One gotta wonder if ANYTHING is a good deal if u have no use for them. 'Coz in a coupla of years, they won't be good deals, so it's all time-relative. THEN u will have 2 years old technology.
One Big Hard Drive vs Smaller Hard Drives
I've always been hesitant in buying one huge hard drive because I don't want to be putting all my eggs in one basket. I backup my personal data regularly but personally don't think its cost effective to be backing up TB's worth of movies and tv shows. Well today I got 2 Samsung 1.5TB EcoGreen drives for $160 total (price mistake on newegg). 3TB for $160 was a deal I couldn't pass up, having use for them or not. I was thinking of putting older 500GB drives I currently have in my new HTPC, but now I am wondering if I should just go with these 1.5TBs since they consume less power, run quieter, and I'll have more memory. My 500GB drives have proven reliable over the years, but are today's newer high capacity drives just as reliable and worth the risk of consolidation?
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My C: drive is a 380GB seagate.
I only use it for apps and its one single big partition.
The other drive in the HTPC is a 1.5TB seagate partitioned 4 ways : mainly for media ( if it gets hosed I can always rerip) but one partition is for disk images of the C drive.
I also have a 1TB JBOD external usb2/esata drive that I also move the the latest disk image to every few weeks.
I'm not worried if my media drives go bad as long as I've got a functional C:drive or a recent image somewhere.
I only use it for apps and its one single big partition.
The other drive in the HTPC is a 1.5TB seagate partitioned 4 ways : mainly for media ( if it gets hosed I can always rerip) but one partition is for disk images of the C drive.
I also have a 1TB JBOD external usb2/esata drive that I also move the the latest disk image to every few weeks.
I'm not worried if my media drives go bad as long as I've got a functional C:drive or a recent image somewhere.
If I end up not wanting them, I'll have no problem selling them for at least what I paid, let alone $30-40 more.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrBobb /forum/post/16899605
One gotta wonder if ANYTHING is a good deal if u have no use for them. 'Coz in a coupla of years, they won't be good deals, so it's all time-relative. THEN u will have 2 years old technology.
If I end up not wanting them, I'll have no problem selling them for at least what I paid, let alone $30-40 more.
I use a 500gb 2.5" laptop drive for my OS, apps and for pictures and some small video files. Then I have a 1tb drive fro recording HDTV and ripped movies. It works out fine for me. And I'm even considering upgrading the 1tb to a 2tb drive.
Well if we assume that the reliability of HDDs is relatively constant/consistent regardless of size, which would seem reasonable.
Then consider that if you've got a 1% chance of losing a single 1TB drive, you'd have a 2% chance of losing one of two 500GB drives.
Basically you're more likely to lose something with lots of little drives, than one large one. Though if you lose one large one you lose everything. The odds of some data loss increase with the number of drives, but the odds of losing all your data drops dramatically.
Then consider that if you've got a 1% chance of losing a single 1TB drive, you'd have a 2% chance of losing one of two 500GB drives.
Basically you're more likely to lose something with lots of little drives, than one large one. Though if you lose one large one you lose everything. The odds of some data loss increase with the number of drives, but the odds of losing all your data drops dramatically.
2
Build yourself an unRAID server for storing your videos. You can use the freeware version to support two data drives and a parity drive. If you decide you like it (and you will) you can purchase one of two different licenses, depending on how many drives you'd like your server to contain (either six or sixteen, IIRC). If a drive fails you can easily recover the data by letting it rebuild the lost data using the parity drive. There's no need to back anything up when using the parity drive because it will always let you recover anything that gets lost. Of course, if more than one drive dies you're screwed.
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I use a single drive for my HTPC's OS and file storage and a single large drive (1TB) for recording my TV shows with BeyondTV. My unRAID server is used to store Blu-Ray and DVD rips that can be streamed to the HTPC for playback. I keep a backup of the partition containing the OS and other programs but I don't bother backing up the drive containing the TV shows. There are lots of ways to get replacement copies of any shows that might be lost if the drive fails so I don't see the need to keep a backup.
The real bonus in having a setup like this is that I can store huge quantities of movies on a remote server while keeping the extra heat and noise out of my HTPC. If you limit your HTPC to just the two 1.5TB drives and partition them to keep the OS and other files separate from each other then that may be all you need. Just back up the important stuff and don't worry about the rest. That's what NetFlix and torrents are for.
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I use a single drive for my HTPC's OS and file storage and a single large drive (1TB) for recording my TV shows with BeyondTV. My unRAID server is used to store Blu-Ray and DVD rips that can be streamed to the HTPC for playback. I keep a backup of the partition containing the OS and other programs but I don't bother backing up the drive containing the TV shows. There are lots of ways to get replacement copies of any shows that might be lost if the drive fails so I don't see the need to keep a backup.
The real bonus in having a setup like this is that I can store huge quantities of movies on a remote server while keeping the extra heat and noise out of my HTPC. If you limit your HTPC to just the two 1.5TB drives and partition them to keep the OS and other files separate from each other then that may be all you need. Just back up the important stuff and don't worry about the rest. That's what NetFlix and torrents are for.
ah... statistics.
you need to factor in the human condition, and our ability to justify loss.
sure the odds of a drive failure are higher, but you stand to lose all your data over a smaller fraction of it, for a small increase in your odds.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stanger89 /forum/post/16900908
Well if we assume that the reliability of HDDs is relatively constant/consistent regardless of size, which would seem reasonable.
Then consider that if you've got a 1% chance of losing a single 1TB drive, you'd have a 2% chance of losing one of two 500GB drives.
Basically you're more likely to lose something with lots of little drives, than one large one. Though if you lose one large one you lose everything. The odds of some data loss increase with the number of drives, but the odds of losing all your data drops dramatically.
ah... statistics.
you need to factor in the human condition, and our ability to justify loss.
sure the odds of a drive failure are higher, but you stand to lose all your data over a smaller fraction of it, for a small increase in your odds.
Not if it was lost due to something other than a drive failure.
Quote:
Originally Posted by captain_video /forum/post/16900944
There's no need to back anything up when using the parity drive because it will always let you recover anything that gets lost.
Not if it was lost due to something other than a drive failure.
Over a long enough time period, your chances of losing a hard drive are 100%.
Drives fail.
Either regularly back up everything on your drives, or eventually you will lose something valuable. Stick your two new drives in a case with some old hardware and install either unRAID or Windows Home Server. With proper redundancy, you'll never have to worry about losing something important.
Drives fail.
Either regularly back up everything on your drives, or eventually you will lose something valuable. Stick your two new drives in a case with some old hardware and install either unRAID or Windows Home Server. With proper redundancy, you'll never have to worry about losing something important.
i have a secondary drive of 1.5 tb its about half full. If i were to run some kind of backup software, how large would those backups be?
i realize its relative to the software i plan to use, but am i looking at 1:1 file size ratio or would it be more compressed?
i realize its relative to the software i plan to use, but am i looking at 1:1 file size ratio or would it be more compressed?
If it's all media, then pretty close to 1:1. MP3s and the like are pretty uncompressable.
all media, mainly video. i guess my best bet is to get an external drive to back up what i really don't want to lose...
Quote:
Originally Posted by stanger89 /forum/post/16901815
If it's all media, then pretty close to 1:1. MP3s and the like are pretty uncompressable.
all media, mainly video. i guess my best bet is to get an external drive to back up what i really don't want to lose...
I suggest sticking with larger capacities and fewer drives to maximize expandability, and to minimize power consumption and complexity; but for reliability the main reason is to reduce redundant drive failure risk. If a drive fails, a data recovery service can retrieve the data anyway. With fewer disks, there's less chance of a problem.
Exactly so!
My dentist had a sign in his waiting room:
"You don't have to floss all your teeth - Just the ones you want to keep"
Same applies to your data:
"You don't have to back up all your data - Just the stuff you want to keep"
So let me get this straight:
OP gets great deal on 2 x 1.5 GB HDDs that he didn't really need - Saves `$80
Post question on how to best use these drives since they are "green"
Answer seems to be buy more stuff like a raid card, case, mobo etc and set up a RAID that will run 24/7 and serve/backup his video and other stuff he wants to keep. Depending on what old stuff he has, lets say $100 min.
Server will draw, say 75 W ~=$0.25 per day = $90 per year
To me it doesn't look like a great deal and definitely not green.
BB
Quote:
Over a long enough time period, your chances of losing a hard drive are 100%.
Exactly so!
My dentist had a sign in his waiting room:
"You don't have to floss all your teeth - Just the ones you want to keep"
Same applies to your data:
"You don't have to back up all your data - Just the stuff you want to keep"
So let me get this straight:
OP gets great deal on 2 x 1.5 GB HDDs that he didn't really need - Saves `$80
Post question on how to best use these drives since they are "green"
Answer seems to be buy more stuff like a raid card, case, mobo etc and set up a RAID that will run 24/7 and serve/backup his video and other stuff he wants to keep. Depending on what old stuff he has, lets say $100 min.
Server will draw, say 75 W ~=$0.25 per day = $90 per year
To me it doesn't look like a great deal and definitely not green.
BB
Compared to the cost of replacing all your data, it's cheap.
Obviously not everybody needs a dedicated server in their home, but if you have several TB of data, then it's probably a worthwhile investment. You could do it the old fashioned way and manually back up to external hard drives, but then you're spending a lot of time (which isn't exactly free) and introducing another point of failure (whoops, forgot to run a backup last week).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bigbird999 /forum/post/16902237
To me it doesn't look like a great deal and definitely not green.
Compared to the cost of replacing all your data, it's cheap.
Obviously not everybody needs a dedicated server in their home, but if you have several TB of data, then it's probably a worthwhile investment. You could do it the old fashioned way and manually back up to external hard drives, but then you're spending a lot of time (which isn't exactly free) and introducing another point of failure (whoops, forgot to run a backup last week).
Yes. RAID is no substitute for a backup. If you really want to be sure something is not going to get lost you need a backup ideally multiple backups.
RAID can provide continuity and protection against one possible cause of data loss - a single drive failure. For most home users continuity is little more than a "nice to have"; hardly a necessity. Maybe the extra protection is worth it if you have a large-ish array as the extra cost is affordable, when duplicating the data might not be, but I'm sure many think it removes the need for a proper backup, which it does not.
Of course many fortunate users may never find that out. Others on the other hand...
Quote:
Originally Posted by stanger89 /forum/post/16901536
Not if it was lost due to something other than a drive failure.
Yes. RAID is no substitute for a backup. If you really want to be sure something is not going to get lost you need a backup ideally multiple backups.
RAID can provide continuity and protection against one possible cause of data loss - a single drive failure. For most home users continuity is little more than a "nice to have"; hardly a necessity. Maybe the extra protection is worth it if you have a large-ish array as the extra cost is affordable, when duplicating the data might not be, but I'm sure many think it removes the need for a proper backup, which it does not.
Of course many fortunate users may never find that out. Others on the other hand...
Yeah, in the "media server" context, I look at RAID as protection for your work/effort. With a media server, most of the media is already "backed up" on the original discs you have, and it's impractical to have an entirely separate backup as well. So for a media server RAID is really to protect you from the effort of having to "restore" the data from the source discs in the event of the most likely failure, loss of a single disk.
But all the stuff that can't be recovered (digital photos, home movies, documents, etc) really, really should be on some other device/medium.
But all the stuff that can't be recovered (digital photos, home movies, documents, etc) really, really should be on some other device/medium.
Since a restore service can retrieve the data anyway, if it's not completely critical to your life, then keep it simple, forget about backups, and get as big a drive as you can.
1 - 20 of 28 Posts
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