Better options for backup

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IInuyasha74

IInuyasha74

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May 1, 2013
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Hello,

I currently have a RAID 5 setup with 4HDDs which are mix matched. I've been told by a lot of people in my last post asking for information on RAID 5 that RAID 5 is a terrible setup for a backup. I don't really have enough money at the moment to implement another method of backup but would like info on better options for a backup so whenever I get the funds I can go ahead and buy it.

Currently I have:
2xWD Green 2TB
1x Samsung 2TB
1xWD SE 3TB

I also have two external 1TB drives that can be used for temporary storage and a Blu-ray drive though optical disks aren't really reliable.

Thanks in advance.
 
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IInuyasha74
I decided to enable NTFS compression on my SSD and current RAID array. You can only imagine the amount of time that is taking, especially since the process is only using 5% of my CPU power. It saved me a good 20GB on my SSD, hoping it will cut at least 100GB off my RAID. Then I think I plan for the time being to move everything off the RAID, break the connection, remove the two WD Green HDDs and back everything up onto them for the time being. This way I can go ahead and have a safe backup, and sit those off in a nice safe place. Then whenever I save up and buy the 4TB I will just transfer everything off of them onto it, and start using those again.

I figure this gives me the safest protection for the time being, and an easy way to...
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J

jimpz

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Jan 20, 2012
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Basically RAID is NOT a back up , it it for keeping your data accessible in spite of a hdd failure. A back up NEEDS to be a separate copy on it's own hard drive, preferably not in the same system. A raid is still susceptible to a computer/software/hardware failure that can destroy your data
While a raid of hard drives works, most secure results are down with using identical drives (down to the MFG's firmware). Small difference may cause issues down the road (or may not),
But you should implement some type of REAL backup procedure.
 
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IInuyasha74

IInuyasha74

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May 1, 2013
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Well fortunately I know the RAID at least can be migrated from one system to another. I have a backup Z77 motherboard which used to be my main and I set up the RAID originally on it, then after buying this motherboard it auto-picked up and organized. So I feel fairly safe against system failure, software failure, everything except multiple HDD failure.

I think you are right about the non-identical drives causing problems. Its stable and works, but it reads data extremely slow. If I am watching a video off it while transffering files to it, it lags on the video.

I have a hot-swap slot on the front of the system, so I can buy a few 4TB HDDs and keep everything backed up that way for just about $200 but felt that would be a bit wasteful since I would have high end drives just sitting on a table. Though I suppose I could do that and once these drives inside my PC die, I could put those in and just buy some new backups.
 
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bluejayek

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At least buy a cheap 1-2TB USB drive to back up your more important files.

One thing RAID does not protect you at all against is viruses / User error deleting files. Having a completely separate copy not connected to your computer will protect you from this at least.
 
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jimpz

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It's good you are able to migrate your raid, but having worked for a good size raid company, never depend that a raid can be migrated to anything but an identical setup, some mfg's are good at continuation along their products, but some mfg's (mobo's/controllers/software) change enough that this is not always true, hence my concern.
 
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IInuyasha74

IInuyasha74

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May 1, 2013
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I can understand that. It might work with this other motherboard but still things are pretty limited. I will do like bluejayek said and use one of my 1TB externals to backup key important data, disperse some files across my network to other computers and then that will get my most important files backed up until I can buy some 4TB drives for backup.

Thanks for the help guys.
 
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kanewolf

kanewolf

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May 29, 2013
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You probably have about 3TB usable space in your RAID5. A single USB3 and eSATA 4TB external disk would be a good choice. You will only get one or two backups on it. With 3TB to backup, at a sustained write rate of 75MB/s (optimistic) it will take about 12 hours to do a backup.
 
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IInuyasha74

IInuyasha74

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May 1, 2013
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I've actually have about 4TB used of the 5.4TB available. That is part of why I am revisiting the backup issue, I only planned RAID 5 as a temporary solution and breaking the RAID 5 would expand my internal storage to about 8TB of usable space.
On a positive side I have a hot-swap port on the front of my case which means I could run at full Sata III speeds, but the RAID seems to limit that a lot of times.

Anyways that is why I am wondering about this
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B99JU4S/?tag=pcpapi-20
 
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kanewolf

kanewolf

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The lower RPM of that drive shouldn't be too much of a limiting factor. If you use backup software that has compression (don't know how compressible your data is), and a fast CPU, you can trade CPU cycles for write throughput. Compression also will reduce the total amount of data written. Obviously, compressed files (mp4, jpeg, etc) will not benefit.
 
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IInuyasha74

IInuyasha74

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May 1, 2013
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Well its about 1.8TB of video files, 70GB music, 1.4TB game files (about 300GB of that is STEAM stuff I won't bother to backup on the 4TB because I can just re-download them from STEAM. I just keep them copied so I can switch them on and off my SSD without waiting for a download but its not such a big deal if they are lost), then about another 600GB or so in pictures, software, and books etc. So I am not sure how much using a Winrar to compress them will help. Guess I could test and find out. I have an i7-3770k at 4.4Ghz with 16GB of RAM so compression is usually pretty fast for me. Can probably fit it all in one 4TB that I have now.
 
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kanewolf

kanewolf

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I would recommend adding $50 for Acronis if you don't have it. Allow you to automate what you want to backup and when.
 
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IInuyasha74

IInuyasha74

Splendid
May 1, 2013
6,333
18
27,965
I decided to enable NTFS compression on my SSD and current RAID array. You can only imagine the amount of time that is taking, especially since the process is only using 5% of my CPU power. It saved me a good 20GB on my SSD, hoping it will cut at least 100GB off my RAID. Then I think I plan for the time being to move everything off the RAID, break the connection, remove the two WD Green HDDs and back everything up onto them for the time being. This way I can go ahead and have a safe backup, and sit those off in a nice safe place. Then whenever I save up and buy the 4TB I will just transfer everything off of them onto it, and start using those again.

I figure this gives me the safest protection for the time being, and an easy way to grow my storage space. Not to mention whenever the drives in my PC do die out, I can just buy new large HDDs (4TB or 6TB whatever is out at that time) and make use of the old backup drive. That way my backup is always the newest hard drive, I get my usage out of the HDDs I already have, and again I get a nice easy method for expansion and replacement.

Thanks for the suggestion about Acronis, but I don't plan to keep the drives connected so I'm not sure Acronis will work well for me. Besides most of the files I am backing up will not change so it should be easy to maintain by hand.

Thanks everyone for the advice I really appreciate it.
 
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