I need your input on organizing my data better

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Archer75

Supreme [H]ardness
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This probably isn't the best setup but it works. Problem is my data is growing so much that I need to try to come up with a more efficient system to store it and protect it.

My current computer has 6 hard drives in it. I also have room for 2 more. This is my main desktop and gaming machine. It's also watercooled.

My motherboard is a DFI Infinity 975x with 4 onboard sata ports. I also have a Highpoint 2310 Raid card.

On the board I have 1x 150gb raptor that is my OS(vista 64) and programs. I also have 1x 500gb that is my home videos that is 380gb full. I do not have a backup for this atm.

On the highpoint raid card I have 2x160gb in RAID 0 where I store all of my data. Music, pictures, documents, ebooks and videos. You get the idea. That is almost full.

I also have 2x250gb in RAID 0 on that same raid card. I use this for backing up the data from the 2x160gb drives as well as some other misc stuff.

I also use a online backup service called Mozy. I don't put everything there as it would take forever to backup all of my data there. But the really important stuff is there.

I also have a 2nd computer, a HTPC with a 500gb drive which is storing some ripped DVD's and such. I'm only using about 150gb of that at the moment but I expect it to fill up fast. I have no backup for this data at the moment.

So how best to setup my drives to store all of this data and prevent against data loss? At some point when I can afford it I will probably get 2 more 500gb drives to add to my main system.
 
RAID will not guarantee against data loss so I cannot recommend using that.
There are numerous modes of failure that could still result in total or a large loss of data.
RAID is good for keeping a system running, its not a backup solution.

Tape backup devices are too expensive for home use.

You could back your data up to DVDs or HD-DDVD/Blu Ray.
Its a bind getting everything done at first but subsequent backups will be incremental so only new or changed data gets backed up.
You will end up with a set of disks with a Primary image of the drives and burn new disks say every month of anything thats different.
Disks can get damaged/lost easily so you must guard the disks well.
Warning, you might get disks from a bad batch and your backup could be corrupt in a year or less!
I dont advise using DVD for backups. I dont know how reliable Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are.

This leaves having double the amount of space worth of hard drives for backups, preferably in a portable hard drive bay.
You can either
a) copy all your data over to the other hard drives and keep them updated manually.
b) use backup software to maintain a mirror of the drives. You can utilise incremental backups so only data that has changed gets copied over, keeping tha backup times short.
It can compress the data as well but that might not be the best idea. If a hard drive develops a bad sector, most data has redundancy in it which aids data recovery so it can still be read. Compressed data has had some redundancy removed and is therefore less likely to be recoverable from a bad sector.

If the incremental backup software simply copies over the top of files that have been changed, there will be no file history.
This is bad if for example a virus attacks you and you do a backup before you find out.
Try to choose a backup strategy that can use incremental backups.

On the other hand, if there is data you delete that you want to be gone forever, you must not use incremental backups. This makes the DVD solution untenable unless using rewritable disks. Again I advise caution.using disks as they do fail after a number of cycles, some prematurely.
You might want to keep a third backup of anything you really mustnt lose if not using incremental backups (ie when any old data gets overwritten if it has changed).

The "hard drives as a backup" solution is definitely a cheap option if you buy drives for space/reliability rather than performance.
 
I'd say DVDs are still good for backing up videos and music. They are cheap and quite durable and easier to work with than HDDs. It will take some time to back up large amounts of data but start popping in a disc every 20-30 minutes or so while you work and it will eventually get done.

Edit: I've been doing it for 5 years or so and am up to a decent four digit number of discs.
 
I don't think discs will work well. The sheer amount of data I have and as much as I add to it, change it or just delete would mean i'm burning discs non stop forever. And I have many files that are larger than a single DVD.

I mainly interested in a more efficient way to organize my RAID array, if there is one. And I do have my online backup for my most important data.
 
Use a RAID 5 array as opposed to AID 0. With AID 0, if you lose 1 drive, you loss all that data. Personally, I would use separate drives instead of your setup. A tape solution would work well for you, but the backup devices are expensive (but tapes are pretty cheap).
 
I picked up one of these about 2 weeks ago. Very nice solution for home use, no RAID administration required, flexible expansion without the need of same size disks or name brands. You can mix-match your SATA HDD's any way you want

Drobo
 
Why are you using the two 250gb backup drives in RAID 0? If one fails you lose it all... Counter-intuitive for a backup solution. I'd probably just replace those two with two even bigger drives, then use one to backup the array w/your data and another to backup the videos drive.

OR, just set those two 250gb drives a JBOD and use it to backup the videos drive then buy another external drive to backup your data array. I'd probably just go w/an external drive for the HTCP as well so you can easily turn it off or move it to your own system if you wanna work w/some of the files on the HTCP and wanna avoid the network transfers. Or just get a large-capacity NAS device, but that'll be more costly than anything.
 
Impulse said:
Why are you using the two 250gb backup drives in RAID 0? If one fails you lose it all... Counter-intuitive for a backup solution. I'd probably just replace those two with two even bigger drives, then use one to backup the array w/your data and another to backup the videos drive.
Click to expand...

So that I can get 500gb of storage. But the other array is backed up to that one so if it does die it's backed up. That's why I wasen't worried about using RAID 0.

I do have 3 external enclosures but the drives I was using in those are all dead.

And I do have room for 2 more drives without having to replace any. Maybe I should check out that windows home server?
 
You have enough hard drives you might manage some sort of a RAID 5 array, but you would lose a little maximum storage space, but if one drive dies you insert a new one and the "lost" data is rebuilt.

However, I'd suggest backing it all up on to a good external hard drive solution. You have so much data, short of buying a bluray setup, burning it onto plain ol' DVDs would take ages.
 
hyt3k9 said:
I picked up one of these about 2 weeks ago. Very nice solution for home use, no RAID administration required, flexible expansion without the need of same size disks or name brands. You can mix-match your SATA HDD's any way you want

Drobo
Click to expand...

That's an interesting device. Expensive though. Would be nice if it had ethernet.
 
Grab yourself a single large drive, dump all your stuff to it occsionaly, simple and cheap backup solution ftw.
 
Ockie said:
Grab yourself a single large drive, dump all your stuff to it occsionaly, simple and cheap backup solution ftw.
Click to expand...

Agreed, thats what I do, well sort of.

I use my old biggish drives as offline backup storage.
Its the best use for them as the only reason I take them out of service is in case the spindles/seek assembly start to wear out causing potential large data loss.
Used as an occasional backup solution, they will get hardly any extra wear so is the perfect use for older drives :)
 
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