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hi ,i am a video enthusiast and I now have more than 5T of videos and it's going to increase. However, they are all in my 3.5 internal hard drives which are simply connected to SATA cable and that's it. So far I don't have any backup solutions to them and I start to feel a bit worried about it, and my PC chassis can accommodate up to 6 3.5 hard disks but now 5 slots have already been occupied by my hard drives.
I am thinking about what I should do next.
I want
- backup solution in case of any hard drive failures.
- conveniently adding more new hard drives in the future. (Do I need a new PC with more slots with at least a basic CPU and RAM something??)
I may want (optional, not very critical, it depends on additional costs and complexity)
- encrypt all the files and only be accessed with passwords when I am away. Of course it's not FBI confidential and I am not talking about to make it so advanced so that it's not 100% or 99% perfectly unbreakable.
Thank you
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If they are files you don't want to lose, you need additional storage equivalent to your current usage. In other words, if you have 5TB of videos, you need external storage/NAS of 5TB to create a copy (ie: backup). There are external drives that size (and larger), you could invest in a NAS, or even create a storage server from an old computer.
Security/encryption adds a level of complexity that isn't worth the hassle.Google is your Friend -
It just sounds like you need some external drives. I would look for something like a standalone NAS (Network Attached Storage) or similar with a couple of 4TB HDDs installed.
Or what I did was use a couple of server chassis with motherboard and installed lots of HDDs. I access them over my gigabit LAN system.
I wouldn't have my backup drives on the same PC that has the original files. If the PC dies, it could destroy all the drives including the backups.
A word of caution about encryption. If you encrypt the drives themselves and you have a simple power loss that damages the data, just about impossible to recover that data from an encrypted HDD.
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Hi, I have two desktop PC, one of them is idle for some time and I only use the newer one. Is there anything I can do with that older PC with my storage need? Could I do anything different than simply mounting more hard drives to that old PC and power it up and consider it as an individual PC? Is it possible to make some connections between the older and newer PC??Originally Posted by redwudz
It just sounds like you need some external drives. I would look for something like a standalone NAS (Network Attached Storage) or similar with a couple of 4TB HDDs installed.
Or what I did was use a couple of server chassis with motherboard and installed lots of HDDs. I access them over my gigabit LAN system.
I wouldn't have my backup drives on the same PC that has the original files. If the PC dies, it could destroy all the drives including the backups.
A word of caution about encryption. If you encrypt the drives themselves and you have a simple power loss that damages the data, just about impossible to recover that data from an encrypted HDD.
Thank you. -
Archive storage should never be powered on unnecessarily.
Keep it cool, dry and secure instead! -
I use internal 3.5 inch drives as external drives via a USB3 hard drive dock. This is just the first example I found using Google and it appears it's only USB2.
http://www.techfresh.net/sharkoon-quickport-duo-dock/
There's a dock connected to both my PCs and an old USB2 dock connected to the USB media player in both TVs. They're convenient as you don't need a power adaptor and USB cable for each external drive as you normally would when using external USB drives.
The drives effectively being "portable" makes them a bit more vulnerable to accidental damage when moving them around. ie dropping them or the cat knocking the dock off the desk......
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If the PCs are connected to the internet via a router they're already connected to the same network, but if you're moving a lot of large files around even gigabit ethernet is pretty slow compared to SATA or USB3.Originally Posted by kenny1999
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That's how I put together my original video server, just used an old PC with lots of room for hard drives. It had a decent motherboard and a quality power supply, and a tower case, so lots of room. I would check the power supply. Make sure it's up to supplying enough power for the PC and the HDDs. For me a 500W was plenty. Use a good brand PS so you don't have to worry much about failure.Hi, I have two desktop PC, one of them is idle for some time and I only use the newer one. Is there anything I can do with that older PC with my storage need? Could I do anything different than simply mounting more hard drives to that old PC and power it up and consider it as an individual PC? Is it possible to make some connections between the older and newer PC??
Thank you.
If it doesn't have a operating system, a version of Linux is free and works fine. Just set up sharing for the server. I also use my router to block internet access for the servers. Then no real worries about malware getting into the server.
I don't have any issues sending large files over my gigabit LAN to the servers in another room. Most of my MKVs are 8GB and take about a minute to transfer at about 92 MBs/second. If you are just using it for backup, transfer time really isn't that big of an issue.
In addition, I also backup more important files to Blu-ray data discs in case of HDD failure on the servers. -
Unless I'm missing something an 8GB file would need to transfer at 137MB/s to take only a minute.Originally Posted by redwudz
Maybe it's not as slow as I'd remembered (I don't transfer large file that way much myself).
That aside though, maybe all gigabit Ethernet controllers aren't created equal. Have you experienced a big speed difference according to the direction of transfer? I do (Realtek Ethernet, both PCs).
If I "push" a file (select a file on the PC, copy it, navigate to a drive in a networked PC, then paste), the speed of the transfer would be half the speed at which I can "pull" a file (navigate to a drive on a network PC, copy it and paste it to a local hard drive). Maybe even less than half. I think I even put an Intel PCI ethernet card in one PC at one stage to see if that'd change anything, but the result was the same. -
Realtek only produces Mickey Mouse controllers.Originally Posted by hello_hello
Frankly why a company that produces such shoddy products gets so much business from motherboard providers is beyond me (well it really isn't, they are just cheap).
This is their bloody homepage:
http://www.realtek.com/
A disgrace:
Best viewed at 800x600 with IE 6.0 or Netscape 7.02 or Mozilla Firefox 1.0.6 or higher. -
The 'about a minute' was from the Windows file transfer data. And my transfer speed does vary, depending on the drive being transferred to and from, how much free space on the HDDs, and the controller on the server, and likely the traffic on the LAN. But I'll take 92 MBs/s. More common is about 75 MBs/s.Unless I'm missing something an 8GB file would need to transfer at 137MB/s to take only a minute.
Maybe it's not as slow as I'd remembered (I don't transfer large file that way much myself).
That aside though, maybe all gigabit Ethernet controllers aren't created equal. Have you experienced a big speed difference according to the direction of transfer? I do (Realtek Ethernet, both PCs).
I rarely transfer whole files from the servers to my PCs. Most times the server is just for HD video playback. And each server/PC has a different motherboard and CPU and different SATA and Ethernet controllers, though all Ethernet controllers are gigbit.
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