Tell the world how you store your local photo archive. If you’re using some other device, post a comment and sing it’s praises. If you thinking of changing your current device, tell the world why and see what’s so special about the other options.
Tags: Drobo, Photo Archive, ReadyNAS, Storage
Poll: What’s Your Local Photo Archive Storage Device? | FocalPower…the blog…
Tell the world how you store your local photo archive. If you’re using some other device, post a comment and sing it’s praises. If you thinking of changing your current device, tell the world why and see what’s so special about the other option…
I use a Thecus YES N2100 with Mirrored drives for my main ‘non-working’ storage. Working archives are stored on mirrored internal drives on my desktop machine and then I sync those (Microsoft SyncToy) nightly to two Thermaltake BlacX USB housings with SATA Drives.
When I leave the house I take one of those external drives with me wherever I go. This gives me off-site storage in case there is a disaster that destroys my computer and also gives me a drive to work with while on the road.
With all of that, my non-working storage on the YES N2100’s is also copied off to old SATA or IDE drives for off-site storage. No matter if you backup on CD, DVD or HDD, disasters can happen. Floods, fire, weather. Make sure your images are off-site in a secured location.
I have a ReadyNAS NV+ and when I recently upgraded my drives from 500 Gig to 750 Gig, I struck on a simple backup solution for the old drives. I purchased a VanTec NexStar Hard Drive Dock which is a $40 device that attaches to the ReadyNAS via USB. I then simply plug in the old drives into the doc, run a backup script on the NAS and when the backup is done I store the drives in my fireproof safe.
There are a number of hard drive docks like this that all do the same thing. The end result is a secure backup, a use for my old drives, and a backup solution with very low swapping of cables etc.
I consolidated a dozen Connex RAID systems to a couple of Buffalo TeraStations in a RAID5 configuration. I’ve since survived two drive failures but a software bug caused me to lose a lot of data. Yes, the bug is now fixed but still…. Currently, I am nearly out of room and am looking for a faster, more reliable, and scalable solution. With the fall in drive prices, I think mirroring may be a better option than RAID5.
One 7Tb Xserve RAID configured with RAID 5 for storing with 1Tb LaCie disk for really important backups. Waiting to save enough dough to get another Xserve RAID as backup.
I used to use several daisychained external hard drives but then moved to a ReadyNas NV+ with 1GB drives. Will be getting the new Readynas Pro next with 1.5TB drives (w/6 bays!).