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Started by niroshido | | 5 answers
Now i know what your thinking, this must be the most pointless topic ever but bare with me.
So here is my story, going back many years ago (almost 8 at the moment in time) i bought my first (and only) PC, about 1 year later my HDD took a skydive and had to be replaced, another two years later my next HDD went the way of the dinosaurs, and finally last year my backup storage went the same way, taking with it a harmful 1.3TB worth of backup data, music, movies and files. So as you can imagine it can be quite frustrating when you get hammered by so much data loss and it becomes difficult to ascertain just how much backup is needed.
To make things easier for the community to answer i will do my best to divide my questions regarding storage, backups and file organisation in sections.
Question 1: a single 4 TB backup HDD for all backups of data or four 1 TB backup HDD's and divide data up between the harddrives?
(this may sound stupid, why splash out on 4 hdd's when 1 could suffice and also less space taken up let alone the issues of the connectors and power requirements but it decreases the damage caused by the failure of one hdd am i right?)
Question 2: Backup storage, external or internal?
(one of the biggest losses of data occurred on a single 2 TB external hard drive, that got put in the attic during some renovations, after coming back down the drive couldn't be seen on the pc, even after taking it out of the external case and making it internal)
SSD's what size?
(So here is a dilemma, on your current SSHD, you have over 1TB worth of data, in sound libraries (which equals about 40% of that data (sound libraries take up a lot of space), the OS, applications, etc. so what do you do, buy a single expensive SSD and store everything on it since the SSD is faster and theoretically more reliable? or do you divide your data up between numerous drives, where do you draw the line in size and importance?)
How many backups is enough?
So yes you have a single backup of all your data and you say to yourself that you are now protected from a single fault, but are you? Is a single backup harddrive enough to stave away failure as unlikely as it may seem what happens if 2 or more hard drives die on you at the same time?
NAS or not to NAS?
So you think that maybe having all your storage on a single system is a smart idea, what happens if your computer melts or a surge of electricity fries your computer, what happens if there is an event that was solely isolated to only that location in the house, what then? should i invest on NAS or should i go through the rather painful process of uploading (excruciatingly slow upload speeds) to cloud storage and spent money on getting enough cloud storage to cover all potential data of course then you must consider the implications of having to re-download all your data in the chance you lost everything locally i.e. the download bill, the time needed to download etc.
anyways i think i asked enough and created a wall of text long enough to make even the most hardiest of readers weak. I hope my questions can be answered and want to say thanks for taking the time to read and reply.
So here is my story, going back many years ago (almost 8 at the moment in time) i bought my first (and only) PC, about 1 year later my HDD took a skydive and had to be replaced, another two years later my next HDD went the way of the dinosaurs, and finally last year my backup storage went the same way, taking with it a harmful 1.3TB worth of backup data, music, movies and files. So as you can imagine it can be quite frustrating when you get hammered by so much data loss and it becomes difficult to ascertain just how much backup is needed.
To make things easier for the community to answer i will do my best to divide my questions regarding storage, backups and file organisation in sections.
Question 1: a single 4 TB backup HDD for all backups of data or four 1 TB backup HDD's and divide data up between the harddrives?
(this may sound stupid, why splash out on 4 hdd's when 1 could suffice and also less space taken up let alone the issues of the connectors and power requirements but it decreases the damage caused by the failure of one hdd am i right?)
Question 2: Backup storage, external or internal?
(one of the biggest losses of data occurred on a single 2 TB external hard drive, that got put in the attic during some renovations, after coming back down the drive couldn't be seen on the pc, even after taking it out of the external case and making it internal)
SSD's what size?
(So here is a dilemma, on your current SSHD, you have over 1TB worth of data, in sound libraries (which equals about 40% of that data (sound libraries take up a lot of space), the OS, applications, etc. so what do you do, buy a single expensive SSD and store everything on it since the SSD is faster and theoretically more reliable? or do you divide your data up between numerous drives, where do you draw the line in size and importance?)
How many backups is enough?
So yes you have a single backup of all your data and you say to yourself that you are now protected from a single fault, but are you? Is a single backup harddrive enough to stave away failure as unlikely as it may seem what happens if 2 or more hard drives die on you at the same time?
NAS or not to NAS?
So you think that maybe having all your storage on a single system is a smart idea, what happens if your computer melts or a surge of electricity fries your computer, what happens if there is an event that was solely isolated to only that location in the house, what then? should i invest on NAS or should i go through the rather painful process of uploading (excruciatingly slow upload speeds) to cloud storage and spent money on getting enough cloud storage to cover all potential data of course then you must consider the implications of having to re-download all your data in the chance you lost everything locally i.e. the download bill, the time needed to download etc.
anyways i think i asked enough and created a wall of text long enough to make even the most hardiest of readers weak. I hope my questions can be answered and want to say thanks for taking the time to read and reply.
niroshido
July 24, 2014 1:33:20 AM
Interesting statements made. I will have to do an audit of my current drives and assess the true size and number of drives i will need but from the looks of it the following seem to make sense
1 SSD (256GB - 512GB) for the OS and Applications
1 SSD (256GB - 512GB) as a backup of the OS
1 HDD ( 1 TB - 2 TB) for Music, Movies, pictures and sound libraries
1 HDD ( 1 TB - 2 TB) for backup of the above data
offsite storage
some cloud services that i am aware of Dropbox(2.5 GB), OneDrive (15 GB), google drive (15 GB) as a tertiary backup solution
question here is, is it worth upgrading for additional storage, here is a breakdown of prices
OneDrive
15 GB FREE, 100 GB (1.99 Euros / month), 200 GB (3.99 Euros / month)
Dropbox
2.5 GB FREE, 100 GB (9.99 Euros / month), 200 GB (19.99 Euros / month), 500 GB (49.99 Euros / month)
GoogleDrive
15 GB FREE, 100 GB (1.99 / month), 1 TB (9.99 / month), 10 TB (99.99 / month), 20 TB (199.99 / month), 30 TB ( 299.99 / month)
from the above it's clear that Google has unbelievably good deals and storage availability that completely supersedes the rest, so the question is why, is there a catch and honestly is it worth it (the upload times are atrocious, i am talking completely diabolical a 2 GB upload took me 12 hours last time (that actually leads me to another question, is there a way to increase your upload speeds without having to contact your ISP and pay more money?)
anyways below is a rough average of potential storage requirements taken from some of the posts.
Total number of drives = 4
Total Storage capacity (excluding offsite storage) = 2.5 TB - 4.5 TB
1 SSD (256GB - 512GB) for the OS and Applications
1 SSD (256GB - 512GB) as a backup of the OS
1 HDD ( 1 TB - 2 TB) for Music, Movies, pictures and sound libraries
1 HDD ( 1 TB - 2 TB) for backup of the above data
offsite storage
some cloud services that i am aware of Dropbox(2.5 GB), OneDrive (15 GB), google drive (15 GB) as a tertiary backup solution
question here is, is it worth upgrading for additional storage, here is a breakdown of prices
OneDrive
15 GB FREE, 100 GB (1.99 Euros / month), 200 GB (3.99 Euros / month)
Dropbox
2.5 GB FREE, 100 GB (9.99 Euros / month), 200 GB (19.99 Euros / month), 500 GB (49.99 Euros / month)
GoogleDrive
15 GB FREE, 100 GB (1.99 / month), 1 TB (9.99 / month), 10 TB (99.99 / month), 20 TB (199.99 / month), 30 TB ( 299.99 / month)
from the above it's clear that Google has unbelievably good deals and storage availability that completely supersedes the rest, so the question is why, is there a catch and honestly is it worth it (the upload times are atrocious, i am talking completely diabolical a 2 GB upload took me 12 hours last time (that actually leads me to another question, is there a way to increase your upload speeds without having to contact your ISP and pay more money?)
anyways below is a rough average of potential storage requirements taken from some of the posts.
Total number of drives = 4
Total Storage capacity (excluding offsite storage) = 2.5 TB - 4.5 TB
Another consideration would be to have one of the backup drives stored off-site and rotate the drives for backups. This may not be the most practical way to do it (may be overkill) but I copy critical files (ones I don't want to lose or can't be easily replaced) to at least two other drives in addition to the backups.
niroshido
July 23, 2014 12:44:03 PM
Dereck47 said:
Your post is definitely not pointless.
Personally, enough storage for me is to have 50% or more capacity remaining with an internal backup drive and an external backup drive.
So if I were in your situation with 1.3TB of data then I would want a data drive (D) of 2TB, an internal backup drive (E) of 2TB, and an external backup drive (F) of 2TB.
So I would have a total of 6TB of storage.
I would have an SSD as my O/S drive (C) with a minimum capacity of 120GB. Same principle applies; I would want to have 50% or more capacity remaining after I have installed all of my software.
Thanks, that seems to make sense. btw, would you disconnect your external HDD when not being used?
Your post is definitely not pointless.
Personally, enough storage for me is to have 50% or more capacity remaining with an internal backup drive and an external backup drive.
So if I were in your situation with 1.3TB of data then I would want a data drive (D) of 2TB, an internal backup drive (E) of 2TB, and an external backup drive (F) of 2TB.
So I would have a total of 6TB of storage.
I would have an SSD as my O/S drive (C) with a minimum capacity of 120GB. Same principle applies; I would want to have 50% or more capacity remaining after I have installed all of my software.
Personally, enough storage for me is to have 50% or more capacity remaining with an internal backup drive and an external backup drive.
So if I were in your situation with 1.3TB of data then I would want a data drive (D) of 2TB, an internal backup drive (E) of 2TB, and an external backup drive (F) of 2TB.
So I would have a total of 6TB of storage.
I would have an SSD as my O/S drive (C) with a minimum capacity of 120GB. Same principle applies; I would want to have 50% or more capacity remaining after I have installed all of my software.
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