Hi. So, now I have one more question, I need to change my old disks. First of all, my computer also works as storrage for the Media Center in the Livingroom. Therefore I have the fellowing setup. C: Raid 0 (OS) D: Raid 1 (Documents, picture and family movies) E: Storrage Raid 1 (Backup and other) F: Storage (movies etc) G: Storage (movies etc) I need to change som old disks to some new ones, I have been looking at the Samsung spinpoints, 2x250 for C:, 2x1Tb for D:, E:, F: and G:. But I have heard these might not be so good for 24/7 Could you please give me som info if this is true and if it is, what disk should I be looking for then? ZeroHerO
I read it that the important stuff (Drives D&E) are on raid 1. But anyway, onto my reply. If you are looking for drives "designed" for use 24/7 then you need to look at server drives, but the cost / capacity ration is mean it's not t going to be worth it for storing "movies etc". If you really want to go into the stats look at the MTBF figures, but remember these are just the averages, any given drive could go belly up at any time. Using drives with a higher MTBF is just playing the odds in the hope your drives will last for longer. I put 7 1tb samsungs in my new rig, it covers the same sort of duties as yours but I have it like this: C: OS + Apps + Images + Music + Games D: Daily Backup (Windows file backup) E: Daily Backup (Windows drive image backup) F: Media (Movies etc) G: Stuff H: Virtual Machines No raid means I have no hassle, daily backups mean I keep my data safe. 1tb of useful capacity from 3 drives may not sound like much, but remember.... raid is not a backup! If bad software trashes your data, raid 1 will not protect you. If you delete something and can't "un" it, ditto Same with malware Or currupt boot setups This is why I have 2 backup regimes. One ensures I have all my files, including all my changes and deletes, I have daily snapshots of everything! The other ensures the same as above, but I can restore the PC in an afternoon and get it back to how it was in the morning with everything intact. Belt & Braces
Yep, just grab any drive, backup properly, and if it breaks, restore from backup. Unless your data is really, REALLY important, in which case spend 2x as much and get server class drives. (Seagate Cheetah 15.6k SAS drives work nicely for this). Check out Mozy.com for online backups. $4.95/month, and all your movies are safe. ;]
+1 from me as well. Buy any fast, large drives and just have a robust back up system. Similar set up to Jenny here (except not as extravagant ) C: 1Tb Samsung F1 (Vista and installed software) D: 1Tb Samsung F1 (saved files, documents, Music, movies etc) E: 1.5Tb Seagate 'Cuda (back up only) I also mirror E to an external My back ups are never more than 24 hours old, and I have 2 copies of it. Can restore the entire system in as long as it takes to write from the back up file(s). Regardless of whether you use RAID 0, 1 or whatever... the main point is don't worry about having server grade drives... just make sure you have a solid back up strategy and it ceases to be important if the drive(s) fails in years to come. Even that's not necessary really. For me to lose data, not only would the drive in question need to fail, but my E drive, AND my external would have to fail at the same time. That is EXTREMELY unlikely.
I was paying them this to cover my photography collection but when I hit about 150gig the software just wouldn't play ball. Plus, Mozy has terrible (and I mean terrible!) support to move backups between machines. So come upgrade time you have to lose the previous backup and re-upload all your data. Terrible terrible idea. So I gave up with online backups for home use. I still use a premium service for clients though, but then you pay for the service.
Nope, Samsung makes a very decent drive. As good as any of the other mass market brands. The only current mass market problem I've heard of is with some Seagate Barracudas, and that's fixable through firmware. http://www.macworld.com/article/138390/2009/01/barracuda.html What we're trying to tell you is: Go with any mass market brand/drive, they'll all be good. But backup, backup, BACKUP! All hard drives fail eventually, it's just a matter of time and usage. They're mechanical beasts, and prone to eventual failure. But if you backup, you're safe. Yes, a server class hard drive will likely be more reliable, but unless you're running a server where 24/7 uptime is critical it's usually not worth the extra coin. (Twice the cost, or more). Plan for failure. Plan that your drive will fail down the road. If you're backed up properly, you won't give a ****. If you're not backed up properly, it won't matter what drive you bought, it's time to call the recovery specialists.
Server disks do not only offer more reliability, they also offer more speed in random seeks. But for home usage that is hardly noticable, and certainly not worth the cost. Also, server HD's are mostly SCSI or SAS, so you'll have to invest in an extra controller or a server mobo too. The way I do it (all on a dedicated file server, no files are on my main systems/laptops): OS: 40 GB drive Data: 3 * 250GB drives in RAID 5 (so 500GB available) Backup: 250 GB drive on yet another system (my gateway), daily rsync. And my very important data (about 150MB) goes to 3 off site file servers, which I rsync daily. I made a difference between the data I could lose, and the high importance data. This data doesn't update frequently.
Thanks for the advice, I´d figured the server class disks were not offering value for the bucks, for my use. I´d love to run scsi disks again, but again too expensive per Gb. Regarding backup, I also have a weekly externly USB disk for extra backup. It will be the Samsung spinpoints F1 then. And again thank you for the answers. ZeroHerO Here is how the system will look: C: 2x250 Gb Samsung Spinpoint F1 Raid0 (OS) D: 2x1024 Gb Samsung Spinpoint F1 Raid 1 (documents, picture, family movies) E: 1024 Gb Samsung Spinpoint F1 for backup of the OS etc. F: 1024 Gb Samsung Spinpoint F1 Movies, series etc. G: 1024 Gb Samsung Spinpoint F1 Movies, series etc. H: 1024 Gb Samsung Spinpoint F1 Movies, series etc. This way there should be enough storage for the kids DVD being stored here saving the Originals from the kids. They really mess up DVDs
Just wondering, why do you need such a high capacity for the OS? surely running a single F1 would be fast enough? (and a high enough capacity) Also, why not have the final 3 hard drives in JBOD? it'll look a lot tidier under My Computer and the computer would (if I'm informed correctly) read it faster than on three seperate drives... And (just out of interest) which of the above would games come under?
Bigsharn, Its for tv-series and movies, I rip all the kids DVD to my computer, this way they dont scratch them, and they can easier choose what to see om the Media Center, I do the same with my own TV shows . Its really great for a couch day, then you dont have to get up and change dvd ;-) ZeroHerO
i use the seagate ES series which are rated for 24/7 operation 1.2million hours mtbf rather than 0.7millions for the standard drives.
i'm using 3x500GB disks in my fileserver right now, one each of seagate, WD, and samsung. they've been running 24/7 for between 1.5yrs and 8mo, and no problems so far. for a home NAS application, anything other than bog-standard consumer grade disks is overkill. also, what bigsharn said.
