PCBONEZ wrote:

I would more blame that on using a chipset based RAID than the mode of RAID. I've tried several flavors of chipset based RAID an […]
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Snayperskaya wrote:

I've had a less than pleasant experience with a RAID-1 array this year, running on a desktop chipset controller. A client of me had its server down for two days because one of the disks on the RAID degraded without giving any advice and the second one failed completely. Good thing is the backup was up to date. That teached me on not trust solely on RAID, but keep monitoring disks via a 3rd party app anyway.

I would more blame that on using a chipset based RAID than the mode of RAID.
I've tried several flavors of chipset based RAID and none gave me a warm fuzzy.

Chipset based solutions try to pull off RAID using very little silicon (space in IC chips).
There is no way it can be as robust as a solution that uses an add-in card which has far more silicon for the purpose.
Add-in cards also have their own monitoring utilities and some (maybe all now) include automated email notification of any problems.
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I've been using the RAID1 + BU plan since the 90's in everything except laptops and it's saved the day several times.
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Yea. I though first the problem was on the HDDs (brand new Seagates DM series) and poor RAID implementation (although it's a Z77 Asus), but I was to blame since I didn't set up the Intel software that would allow me to keep a close eye on drives' health. My current job made me bit spoiled since I work with new, server-grade equipment (Dell and HP rackservers and blade systems) and forgot I couldn't trust basic SATA drives to have enterprise reliability. 😵

Snayperskaya wrote:

Yea. I though first the problem was on the HDDs (brand new Seagates DM series) and poor RAID implementation (although it's a Z77 Asus), but I was to blame since I didn't set up the Intel software that would allow me to keep a close eye on drives' health. My current job made me bit spoiled since I work with new, server-grade equipment (Dell and HP rackservers and blade systems) and forgot I couldn't trust basic SATA drives to have enterprise reliability. 😵

I look at things like that as so:
People learn best by making mistakes.
Therefore: Experts are the people that have made the most mistakes and learned from them.
You are now more of an expert than you were before.
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Zup wrote:

It's not that 5400 are slow, it's that Caviar Green HDDs feels sluggish, and the performance feels unpredictable. Sometimes they work fast, sometimes they feels slooooooow.

Yes. The Greens have firmware implementations to save power and that does make them sluggish.
Green and Slug goes together pretty well.
Perhaps they should nicknamed "Green Slugs" in the enthusiast community.

I have an automated spreadsheet I made that calculates what I call the "Happy Factor" from the info found in reviews at sites like of Amazon and Newegg.
Basically It takes the number of 1 thru 5 scores and outputs the ratio of happy to sad buyers - as one number.
Much easier to compare competing products with one number than it is with charts that have 5 numbers.
Can be used for any product. Can be used from any review site. Works better if there at at least 50 and preferably over 100 reviews.
HDDs is one I focus on and explore six ways from Sunday a few times a year.
Some generalizations.
Buyers were 2+ times happier with IDE 40-120Gb drives than with current models. (Indicating drives have gotten shittier overall.)
Seagate went to crap several years ago and they are having trouble getting their mojo back.
The lower end WD offerings are only slightly better than the average Seagate.
People were happier with SATA 500GB and below than with anything larger. (Indicating drives get worse as size goes up.)
People were happier with SATA 1Tb than with anything larger. (Indicating drives get worse as size goes up.)
For 2Tb, 3Tb and 4Tb people were happier with drives less than 4Tb. (Indicating drives get worse as size goes up.)
For 2Tb, 3Tb and 4Tb NAS drives the Seagate ST_000vn000 are better than WD-Red. (Only Seagate that did good.)
- I repeat - Those are generalizations.

Zup wrote:

So the safest bet for me is a WD Caviar Black but it's expensive. What HDD would you recommend?

WD Caviar Black or RE series.

Zup wrote:

Are Seagate drives reliable again?.

Only the mentioned NAS series.
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PCBONEZ wrote:

I'm with tayyare & clueless1 on this. . Speed is nice but FAR less important to me than reliability and storage volume. . […]
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I'm with tayyare & clueless1 on this.
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Speed is nice but FAR less important to me than reliability and storage volume.
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I agree with this completely. To me reliability (and stability) is most important, I'd rather have to wait a few seconds longer than having to chase down allk sorts of downloads from dead links just because some storage device was fast but went dead on me.

So what backup solutions are people using now? BD-Rs? Tape is dead I guess.

Errius wrote:

So what backup solutions are people using now? BD-Rs? Tape is dead I guess.

Depending on the amount of data and available internet connection, there is cloud storage.

Tape is NOT dead. Just outside the consumer space.

Errius wrote:

So what backup solutions are people using now? BD-Rs? Tape is dead I guess.

I have dedicated machines to store backups on. "Machine" AKA: A NAS or File Server.

HVD was pretty promising back then - 1TB/disc. Too bad they didn't get past prototypes.

I used to backup my stuff on CDs, then DVDs. But it isn't as practical as HDDs, so I dropped this after almost 300 discs or so.

alexanrs wrote:

Errius wrote:

So what backup solutions are people using now? BD-Rs? Tape is dead I guess.

Depending on the amount of data and available internet connection, there is cloud storage.

Even if my bandwidth allotment were large enough I would not trust storing my data on a server managed by someone I don't know (who may like stealing data or identities) working for some company that may decide to cut costs by skimping on security measures or by using cheap hardware.
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IMHO "The Cloud" is risky.
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On backups.
All you need is a basic file server to dump the files onto. A NAS is really just a basic file server.
All they do is move and store files. That doesn't take much.
The hardware requirements are minimal and except for the drives themselves the hardware doesn't cost much.
- Minimal CPU. A P3-500 would do it. (Though it's just too easy to do better than that to not do so.)
- Don't need much RAM in this kind of server because it's not serving multiple people.
- A large LAN bandwidth is very nice but not strictly necessary.
- RAID cards with multiple ports are cheap up to 16 ports (if you know what to look for) and you don't HAVE to use the RAID functions.
- Said RAID cards can be found that work in PCI conventional, PCI-X and PCI-E slots - so many platform options.
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IMHO a NAS doesn't replace the need for an off-site backup. If your house burns down you can lose decades worth of data because everything was in the same place.

alexanrs wrote:

IMHO a NAS doesn't replace the need for an off-site backup. If your house burns down you can lose decades worth of data because everything was in the same place.

Off-site backup only works if you have a local and remote copy. Otherwise you're back to a single point of failure.
So, you still need a local server.

Lets see.
My house has burned down zero times in 56 years.
In the last 3 years my CC numbers have been stolen via some retailer stupid enough to use a cloud solution 4 times.
So, I don't even use the cloud and lax cloud security manages to screw me on average more than once a year.
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Shitting 8-10 Tb a month through the Internet isn't going to work for me.
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And believe it or not servers ARE portable so if you are concerned about off-site BU storage then move one elsewhere.
I do that twice a year. - Which is twice a often as I'd like to see my Mother-in-law.
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There are some disk based backup systems like RDX (not the explosive). Those "RDX cartridges" are portable, but I don't think they're much better than buying some USB HDDs.

Errius wrote:

So what backup solutions are people using now? BD-Rs? Tape is dead I guess.

I backup the videos I make to DVD-Rs and BD-Rs, along with all of the raw footage and material which goes into making them. You can buy archival-quality BD-Rs, but they're very expensive and unnecessary so long as you take good care of your writable discs by keeping them out of direct sunlight and such. Also, avoid LTH-Type BD-Rs as their live expectancy is absolutely terrible.

For all other files like game saves, programming code, artwork, etc., I just use a USB flash stick with a batch file on it targeting specific directories and only copying over files which have been modified since the previous run of the batch file. :B

Do you use Opti Drive Control or similar to check DVD-R and BD-R burn quality? I've done this for years, unfortunately compatible drives no longer seem to be manufactured.

PCBONEZ wrote:

I'm with tayyare & clueless1 on this. . Speed is nice but FAR less important to me than reliability and storage volume. . Curren […]
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I'm with tayyare & clueless1 on this.
.
Speed is nice but FAR less important to me than reliability and storage volume.
.
Currently I use WD Blacks or RE series on 3Ware, Adaptec or Promise RAID cards in RAID-1 in everything except temporary test setups and laptops.
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My RAID arrays are all chipset based and/or sometimes not so pricey Marvell cards. They are always RAID 1 though, so I'm not expecting any "cheapness" related stupid things to happen (dissolve the array and you have two normally readable disks in a moment). I love reliability, nut have a limited budget at the end. 😀

As other people also suggested, I also have backups (WD Mybook externals of several different makes). Two copies of each critical data sets, in fact.

Errius wrote:

Do you use Opti Drive Control or similar to check DVD-R and BD-R burn quality? I've done this for years, unfortunately compatible drives no longer seem to be manufactured.

Actually, all I do is burn at the minimum speeds my drive can handle (4x for both DVD and BD-R) and have my burning software verify the files are written properly. Given that most of what I burn to disc is online in some fashion I'm not being extra-picky about these backups being 100% flawless, but I'm still taking as many steps as I can to make them as good as I can.

Everything critical goes onto my USB flash memory device and I kinda want to get a second one at some point so I can alternate between the two and have a redundant backup one session behind as a result. :B