HDD WorkFlow

The Basics of any HDD work flow should be a)partition system files from work files 2) 3 way redundancy. either by clone, synch or archive:

1. Clone = exact copy of Host Drive, I’ll use this on my system files & work files, example #3; s/w Carbon copy clone
2. Synch=two way match of Host and Remote Drive, I’ll use this on my ‘working photos’; example #2; s/w Chronosynch
3. Archive=Historic backup of Host, this is were time machine shines, I’ll TM my system & work files;example #4 (I’ve had issue with TM and don’t trust with Photos):s/w Apple
4. Clone=exact copy of Host Drive, I store MSTR of all photos (untouched) and have RAID 1 setup; Hardware solution; G-Safe*,

The piece that continues to be been missing in my work flow is Offsite Storage in red above. , because I don’t have a solution I Mirror RAID 1 #5/#6

I recently tried a relatively new service for MAC users at BackBlaze.com

After grabbing a user name and password, my 15 day trial began,  the upload speed is very very slow and in my case 2Tb of Photos calculated out to be an upload time of 365 days !

So this is not an option for me, so I’m still looking for that off site or on line storage.  My images just can’t fit in some paper folders ala Prez.

Mirror 1 RAID

Note on G-Safe:

Early this week, this 14 month old solution, had a system failure of one of its 1T HDD. Because the system was Raid1 mirrored and is hot swappable. No real issue with data loss. However, I’m intending to upgrade both drives to 2X2T. I was lucky that the other drive did not go down and because there was no three way redundancy, I would have been in trouble. I like Gsafes, out of the box solution. I have a few other of there storage systems, but I have had three returns in the past two years, so there reliability is not that good in my experience.  I would venture to building your own system for a lot less if your mechanically inclined. ref: Llyod Chambers.

Build your own

I decided that with 1/2 of my Mirror Raid1, hot swappable 1T out for repair at G-Technologies, that I just wasn’t comfortable with only one HDD holding all my photos for the last year with no backup so I purchased from OWC,

1. 2 X 2.0 TB Hitachi 7K2000 7200RPM SATA I/II HD with 32MB Cache and an
2. A special enclosure made by Newer Technology the Guardian MAXimus RAID-1 [MIRROR] External eSATA/FireWire 800/400+USB 2.0 Dual Hard Drive Enclosure Kit. Supports 2 x SATA HDDs! Quad Interface, Oxford 936 SATA chipset.

The description gives it away, the enclosure will hold 2 X2T HDD and with a Quad interface anything can hook up to it !

The price tag for this setup is around $485 and a comparable GSafe is $700. The G-safe has removable hot swappable drives and a few more bells and whistles, but I’m looking for a lean system, and here it is.

The assembly was very easy, you are provided a nice instruction manual, and quick visual screen shots on how to initialize the system using your MAC disk utility application.

I decided to run the HDD with the e-sata port thru my MAc-Pro, and the speeds are great, considering that my write time is slowed due to the redundancy factory of the mirror drive.

The fan noise is louder than normal, but peering over to see the blue light steady state is reassuring that the data work flow is back on line !