i am interested in purchasing a new hard setup so that i can have more room, and have everything a bit more safer than my current setup. I have about 1 TB of video on daisychained FW400 drives, which i dont want to lose.


I was thinking of doing the ReadyNAS NV+, but I think i would prefer something that directly connects to my imac via FW400 so that it will be more responsive when i browse my files via apple remote.

I also want to make sure i can use it with raid-x so that its easy to upgrade.

any ideas?

might be good if it has other connection options too, like FW800 or ethernet so i have multiple options in the future.

I have a ReadyNAS and feel the performance is ok. It's faster than a USB 2.0 drive and it's convenient to have it sit on a gigabit network. If you don't need a NAS, there is the Drobo which has received many favorable reviews. My problem with the Drobo is that it's USB and there's no network port. Regardless of the specs, USB 2.0 is dog slow compared to FW 400/800 and gigabit ethernet. There are also NV+ competitors, one that is faster than the ReadyNAS but apparently has poor firmware (it's name eludes me at the moment).

I think a ReadyNAS would be ideal for your situation, but I understand the preference for a FW drive.

NetGear has purchased Infrant, so it's possible that there will be a new product on the horizon. Or it could be that they'll kill off the NV+ and replace it with something more along the lines of the Terrastation or the other Maxtor, WD types of "raid" devices. That would be a huge mistake, but I can see it happening.

OWC
http://www.macsales.com

Mercury Elite-AL Pro
Dual-drive FireWire enclosure that is bundled with a good software-based RAID solution by SoftRAID. It's a very nice enclosure with a quiet fan, and one model supports FW 800/400/USB 2. You can buy cases with drives already installed or an empty case. Apparently, Apple's built-in OS X RAID is based on SoftRAID, which is more full-featured. Hardware-based RAIDs like the Ready NAS NV+ are supposed to be faster, already support X-RAID features, arguably may be more reliable, but they also are more expensive.

The Mercury Elite-AL Pro has two FireWire 800 ports, but only one FireWire 400 port (my only complaint about the product). This limits daisy-chaining if you are connecting it to a G4 server, which won't have FireWire 800). Can you reliably dasiy-chain another Mercury Elite Pro via FW800 if the original is connected to the computer via FW400? I do not know and haven't tried this...The USB 2 port is not very important to most Mac users, but it may be to PC users who don't always have computers with FireWire.

A SoftRAID upgrade (to v4.0) is in the works, and supposedly, it will include new X-RAID features.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/MirrorRAID/

You're not limited in terms of daisychaining Geo, 800 is backwards compatible to 400, and the minute you plug into a 400 only device or 400 port everything steps down to 400. They make 800 to 400 cables to help you daisychain, and an 800 only into something with the 924 then into a Mac that's 400 only works just fine. That's why firewire rocks and why Apple should be ashamed for dropping its development so long ago.

Do you actually have one of these Geo--and it has a fan? Usually when a device has a fan it's mentioned in the specs--and I'd be leery of packing two big drives in such tight quarters, running them simultaneously for hours, and just letting the aluminum supposedly convect the heat away. That's a recipe for drive failure. Keeping drives like this cool is a key determinant in all these external multi-drive enclosures.

And how have you used the SoftRAID with it--I'd be very curious how you've found that valuable with the 2 drive Oxford 924 enclosure.

The reason I ask is most of the time--a dual drive enclosure like this with an Oxford is considered a "hardware" RAID device--in firmware you flash the bridge to either be 0 or 1. That's it. Sometimes if you are lucky you get a device with a jumper switch to easily change, or even better firmware which allows you to span or go JBOD.

That's because RAID 0 is unnecessary for HT, and RAID 1 (usually) is a waste in terms of home theater. The problem now with those firewire devices based on Oxford chips is that they usually can only be RAID 0 or RAID 1--that way of thinking is dated a bit--our needs in the home theater area have sort of transcended these kinds of devices which had previously only been sold to video professionals.

The ReadyNAS is not faster than any of those firewire devices--and yes it is a hardware-based RAID in that it has it's own memory and CPU but it really is the software that makes it special--like the software makes the Drobo special--it's the software that allows you to add third and fourth drives, the virtual expansion, it's the software that gives you the redundancy of an X-Raid or RAID 5.

ok....what about this:

if i buy a new 802.11n router....
...im thinking of moving my intel imac into the bedroom and have it connect wired (or wireless) to the router
then i use my macbook pro in the living room for computer stuff....

so the only thing i need now is the media center. what are the cheapest solutions for this? i would need about 2 TB of storage, prefer a RAID-X setup. i would also prefer mac...but if the pc version is still a pretty interface and cheaper than i would strongly consider it.

what if i buy a ps3 as the media center....what can i use for the storage space so that it is still accessible for all computers and ps3.

what if i buy a ps3 as the media center....what can i use for the storage space so that it is still accessible for all computers and ps3.

I've been fighting the DLNA (a subset of UPnP) problems. I have a Pioneer Blu-Ray (http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pna/v3/pg/product/details/0,,2076_310069741_452939954,00.html) with Home Media (Gallery), and doesn't work with eyeConnect (http://www.elgato.com/index.php?file=products_eyeconnect)...yet, elGato tells me, it does seem the PS3 is prompting more action. So one solution are the NAS' that have media serving abilities. See Buffalo Technologies (http://www.buffalotech.com/products/network-storage/) and choose one of their DLNA Certified (http://www.buffalotech.com/technology/software/dlna/) versions. I've been looking at the Terastation Live (http://www.buffalotech.com/products/network-storage/terastation/terastation-live/)s. The 1 TB version go for under $800 (see your local Fry's), and I figure I'd have a RAID on my Mac and a simultaneous backup on the Terastation, which also means I don't have to keep my Mac on to watch my shows.
The problem becomes that I need to write a script to convert my eyeTV files to something that the Terastation can use. (Already it appears I may need to change them so that the Blu-Ray Media can play them. (I'll hopefully be starting a thread on media server software, once I do some more tests.)

So the TeraStation Live and Pro lines are Buffalo's answer after being left in the dust in terms of price, features and versatility by the Infrant ReadyNAS models? Somehow I missed their announcement back in January. After a quick read of their literature: not hot swappable, still locked into buying the hard drives from them (i.e. no diskless model option) and no ability to add drives incrementally a la the X-RAID of Infrant/Netgear?

I've been looking at the Terastation Lives. The 1 TB version go for under $800 (see your local Fry's)

Down to $639 at newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822165044&ATT=22-165-044&CMP=OTC-C173T

Not a bad price, but might still be too much to pay for four 250GB drives (and ~ 750GB of fault tolerant storage) IF you don't also have the ability to swap larger SATA drives into the device in the future--anyone come across a mention in the literature or reviews of this device if you can stick four 500GB or larger drives in yourself once you outgrow it? If you can, this just might be a contender, despite the fact that it (and Buffalo) seem so Windows oriented. It would be nice to get this into the hands of a Mac home theater user...

bluenote, did you forget that you asked a similar question last month, here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=857006

And now that you've changed this thread from directly attached storage options for your Mac to what media center should I buy, and what might also work with a PS3 of all things, you're back to NAS over gigabit. And since you seem interested in "X-RAID" that means you're back to Infrant--which as a NAS--does defeat the responsiveness you were hoping for with a direct firewire connection. This comment:

i would also prefer mac...but if the pc version is still a pretty interface and cheaper than i would strongly consider it.

moves you out of this forum and into another.

gaderson, I'm curious why you're looking to the newer Buffalo and not the already well-established ReadyNAS--is there something limiting about the Infrant software or serving capabilities that you've discovered, and hence already ruled out, given your devices and network at home? Aren't there happy Infrant NAS owners serving up EyeTV files just fine? Is there something about the Home Media Gallery which conflicts with the way Infrant works?

yeah...im all over the pace right now.
i NEVER want to leave my mac...but at the same time i dont see any affordable mac solutions for the price.

i eventually will get a ps3 to accent my wii...but neither have good media center apps or capabilities.

and im just stuck on what to do about the storage...as i have never done anything besides FW drives....right now im contimplating selling my less than 1 year old imac, and buying a macpro...then adding extra drives for more space...but thats a lot of money i didnt want to spend.

overall...im worried that the NV+ is gonna be too slow for my liking....or im going to be lost as to how to do the whole raid thing.

So the TeraStation Live and Pro lines are Buffalo's answer after being left in the dust in terms of price, features and versatility by the Infrant ReadyNAS models? Somehow I missed their announcement back in January. After a quick read of their literature: not hot swappable, still locked into buying the hard drives from them (i.e. no diskless model option) and no ability to add drives incrementally a la the X-RAID of Infrant/Netgear?

gaderson, I'm curious why you're looking to the newer Buffalo and not the already well-established ReadyNAS--is there something limiting about the Infrant software or serving capabilities that you've discovered, and hence already ruled out, given your devices and network at home? Aren't there happy Infrant NAS owners serving up EyeTV files just fine? Is there something about the Home Media Gallery which conflicts with the way Infrant works?

With the Infranet/Netgear you need a computer on to serve the content (and currently for me even that doesn't work), but with the Buffalo it does it all itself. Though maybe Netgear will add DLNA support (oops, the NV+ does have UPnP support)? They're trying to sell you the media clients, so why not a server?
I am curious if one can just add a hard drive to a Buffalo, but, that is certainly one large drawback (I haven't done much research on this). But, currently it's one of the few solutions for the 'media sever' problem--at least out of the box solutions.
Seems we have quite a catch-22, on our hands. Even I've been hesitant to jump in, as the Terrastation has the software advantage, but, the ReadyNAS seem to have the hardware advantage (especially the form-factor of the rackmount (http://netgear.com/Products/Storage/ReadyNAS1100.aspx) version).

What would be best is the form-factor and ease of use of the ReadyNAS, and the software of the Terastation Live, with the ability to backup both one's computers and the media server files separately. Well, just checked, and if I go for formfactor I'm still stuck with some ugly-squat box for media server, but, I do see that the more 'conventional' ReadyNAS does have DLNA support (http://netgear.com/Products/Storage/ReadyNASNVPlus/RND4450.aspx?detail=Specifications), but a check on Buy.com, shows that the 2 TB versions are $500 less for the Buffalo. So, still lots of questions before this can be solved.

With the Infranet/Netgear you need a computer on to serve the content (and currently for me even that doesn't work), but with the Buffalo it does it all itself. Though maybe Netgear will add DLNA support (oops, the NV+ does have UPnP support)?

The ReadyNAS comes with DLNA (upnp) server. No computer required to serve media. Plus, Infrant supports the Mac with Appletalk, Apple File Sharing, and a dashboard widget to monitor the temperature and fans of their devices. You won't find that level of support from Buffalo. At least, not currently. Buffalo was more mac centric in the past but those days seem to have ended. The ReadyNAS NV+ with gigabit ethernet is plenty fast enough to serve up media for a home and it even works well enough to use as everyday external storage just as well as a firewire/usb drive. The only time I've found it slow was filling it up with data at the start of it's life. After that it's been fantastic.

I don't know what kind of drives Buffalo uses in their Terrastations, but I won't touch Maxtor or Western Digital drives. That's a personal choice of mine, but it's enough to keep me away from them.

ok...let me ask a more simple question to get me back on track........

which of the below situations will result in a faster connection and better access to watch HD files (most of which are mkv files at around 5-8GB)

option 1:
attach a USB 2.0 enclosure to my WRT350N linksys router, and have access from my imac (via gig-E) and from my mbp (via 802.11n)

option 2:
attach a FW400 enclosure to my imac, and have access from my imac (via FW400) and from my mbp (connected to imac wirelessly [802.11n or g])

option 3:
attach a gigE enclosure to my WRT350N linksys router, and have access from my imac (via gigE) and from my mbp (via 802.11n)

ok...let me ask a more simple question to get me back on track........

which of the below situations will result in a faster connection and better access to watch HD files (most of which are mkv files at around 5-8GB)

option 1:
attach a USB 2.0 enclosure to my WRT350N linksys router, and have access from my imac (via gig-E) and from my mbp (via 802.11n)

option 2:
attach a FW400 enclosure to my imac, and have access from my imac (via FW400) and from my mbp (connected to imac wirelessly [802.11n or g])

option 3:
attach a gigE enclosure to my WRT350N linksys router, and have access from my imac (via gigE) and from my mbp (via 802.11n)

Here's my experience with performance... I originally had a RAID 0 setup with my G5 Power Mac that was sharing data to two minis. This would be equivalent to your option 2 scenario. Performance was fine for the most part, but I would have intermittent stutters. The g5 and one of the minis were gigabit and the G5 was always running and doing it's day to day tasks. I now have an Infrant ReadyNAS and the two minis. No performance issues streaming movies or dvd's. Music, movies and tv recording goes directly to the NAS so it is under as much stress as the G5 it replaced. This is equivalent to your 3rd option and in my opinion it's the best of the two I've tried. I have not tried hanging a USB drive off of a router, but I have read mixed reviews on performance of this setup.

If you already own the linksys router, you can kill two birds (option 1 & 2) with one stone by purchasing an inexpensive usb/firewire enclosure. Experiment and see if either option works for you. If not, purchase a RAID/NAS and use the external enclosure as backup drive. I think you'll find that a dedicated RAID/NAS will offer the best performance but it comes at a cost.

Bluenote, is this you asking the same questions over on the Infrant "Mac" support forum:

http://www.infrant.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11204&sid=ae53068a19d3eb608fb11988040a7ce7

It seems you got some good feedback there. The thing that I don't understand is what's preventing you from setting this up and just doing option 2 already? You have everything, set it up, see how those mkv play back in the various ways you'd want to access them, see how convenient that is, and then either rule that in or out as a possibility to build on.

Andrew's advice about testing the USB option is good as well, since no matter what you do you'll still need to do backups even if you go NAS, because X-RAID or RAID-5 is not backup, so whatever you spent ruling in/ruling out USB wouldn't be a waste--you could still use that enclosure to keep bootable backups of both your Macs if you discovered that USB via your router wasn't fast enough for those mkv.

And you'll need "n" delivered somehow for your MBP, right? Standard def stuff is often unreliable over "g." So that's something you'll have to buy no matter what.

Also, since you've been over in that forum and have read threads there--you do see that there's some work involved in getting all this to play nice together--perhaps more than some of the ReadyNAS owners here are letting on--because it's not like Mac users are reporting that this is just plug and play. There are still some folks with minor frustrations over there--one good thing about Infrant is, well at least before they were bought out, they seemed excellent in terms of customer response, fixes and firmware updates. I think one thing that should be said here is you'd be wise to assess your own personal geek quotient level (in addition to budget) and whether you have the time to spend setting up and administering a NAS--because mounting a firewire volume over gigabit on a home network is A LOT easier to do.

After perusing the Infrant forums, I was hesitant to order a ReadyNAS. I haven't had a single issue in getting things up and running and in my experience it is plug and play. Much like any forum, there will be many more users looking to solve problems than commenting on how trouble use an item may be.

The ReadyNAS comes with DLNA (upnp) server. No computer required to serve media. Plus, Infrant supports the Mac with Appletalk, Apple File Sharing, and a dashboard widget to monitor the temperature and fans of their devices. You won't find that level of support from Buffalo. At least, not currently. Buffalo was more mac centric in the past but those days seem to have ended. The ReadyNAS NV+ with gigabit ethernet is plenty fast enough to serve up media for a home and it even works well enough to use as everyday external storage just as well as a firewire/usb drive. The only time I've found it slow was filling it up with data at the start of it's life. After that it's been fantastic.

I don't know what kind of drives Buffalo uses in their Terrastations, but I won't touch Maxtor or Western Digital drives. That's a personal choice of mine, but it's enough to keep me away from them.

So the extra $400+ is worth it? I guess since I am a Mac user I'm willing to pay a little more for the best. As for drives I'm now more hesitant to use Seagate (SATA, my PATA are ok) since that was the last drive to fail on me (looking for good deals on RE2s).
As for the DLNA, I'm more an esthetics guy and I much more prefer the rackmount as I already have a rack, since my G4 is in a rackmount case (the last from Marathon Computer:(.)

that was me in the other thread....but i was afraid i would be getting too many infrant users there....and wanted t make sure i get an unbiased feedback.

I do have the router...but no USB or gigE drive to test out and compare to my FW option (currently being used).

regarding the back-up...i understand backing up is wise...but it will be expensive....no? i mean...currently i have about 1TB of videos...do i need to get a 1TB drive to back this up? or will backup software be able to compress it without losing quality?

my thought was the raid setup will be more reliable...and allow me to lose 1 drive and keep data. thats enough for me...as i think if i lost 2 drives at same time,......i probably deserved it ;)

i was afraid i would be getting too many infrant users there....and wanted t make sure i get an unbiased feedback

Well, you're better off scrutinizing that exact feedback, and paying attention to comments from owners like Andrew, you want very biased and discerning feedback, because you're thinking of using that particular device and you use Macs, like they do. It's always better to learn from the folks who are actually out there living with a product, and living through what it takes to get it up and running--that's almost always more valuable than a coupla paragraphs on a manufacturer's website or on a (usually) Windows-oriented review site, like in the case of, say, the Tom's hardware review of those newer Buffalo TeraStations mentioned above.

my thought was the raid setup will be more reliable...and allow me to lose 1 drive and keep data. thats enough for me

right, if you were running X-RAID or RAID 5 with a NAS (or RAID 1 with two directly attached drives) one drive could fail and you'd "keep" all your data. But I can think of plenty of things you'd want backed up and kept separate from whatever media storage you eventually set up--your iTunes library, once you spent all that time ripping it you don't want to re-rip and catalog it; digital images that are irreplaceable; bootable backup clones of both of your Macs--what would you do if either of their hard drives failed? Plus, how far do you think 750GB or 1.5GB is going to get you long term? Not that far.

Protection against a single drive failing is never an adequate substitute for at least some "other" concurrent backup scheme.

i understand backing up is wise...but it will be expensive....no?

No, because you don't necessarily have to backup everything, though there are folks who backup one big NAS array to another. Just backup selectively, strategically--you could start with just what I suggested, clones of your two Macs and your iTunes collection. That'll fit on one drive, in an inexpensive USB enclosure. That's cheap protection. Later, if you eventually get the new "n" basestation from Apple, you could plug that USB drive into it and when Leopard is released that could be your "Time machine" drive. If you get the Infrant, well, that's what those USB ports are for--plugging in external USB enclosures so you can backup NAS content on them.

I do have the router...but no USB or gigE drive to test out and compare to my FW option (currently being used).

Maybe I'm (still) misunderstanding you--do you currently have "n" wireless capability yet or not? I assumed not--that you were considering a new "n" basestation or router, and that you had tried the "firewire drive connected to your iMac" option streaming over "g" to your Macbook Pro and that it wasn't reliable enough. USB will only be less reliable. The question is how will "n" work, instead?

My point was you're still going to need a gigabit switch/router and something to deliver wireless "n" anyway, no matter which of those options you ultimately go with, given your eventual need of streaming to your Macbook Pro. So get the new Apple "n" basestation, some Cat5e and an inexpensive Netgear 5 port gigabit switch (or a mix of other brands) set up at home and plug your firewire drive in while you're weighing the much more significant expenditure of the NAS.

right, if you were running X-RAID or RAID 5 with a NAS (or RAID 1 with two directly attached drives) one drive could fail and you'd "keep" all your data. But I can think of plenty of things you'd want backed up and kept separate from whatever media storage you eventually set up--your iTunes library, once you spent all that time ripping it you don't want to re-rip and catalog it; digital images that are irreplaceable; bootable backup clones of both of your Macs--what would you do if either of their hard drives failed? Plus, how far do you think 750GB or 1.5GB is going to get you long term? Not that far.

I agree with this. I backup my documents, setttings and random small stuff to .Mac. My iTunes library I backup on an external drive. Movies, tv recordings, dvd's... I keep on the ReadyNAS spread across three drives w/ Raid-X redundancy. I don't necessarily want to lose that stuff, but I'm willing to take the risk that I'll have no more than single drive failure at a time. I've considered picking up one of the less expensive 1TB external drives ($300 or so) along with a fireproof safe and using that to store a backup of the RAID , but I haven't taken that step as of yet.

Do you actually have one of these Geo--and it has a fan? Usually when a device has a fan it's mentioned in the specs--and I'd be leery of packing two big drives in such tight quarters, running them simultaneously for hours, and just letting the aluminum supposedly convect the heat away. That's a recipe for drive failure. Keeping drives like this cool is a key determinant in all these external multi-drive enclosures.

And how have you used the SoftRAID with it--I'd be very curious how you've found that valuable with the 2 drive Oxford 924 enclosure?

The reason I ask is most of the time--a dual drive enclosure like this with an Oxford is considered a "hardware" RAID device--in firmware you flash the bridge to either be 0 or 1. That's it. Sometimes if you are lucky you get a device with a jumper switch to easily change, or even better firmware which allows you to span or go JBOD.

That's because RAID 0 is unnecessary for HT, and RAID 1 (usually) is a waste in terms of home theater. The problem now with those firewire devices based on Oxford chips is that they usually can only be RAID 0 or RAID 1--that way of thinking is dated a bit--our needs in the home theater area have sort of transcended these kinds of devices which had previously only been sold to video professionals.

The ReadyNAS is not faster than any of those firewire devices...it's the software that allows you to add third and fourth drives, the virtual expansion, it's the software that gives you the redundancy of an X-Raid or RAID 5.

Yes I now have the Mercury Elite Pro with two 750GB drives installed and have it set up as a FireWire RAID 1 mirror. (I purchased an older ATA version of the OWC case as a standalone after I found some ATA drives for 60% off at the recent Comp USA closeout. I even bought an extra 750GB ATA drive for the shelf, in case of emergency). At the time, I probably saved about $400 on the cost of three drives.

I use it for business (photo), as well as iTunes backups, and this seemed to be the most cost effective solution for me right now short of an Xserve (which isn't happening anytime soon) or a more affordable NAS. In addition, I can store the Firewire RAID off-site or take it on the road if I really need to.

The OWC case is very solid (industrial-strength), nicely form fitted and it matches Apple G4 PowerBook, G5 tower and MacBook Pro aluminum cases. The newer eSATA version, which most people would probably want these days, also has a USB2 port. It has a fan exhaust on the back, but the drive is so quiet you'd never know a fan was running. When you order one with drives pre-installed, you order either the striped or the mirror version pre-configured, but I think you can flash either to change the RAID setup after the fact. So, you now have me wondering if you really have to use the SoftRAID package, but I recall that I had to format the drive and install the SoftRAID drivers to get it to mount, and SoftRAID is bundled with their pre-configured cases, so I assume you do have to use it and their sales people do refer to the Mercury Elite Pro Aluminum as a software-based RAID.

I also purchased the SoftRAID package separately from SoftRAID (since it does not come with OWC's bare cases). I particularly like the fact that SoftRAID reports i/o, out-of-sync and volume errors, which some RAID packages (including Apple's) do not. And like the Ready NAS, SoftRAID automatically adds a new disk to the RAID, starts mirror rebuilds and then runs in the background. It even supports volume optimization and SoftRAID support says it works with Alsoft DiskWarrior, which no Mac owner should be without!

Again, Apple's OS X RAID is a stripped down version of SoftRAID and you even can convert Apple RAID volumes to SoftRAID volumes in v3.6.3 of SoftRAID. The company says they are working on an even smarter X-RAID upgrade for version 4.0. You can see the current SoftRAID features listed here: http://www.softraid.com/vsapple.html

I haven't formally tested the throughput -- it is what it is -- and I needed tons of backup storage over speed, since my G4 tower has four reasonably fast 7200RPM drives installed in the case. Of course, writing to a mirrored, software RAID is a little slower than writing to a single drive, but it seems quite speedy to me, given the 'redundant backup' job assignment. One reviewer reported Mercury Elite Pro sequential 256KB uncached-write, data-transfer speeds of around 50 MBps with FireWire 800. I'm using FireWire 400 on the desktop machine and so I'm probably getting half that, but it is noticeably faster when connected to the PowerBook via FireWire 800. Copying files across the gigabit network between the PowerBook and this RAID (attached to the G4 desktop, also equipped with a gigabit Ethernet card upgrade) is quite fast too, but again, I haven't taken time to formally measure and document any transfer speeds.

There are two real downsides:**
1. Unlike the NAS, you have to attach these external FireWire drives to a real server to access them across the network. For security reasons, Mac OS X only supports basic Home folder sharing. However, I'm experimenting with what is supposed to be a very good shareware utility called SharePoints that allows you to share attached volumes across the network using a regular version of Mac OS X.
2. You have to install the SoftRAID driver on any volume that will be directly connected to the FireWire drive -- and keep these drivers updated. This adds a housekeeping/maintenance complication to using the device. I have an e-mail in to SoftRAID tech support to determine if this driver must be installed on a computer if you are connecting through a network share.

I'd purchase another Mercury Elite Pro any time — in fact, I've used one of their single-drive cases to back up my PowerBook for over a year now. It doesn't have a fan, and is convection cooled, but it's in an air-conditioned room and doesn't get exercised that often. OWC (http://www.macsales.com) seems to be a very good company with well-designed products, good pre-sales help and good support. I recommend them any day over LaCie.

** Downside #2 added 12 hours after initial post...

So, you now have me wondering if you really have to use the SoftRAID package, but I recall that I had to format the drive and install the SoftRAID drivers to get it to mount, and SoftRAID is bundled with their pre-configured cases, so I assume you do have to use it and their sales people do refer to the Mercury Elite Pro Aluminum as a software-based RAID.

That may be how some of the sales people refer to it--but, no, these dual or quad-drive firewire enclosures with Oxford bridges/chipsets like the 912 or 924 are considered hardware RAID--it's built into the bridge. Install two drives in an Oxford enclosure, plug it into a Mac, format the drives in OS X disk utility, the volumes will mount, and you're good to go. OWC is great because they actually have the Oxford firmware flashing utility and good instructions on their site showing you how to switch back and forth between 0, 1 and JBOD.

And like the Ready NAS, SoftRAID automatically adds a new disk to the RAID, starts mirror rebuilds and then runs in the background.

Have you done any of this yet with SoftRAID? I haven't come across too many people using it, and was wondering how you used it? It seems much more feature-oriented and flexible than what's possible within Disk Utility and seems quite the bargain to be bundled in the enclosure price from OWC--but--the reason many folks buy these Oxford hardware RAID enclosures is because they're self-contained and NOT reliant on software running in the background, they're plug and play. I was wondering if you had used SoftRAID to combine various firewire enclosures, and different drive sizes, including some dual-drive hardware-RAIDed ones...or had used the SoftRAID ability to split volumes--some portion dedicated to the shared RAID, some other portions on the same drive kept free, etc. I can see where the ability to add, say, a fourth drive via a firewire daisychain--and have SoftRAID automatically expand your RAID volume accordingly--is attractive. And to have OWC include it seems win-win.

Yes I now have the Mercury Elite Pro with two 750GB drives installed and have it set up as a FireWire RAID 1 mirror. (I purchased an older ATA version of the OWC case as a standalone after I found some ATA drives for 60% off at the recent Comp USA closeout. I even bought an extra 750GB ATA drive for the shelf, in case of emergency). At the time, I probably saved about $400 on the cost of three drives.

Smart move, Geo. You'll also probably get better warranty protection that way as well--very few of the pre-built "enclosure + drives" options carry the 3-5 year warranty from the drive manufacturer if purchased separately.

I use it for business (photo), as well as iTunes backups, and this seemed to be the most cost effective solution for me right now...In addition, I can store the Firewire RAID off-site or take it on the road if I really need to.

Right, I like multi-drive firewire enclosures (with built-in hardware RAID options) for the same reason--with 5 Macs in the house, it's nice having the flexibility to unplug, move and re-connect it to a different Mac and have it just work. (Also, moving hot swappable drive trays around can be equally addictive--especially in the multi-Mac multi-HT household.)

But, there are tradeoffs and negatives with the setup you're describing: a hardware RAID 1 where both drives are fixed in place in one enclosure, both spinning and written to simultaneously. Let me ask you--what are you doing with the third 750GB drive--is it just sitting on the shelf?

What do I mean? I hope you're fairly regularly backing up your RAID 1 enclosure onto that third 750GB drive, in order to be protected:

1) in case of an accidental deletion; once you delete a file, it's automatically deleted off both drives;
2) if there is some form of data corruption or software anomaly it's written to, and affects, both drives;
3) if you have an electrical glitch, something relating to the power supply or an improper shutdown (especially if you don't use an UPS) like if your Mac gets a kernel panic and you have to force restart it (with that RAID 1 enclosure mounted) or you encounter a firewire bus issue (rare, but they do happen) you're not protected because the directory structure of both drives and access to both drives depends on that single Oxford bridge of the enclosure. So, say on some rare occasion you don't mount or dismount that enclosure properly, or you hotplug another drive in and out via a daisychain--you just might get one of those scary red device was not properly shutdown errors--and in a worst case scenario, that inadvertently damages the directory structure or partition map in the process--BOTH of your drives are affected.

If you're lucky you can plug the RAID 1 enclosure into another Mac and it will mount, or you pop one of the drives into another enclosure and try mounting it, but just as often you have to hope something like ProSoft's Data Rescue helps you recover what was there (in this example DataRescue might be preferred to DiskWarrior because it doesn't attempt to repair anything, just retrieve--as long as you happen to have a bunch of space free somewhere else to recover to. I've had to do this, a couple of times Data Rescue really saved my bacon from firewire-related glitches, and at least really saved me time not having to re-rip, but it is neither pretty, nor a quick process.

In your case Geo--as a professional photographer with a sizable collection of valuable images you want to protect--that RAID 1 set up probably isn't enough. You'd sleep easier at night if you also backed up that RAID 1 data to yet another drive, then removed it for safe keeping--as opposed to just relying on the RAID 1 solution where both drives remain constantly at risk. So, if I'm understanding your situation, you're already using that extra third drive "for the shelf" to backup your very special RAID 1 enclosure content--and if so, kudos. If you aren't, may I recommend you consider doing so?

Then there's just fire and earthquakes for you to prepare for. :)

The only real downside is that unlike the NAS, you have to attach these external FireWire drives to a real server to access them across the network. For security reasons, Mac OS X only supports basic Home folder sharing. However, I'm experimenting with what is supposed to be a very good shareware utility called SharePoints that allows you to share attached volumes across the network using a regular version of Mac OS X.

I'm not sure what you mean by this, Geo, attached to any computer on your network would do, as long as that computer was on, i.e. not asleep, an external USB or firewire volume (or any internal hard drive like those 4 in your PowerMac) can easily be mounted by any other Mac on the same network just within regular old OS X. Just turn on personal file sharing, Go > Network or connect to server, once the "connect to server" dialog box opens up, just enter your user id and password for that Mac, and it'll ask you which volume you want to mount. Do it once and it'll remember all your ids and passwords in the keychain. It's not just the home folder. Moving stuff back and forth between Macs and external enclosures over gigabit this way is quite speedy. Keep that volume mounted, watch a ripped dvd or recorded tv show from it, then dismount when you're done. I think you'll find Sharepoints is a wonderful utility, as well, especially if you plan to do this kind of thing a lot.

Have you done any of this yet with SoftRAID? ...I was wondering if you had used SoftRAID to combine various firewire enclosures, and different drive sizes, including some dual-drive hardware-RAIDed ones...or had used the SoftRAID ability to split volumes--some portion dedicated to the shared RAID, some other portions on the same drive kept free, etc. I can see where the ability to add, say, a fourth drive via a firewire daisychain--and have SoftRAID automatically expand your RAID volume accordingly--is attractive.
I can't say that SoftRAID works this way for multiple, daisy-chained drives, as I only have two drives connected (in one enclosure). It would be nice if it did this and that is a good question to ask of SoftRAID support. However, it is my belief that might be considered an X-RAID-like feature, and thus it probably is not currently supported. Also, note that OWC does not offer a quad drive case, so I'd guess that the SoftRAID package only supports two drives at present...Again, these questions are better directed to SoftRAID support (support@softraid.com)...



But, there are tradeoffs and negatives with the setup you're describing: a hardware RAID 1 where both drives are fixed in place in one enclosure, both spinning and written to simultaneously. Let me ask you--what are you doing with the third 750GB drive--is it just sitting on the shelf?
Yes, the extra 750GB drive is just sitting on the shelf, ready as a replacement if one of these drives has a catastrophic failure. This RAID is a backup for the other internal drives, where incoming files initially reside. They are then backed up to DVD disks and to the RAID. ProSoft Data Rescue and a UPS for this computer would be good ideas. Perhaps, I also could only turn on and mount the RAID when I need to back up new files to it.



I'm not sure what you mean by this, Geo, attached to any computer on your network would do, as long as that computer was on, i.e. not asleep, an external USB or firewire volume (or any internal hard drive like those 4 in your PowerMac) can easily be mounted by any other Mac on the same network just within regular old OS X. Just turn on personal file sharing, Go > Network or connect to server, once the "connect to server" dialog box opens up, just enter your user id and password for that Mac, and it'll ask you which volume you want to mount.
This only works the way you describe when I (the same user) log onto the desktop machine from my laptop across the network using my own log-in and password. When my significant other tries to log in from her Mac (to access the RAID across the network and back up to it), she does not get the same level of "server" access (unless she were to use my log-in and password). I did learn today that network computers do not need SoftRAID installed -- only direct attached computers. Also, the SoftRAID driver is included in all OS X Tiger installs, but it is prudent to manually install newer versions of the driver that occasionally are sent from SoftRAID support via e-mail.