what storage do i need

hass71

hello

can you please give me an suggestion for my storage problem
I've video and data total about 5TB and I'm increasing 2TB/year
what can do the job, knowing that i use the data mainly for archive and i get back to it when i have project
so i was thinking of tape drive and tapes????

shant

get a blueray burner and burn some bluerays, or get more hdd

Nabs

We have a lot of files, like A LOT, and we found it best as Shant mentioned, to burn on BD. 50GB ones are like 4$ now and more reliable than HDDs. HDDs can get damaged all the sudden and BAM, there goes all your data. The best solution we could come up with was get 2 BD writers, and make 2 copies at the same time of the same data.

Gamer

5 TB = 50 GB (Dual Layer) x 100 Disks ; Every year 2 TB = 40 Disks

5 TB = 25 GB (Single Layer) x 200 Disks (I'm guessing that this is the 4 dollars a pop), totals approx $800; Every Year 2 TB = 80 Disks ($320)

This is going to cost a lot and you would have to organize 280 BD (560 if you do backup), you have to think about cost/benefit theory,

Get an external Network HDD with RAID Controller, and make sure that the drives are removable, aka NAS

These are available in Lebanon, just Google NAS
Newegg
Amazon

Nabs

If data is valuable, you may risk losing it all in a glimpse with a hard drive, no? Yes, a hard drive is easier and costs less, but on the longer run, a BD is safer.

Gamer

not with RAID, and a ups with stabilizer
Depending on which raid you use, RAID 5 For example, uses 3 HDD for one, if one is damaged and lost the other 2 fill in the gap
more info here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

hass71

why no one mentioned the tape drive, ain't it worth to consider a solution

AvoK95

Nabs wroteWe have a lot of files, like A LOT, and we found it best as Shant mentioned, to burn on BD. 50GB ones are like 4$ now and more reliable than HDDs. HDDs can get damaged all the sudden and BAM, there goes all your data. The best solution we could come up with was get 2 BD writers, and make 2 copies at the same time of the same data.

Note that the bigger the data the easier it will get corrupted on an optical disk (Suck as Blueray disks)
You're better off buying a storage server.

Gamer

hass71 wrotewhy no one mentioned the tape drive, ain't it worth to consider a solution

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tape_drive

Reliability

Gartner Group estimated that 10 to 50 percent of all tape restores fail. Storage Magazine and Gartner reported that 34% of surveyed companies never test a restore from tape, and of those that do test, 77% experienced tape backup failures.[2]

this is a 3tb
http://www.fujifilmusa.com/products/tape_data_storage/midrange_tape/lto/lto_ultrium_5/index.html

Joe

Tape drives

Pros:
None really, unless you're dealing with extremely large, extremely critical files. (like the backup dump of your corporate database).

Cons
- Difficult to maintain.
- Very expensive.
- Slow to add/extract data.

Tape drives are professional solutions aimed at businesses. Forget about them, it's not for you.

RAID

Pros
- Easy to maintain.
- Easy to expand.
- Cheap(-er).
- Safe: a corrupt disc doesn't mean lost data.

Cons
- (More) Difficult to set up.
- Lots of wasted space.
- More difficult to store.

RAID seems to be the best idea. If you know how to set it up.

BluRay

Pros
- Easy to store.
- Ideal for small files.
- Easy to transport/share with others.

Cons
- Difficult to organize (you'll have 100+ discs).
- Slower than a disk.
- More expensive.
- Longer to convert the existing 5TB. It will take ages.

BluRay are a very good idea, but not for such large data. 5TB is huge. BluRay is good for 300~500GB.

One last advice

You ask about hardware, these are the common solutions. But you should know that backup solutions are more than just buying hardware. You have to set up a system. I could go into it some other time, but act responsibly and you'll never lose data :)

hass71

but when having yearly increase with 2TB no NAS will do the job, i'll have to buy disks each year and if i've raid then the migration will be a problem , while tape drives is not that hard to maintain and cheaper

Gamer

There is a another solution, is Online Backup, its costly but you insure no data lost, or maintenance cost.

Helpful Link
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2288745,00.asp

Gamer

hass71 wrotebut when having yearly increase with 2TB no NAS will do the job, i'll have to buy disks each year and if i've raid then the migration will be a problem , while tape drives is not that hard to maintain and cheaper

your going to buy tape drives every year too, you can configure raid 0, 1 and get the mirror effect (cloned),
and with NAS you can add HDD to it, (some up to 5).

but in the end it is your choice, if you feel more comfortable with Tape Drives then go for it,I recommend the product above.

FYI Fujifilm made a 70TB back in Jan 2010, but said wont be available for a decade, and most of the tape drives are for business.

Does anyone know a better brand?

hass71

online backup isn't safe at all, and with the internet that we have in Lebanon , it'll make a lot of problems,
any NAS suggestions?

AvoK95

You can get a BlackArmor™ NAS 400 Network Storage Server and some 3TB HDD's and RAID them and you'll have TB's of storage.

hass71

i was looking at blackarmor NAS 440

AvoK95

They all do the same job at the end of it all.

shant

never heard of tape drives guys, anyway, they have a point about blueray, you need a lot of hard drives in raid 1

edit, are hvd drives to be released soon? if so you can go with that

Gamer

shant wrotenever heard of tape drives guys, anyway, they have a point about blueray, you need a lot of hard drives in raid 1

edit, are hvd drives to be released soon? if so you can go with that

I don't believe so, cause they are a dying technology, since there is no direct demand for it.

Also i agree with AvoK95, Blackarmor NAS is the most appropriate choice, we were considering getting it to backup our data, (we later shifted to a server with RAID)

Also by next year HDD Would be cheaper and bigger capacity
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/enterprise-hard-drives/constellation-es/

shant

in that case i don't know an alternative technology, sorry