives? I doubt that very much.
Click to expand...

I doubt that too. All external rack solutions for IDE that I have seen
were very expensive.
But they often also feature hotswap bays and such, which are quite
expensive if you have to buy them seperately too.
But hotswap bays don't seem necessary in this situation.
However, you might look at simply getting four external FireWire
drives, and using software RAID 0. (Actually, I would recommend a
fifth parity drive and RAID 5, since otherwise if you have one drive
failure you lose the entire RAID.)
Click to expand...

Yes, this is certainly a case for Raid5. But a backup solution in case
of dataloss because of software or user error would be advisable too.
Although that can get expensive too.

Marc
 
L.S said:
Hi I have a storage problem and I was wondering if anyone could give
me some advice on a storage.

My problem is I work with digital photographers who capture on H25
backs which make 30meg raw files and 60meg processed files, which
when you shoot 30-60 gigs a day you soon start to run out of space.

What I need is a external rack solution either a Raid or ideally a
External Casing that will allow me to add 4 internal 250gig Serial ATA
HD's (ideally) or 4 Parallel ATA HD's. which I will use to store and
process files. Could anyone advice me a cheap solution as I don't want
to spend more than £800 including the HD's.
http://www.rackmountpro.com/productsearch.cfm?catid=167
http://www.rackmountpro.com/productpage.cfm?prodid=1805


I know there is some External Casing for single drives like Lacie
which I where I work already have about 10 of them, but I really need
some help setting a little tower with hard drives.
http://www.dynamicnetworkfactory.com/RAID/SATACanisters423.htm


I'm also worried about setting up a raid just in case one drive goes
down then I will lose all clients work..

Im also working on a MAC. OS X 10.2.8

Any Advice.
Click to expand...
 
You can easily get 2 drive Firewire-800 cases. There is at least one company
that does 4 or more drives, but I don't know if they also do RAID 5.
 
I recommend that you go for a RAID. If you use a RAID 5, you can lose a
drive and still not lose your data.
 
Tue, 13 Jan 2004 16:05:16 -0800, (e-mail address removed) suggested:
: You can easily get 2 drive Firewire-800 cases. There is at least one company
: that does 4 or more drives, but I don't know if they also do RAID 5.

You'd probably have to do software RAID.
 
Thanks all for the information i have found 2 solution that will give
me 1 terrabyte of stroage for £1000 pounds, bother are using a
external case one is set up as a 4 250gig HD 7200rpm 8meg IDE hard
drives which then connect as a firewire connection to the computer
there other is similiar although the HD are Serial ATA, which im
confused how they will connect to the PC..

Also does anyone know how many Serial ATA hardrives a G5 mac can hold.
thanks
 
Also does anyone know how many Serial ATA hardrives a G5 mac can hold.
Two, I believe.
Click to expand...

http://www.wiebetech.com/products/G5Jam.html

The G5 case is setup for two internal SATA drives. WiebeTech sells a
G5Jam package that lets you put an additional two drives inside the G5
case. The kit includes a SATA PCI card, and a new air baffle that lets
you mount two SATA drives at the front area of the bay for the PCI
cards.

Steve
 
Steve Waltner said:
http://www.wiebetech.com/products/G5Jam.html

The G5 case is setup for two internal SATA drives. WiebeTech sells a
G5Jam package that lets you put an additional two drives inside the G5
case. The kit includes a SATA PCI card, and a new air baffle that lets
you mount two SATA drives at the front area of the bay for the PCI
cards.
Click to expand...

That's pretty cool. If they had a dealy like that for regular ATA
drives, I'd probably get one; when I get my G5, I'm going to have a
couple of fairly large drives from the G4 I'd hate to just let go of.
 
That's pretty cool. If they had a dealy like that for regular ATA
drives, I'd probably get one; when I get my G5, I'm going to have a
couple of fairly large drives from the G4 I'd hate to just let go of.
Click to expand...

It is no big deal to convert the regular ATA drives to SATA. Check out:

http://www.amselectronics.com/Products/Comet/DK-SATA.html

That¹s what I did when I upgraded to a G5.

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