Looking for advice on eSATA backup system

[Skipper007]

I'm really tired of having to back stuff up to DVD-R and I don't trust a single drive with my data, so I want to build an eSATA system that allows me to backup data to two external drives. Here's what I'm thinking:

One Syba dual port eSATA controller (Sil 3132 chipset)
One Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB (EARS version)
One Seagate Barracuda LP 2TB (I figure that using different models reduces the chances of simultaneous failure)
Four Rosewill RX35-AT-SC eSATA/USB 2.0 enclosures (two to use plus another two I can use when I need another set of 2TB drives... these enclosures are cheap.)

Total: about $360 Canadian including taxes and shipping.

Now, since all the enclosures will be the same model, I should be able to use their AC adaptors interchangeably, right? In that case, I'll tape two AC cables and two eSATA cables up to my desk (poor man's drive dock...), allowing me to have two drives hooked up at once. The third AC and data cable set will be installed on my brother's desk (since he sometimes needs access to my stuff), while the fourth will be used as my "to go" set. The two drives (and the next pair when I need them) will be swapped between these setups.

I figure that using "green" drives is best here, since I won't be using these for applications where random access is important and I believe the Rosewills are passively cooled enclosures (I'd prefer to avoid active cooling since in my experience small fans tend to fail pretty easily).

Concerns:
-Since these drives will be off most of the time, I'm worried about being able to do a "burn in" test on them.
-I'm also not sure how to run S.M.A.R.T. tests on external drives.
-Am I making a mistake going eSATA when USB 3.0 is coming out? I suppose I can just move the Syba card to my next PC, since I'm the only one who is going to be using the drives frequently.
-Am I going to be able to tell the drives apart in the "safely remove hardware" menu if I have two eSATA drives hooked up at once?

Any feedback would be great!

 

[wkearney99]

SMART should work just fine on eSATA (it's on USB that it won't). I'd imagine USB3 might carry the same problem.

I prefer not to use solutions that involve the bare eSATA and power connectors. Those connectors tend to fail under repeated changes. Especially those cheap barrel connectors used for power. I prefer using hot swap drive trays in docks designed for repeated swaps. That way you don't have to handle any cables at all. Yeah, fans can die but depending on the tray it's not likely that would kill the drive. A decent dock will have an alarm for that. Over the years I've had great luck with various CRU dataport trays, in IDE, SATA and SCSI variations. I pick 'em up cheap off eBay. In the 10+ years I've used them I've had a total of ONE fan failure, out of over 2 dozen trays The dock chassis alarm squealed like a pig alerting me to it. Since I got them cheap I didn't even bother replacing the fan (which would've been trivially simple since it's basically the same size and connectors as a VGA cooler). The fan is in the docking bay, not the drive carrier.

I'd go with a small 2-drive bay external case and actual docking trays. You'd gain some security in that the case would be less likely to get slid off the desk while you're fishing for the cables. Yeah, you'd lose being able to use the drives in a portable fashion. Unless you put a tray into a single-drive case. Which is sometimes a problem as docking trays tend to be a bit long for most portable cases. I cannibalized an ancient Sun CDROM drive chassis just for that purpose. Now I've got a beast of a hot-swappable external USB drive (which never really gets used anyway).

Safely removing drives from trays can be a hassle. Most don't have any sort of lights that indicate they can be swapped out. Instead I just went the no-tech route and labeled the front of the trays with the same name as used in the OS. This works OK if the label shown in the 'Safely remove' pop-up menu make sense. Some external interfaces don't work with this. One 8-bay setup hanging off a JMB36x controller labels them all the same (based on the drive model number). If I drill down into the drive properties I can see the drive location info. I made sure to label the physical location with the same info as the logical address. For those I don't get into the habit of swapping them out all that often.

Bear in mind, backup strategies benefit from using more than just the same two drives. I prefer using a couple of extra drives for weekly and quarterly backups (some folks keep monthlies). For daily backups I swap between two drives (in a work situation I'd use one for each day). At the end of the week one drive gets swapped out for the previous week's drive, and gets stored off-site. Same deal with the quarterly. That way I have an older backup just in case more recent files have gotten corrupted. Rotating them spreads the wear, lets me keep tabs on their working condition and guards against corrupted data.