Seeking information on external HD storage

[dogberryjr]

I wonder if someone can point me toward a tutorial on external hard drive storage. I'm quickly running out of room on my iMac's internal HD and am considering stepping up to a 4tb RAID, but I am getting way over my head here. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated, and if I've left out any pertinent information, please let me know and I'll fill it in.

 

[f16sunshine]

I use a a pair of 3TB seagate usb3 drives at the moment to back up my iMac and a 3rd to back up my Macbook air.
The air does not have Photo Archives on it so less crucial.

Once the 3T's are 90% full I will buy another pair, put one of these into a SDB and leave the other at the ready.

In an earlier era I used a 2TB Raid system. I like my new concept better as it's much less expensive and I find it physically more flexible.

I like the USB3 3Terra Seagate. Costco sells them for about $100 each. Others brands are probably fine.
They are fast and seamless as well as portable.
I simply BU to both. One can leave the house while the other remains safe at home.

I also Back up completed edits to Flickr. Not sure how safe this is although safe storage is not the primary reason I put the files there.

Cheers!

 

[dcsang]

I'll respond - just not right now - too busy - but as you have an iMac (as do I) I can provide, hopefully, some useful advice for you in this area.

Cheers,
Dave

 

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

I'm quickly running out of room on my iMac's internal HD

To do this on a Mac is a doddle. I store all my data on external drives, so that failures of the internal drive do not destroy the data. As drives have got bigger, I've also taken to partitioning internal drives so there are, in effect, two "drives" in the Mac: about one hundred GB for the operating system and programs, the rest for data.

I then use Carbon Copy Cloner to copy my data to multiple backups.

None of this is difficult on a Mac. Let us know what is confusing you and I'm sure we can help.

 

[kxl]

This site will illustrate the different RAID configurations. http://www.acnc.com/raid

I used to have a RAID 0 set up, using an array from Buffalo, but I have since migrated all my JPG's and TIF files to my website's host (where I have unlimited storage) and RAW files (for which my web host charges me) to a couple of Seagate 2TB external drives.

 

[Steve M.]

I like WD for hard drives. Very good equipment. On the other hand I have an ancient, cheap Omega HD that's going on 12 years now, so maybe the brand name isn't that important.

I think we should all get our images out of these devices and onto our walls where they can be seen. An image file locked into a HD is worse than worthless. It's the very definition of valueless. When I went to a full darkroom I did two things....first, I threw away every inkjet print I'd ever made, and two, all of my negs are now kept in clear sleeves to print them long after I am dead and gone. Nowadays, when I turn off the computer I can still see my images. Amazing. Who would have thunk it? The word photograph means to graphically make images with light (everything sounds and tastes better in Italian). Hard drives do not fit into this definition.

 

[Darthfeeble]

I don't know about RAID stuff, but I have two external HDs connected to my iMac via usb. I have a copy of my "Photographs" folder on each and monthly update the backup. Also on the 3TB drive in a separate partition lives the "Time Machine" so I am triple backed up.

 

[dogberryjr]

Good information so far, thanks! I already use one external HD for system back-up (Time Machine), and another to store all of my music, but I've been piling all of my photos through Lightroom and onto the Mac's HD, so instead of adding yet another HD, I was considering going the RAID route.

 

[willie_901]

Think about purchasing drives that make full use of the quickest ports on your Mac. This might be FireWire (support is fading), USB 3 (most common fast port) or even Thundebolt (warp speed but expensive).

Another tip would be to leave you LR Catalog(s) on your internal HD. Just move the Image Library to the new HD. Fast access to the Catalog enhances performance. As an aside, when your new external HD is up and running, move the LR Image Lbrary from the internal drive to the external drive using LR. This way LR will keep track of the new locations automatically.

The only thing you need to be aware of is, when you back up your new external HD, your LR Catalog(s) will be backed up to a different place (whereever your internal HD back up resides). You could set up LR so it's Catalog back up goes to you new external HD. This is what I do. In this case you have 4 copies of your LR Catalogs: 1 on your internal HD, 2 on your internal HD back up, 3 on the external drive and 4 on the external HD back up (or Raid in your case). Given the values of a LR Catalog, having four copies is not a luxury.

 

[dcsang]

Ok.. let's see...
RAID should be considered only if you feel you need redundant storage.
RAID is not a "backup" solution or should not be used as a backup solution

If you are going to use external HDs for storage and you want to leave those HDs on 100% of the time, I strongly suggest you purchase NAS based hard drives and NOT "green" drives (regardless of HD manufacturer). This is more important since you have an iMac.

What you may want to consider is a NAS with the option of RAID. A relatively inexpensive option would be the D-Link DNS-320L at about $100 excluding HDs. This will allow for a large amount of storage offline while also allowing you to determine if you really require RAID functionality.

You could also invest in something more robust (QNAP, Synology, etc.) systems which can also perform daily/weekly/monthly backup jobs, allow for NAS and RAID but these systems do cost more $$$.

Cheers,
Dave

 

[dcsang]

To Willie's point re: ports - I opted to use the Thunderbolt port while using LaCie's Thunderbolt-to-eSATA adapter - ya.. it's expensive.. but it is UBER fast for transfers to/from the external storage.

Cheers,
Dave

 

[dogberryjr]

My fastest port is Firewire 800, but I'm not opposed to using something with a faster option for whenever I replace my current Mac. I was looking to consolidate to a single drive (or array of drives more precisely), which is what brought me to the RAID option. I'm going to have to digest all the info so far, especially Dave's suggestion of the NAS device (to show how out of my league I am here, I'll confess I had to look up NAS, heh).

 

[Corran]

I recently built an "unRaid" server. I have 10TB of storage, and all I used was some spare computer components and 6 2TB drives (about $600). unRaid is free for 3 drives or less. My original configuration was 3 2TB drives with a total storage of 4TB, but you could use larger drives to get more real storage.

It was pretty easy to configure. I highly recommend it. You can find my whole thread at the Large Format Photography Forum about it if you are interested. It's not really RAID but similar, and uses a parity drive.