maxfior

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Dec 16, 2003
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I must admit, I have found a product to get excitied about. I was able to build my own backup RAID/NAS server for cheap using this thing called a "reByte." I do not know if any one else has heard about it, but I'd figure I would post about it. If anyone else out there is interested in a super cheap backup solution, try this link, It'll give you $5.00 off a "reByte" kit. I am pretty pleased with mine and it looks like it uses some sort of BSD linux, anyone else out there seen this? here is that link:

http://store.yahoo.com/cgi-bin/clink?rebyte+ACSTdq+index.html+mrb10105
 

riser

Illustrious
I've heard of these. They're alright, nothing to get that excited about though. There is a downfall to them though.
It runs a PCI card based mirror or RAID5 through software I think. Meaning the software decides where to put the data on your hard drives instead of the hardware deciding. The major downfall is that if your hard drive holding your OS dies, your data is probably lost. Now, if your software is corrupted, you might be able to pull a restore off your backup. The backup is software based and not hardware, which can be a problem and software RAIDs are not recommended.
BUT!
For a cheap backup, this will work should the extreme not happen.
I just glanced at it and don't have the time to do research on it, but I have to believe it's so cheap because it's software based.

Riser
 

maxfior

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Dec 16, 2003
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Riser,

Interesting comments... Question for you though. The acutal reByte unit has some sort of linux embeded on a 64MB compact flash card. So, would this still make it software raid, even though linux is doing all the hardware raid like functions? From some research that I did, the only thing on the hard drives (2 or more) would be real data and, it is in a native format. So if a drive would die, another could be dropped in to resync and data would be redundent. I really like mine, and I seriously urge people to look at this as a NAS/backup solution. Every computer geek like myself has lots of junk boxes lying around... might as well spend a few bucks and make it really work it. Check the above link that I posted for the people that are interested, you can save some $$$ on your order, I've been running mine for quite some time now and love it. Riser, I think you would be pretty impressed too. I only bought mine since they have a 30 day money back deal if you don't like it... but... I did, so I kept mine. Really nothing to loose, other then spending a few bills. Keeping data safe is critical! Any other comments are welcome, I like hearing every side! See ya later...
 

riser

Illustrious
I don't know about that flash card. You can find out easily though. Unhook your master hard drive (Your OS one) and plug in another one with an OS on. If you boot up and can see your other drives (may require you to rebuild the set) it works as a hardware. If you can't see anything or it can't rebuild the set, it works as software.
Without having one to test out myself (and by not reading more information on the device) this might be the best way to figure out how safe your data actually is.

By doing this you're acting as if you're main hard drive with your OS died, so you have to put a new one in with a fresh OS. A software RAID would be lost unless Windows 2000/XP would be able to recover the lost sets, a hardware one would just need to rebuild and would be fine.

Riser
 

maxfior

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Dec 16, 2003
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Riser,

First off, thanks for the reply. I understand what you are saying about the software RAID completely. But here is the thing. The actual rebyte device is plugged to IDE0 Master. The first hard drive is IDE0 SLAVE. Followed by (HD2) IDE1 Master. The OS is on the compact flash card. SO, I think that the OS "is" controling the array. But unless the CF card would die, I would think that the data would be fine. since the OS is on the CF card, but who knows. I'll do some testing and let you know... thanks again!