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Currently I have about 1.5tb worth of videos on my computer that I want to keep for a very long time.

The HDD im using now to store them is one of those Seagate 7200.11 1.5tb drives that have been failing non stop for the past year or so.

I want to expand my data storage to about 4tb or so and mirrored via raid if possible.

Now after a little looking around I found that this will take no less than 4 2tb HDDs and I will have to put them in what i think is RAID 1+0 or is it 0+1?

Now the problem is putting them in the computer or buying a RAID box.

From what i read online if one day i need to move the internal raid to another computer im going to run into problems unless its same/similar bios/raid controller etc.

Now if I buy a 4 bay raid box that problem should be non existent as well but at a cost of atleast $700-800 total

Now my real question is do I need to go this far?

I could get by with buying just 1 2tb drive right now and having enough storage to last me a while by basically splitting the load between that and my 1.5tb but i keep having this feeling in the back of my head that the new drive is going to fail as happens with many many many drives lately.

Any advise would be greatly appreciated as well as any recommendations as to what kind of RAID box i should be looking for as well as good quality 2tb drives.

Thanks in advance.

Edit* Im thinking about a Raid Box like this one:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/ite...

These have built in RAID controllers so it wont be a problem swapping computers right?

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Anonymous

I would recommend RAID 5. RAID 1 requires direct mirroring. So in this case, you would have 4 TB of storage. RAID 5 would give you 6 GB of storage. This is a little less reliable because RAID 5 will fail if more than one drive fails at the same time. In RAID 1, up to two drives can fail (as long as it's not both the original and the mirror of the same data).

Personally, I don't think it's particularly cost effective to run this type of storage for just videos, especially if you're not leveraging the additional speed of RAID. I mean if you're just accessing a few videos a week or something, then you don't really need to RAID your drives. Just use the duplicate drives as physical backups and don't keep them running. It's less sexy and you get less geek cred, but the alternative is splurging on another $400 to get your RAID up and running.

The only problem with that suggestion (which i agree with) is that my collection will surpass 2tb by the end of the year and it continues to grow.

Ontop of that i am a huuuge video freak and i watch them any and every change i get.

I simply love to collect as well and the idea of losing anything kills me.

its not really about being flashy or getting geek cred, for the most part its about the space i need and not having to worry about crappy quality control.

** i just found these drives on newegg... After a promo code i can get as many as i want w/ a $30 discount

4 of them would cost me $440

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

My biggest concern is the quality of 2tb drives in general and which raid box to get because I have 0 experience w/ internal RAID let alone external.
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For all your concerns, you should stay away from (internal or PCI card) RAID, either 1+0, 0+1, or 5. RAID is not a backup! And in several case, if one drive fails, you loose everything. And yes, if you get a new computer, chances are the drives WILL NOT transfer over. You could copy it over, which would cost you more drives.

This is information overkill: RAID - Wikipedia

Quote from article above:

Quote:
A RAID system used as a main drive is not a replacement for backing up data.


And, if I'm not mistaken, Windows (even 7) has a 2TB limit on a RAID array, or hard drive size. If you RAID 2x2TB drives, you'll be over the max, and be out ALOT of storage space! Here is a thread about that.

I'd go will adding a new drive, 2TB, and saving all your new vids there. IMHO: It'll be the easiest, cheapest, and safest thing to do right now.

Now, the only problem I see is how do you backup all that precious data? Have you though of that?
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