Storage Hardware

[Cerebus]

A backup set (or volume) is generally a single file (compressed archive I suppose) that is much easier to manage than entire directory trees and helps retain integrity.

You want Carbon Copy Cloner.

http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html

CCC can backup to a sparse disk image, which is a single file.

-- C[/url]

[jbrjake]

You want Carbon Copy Cloner.

SuperDuper is the most stable, imo. CCC has had problems with metadata: http://blog.plasticsfuture.org/2006/04/ ... e-harmful/

[deckeda]

I like SuperDuper too, and it'll also optionally create a sparse disk image.
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/ ... ption.html

[baggss]

You could just create a disc image of the drives in question using disc utilities built it capability. If you have sufficient storage space to store said image you should be ok. I think you can compress the images too.

Edit: You can compress them. Just for grins I'm making an image of one of my spare 80Gb drives to see how this works.

[UberDuper]

When you start talking about storage for a media library full of movies, even well compressed x264 movies, a true backup simply isn't a viable option for home users.

Backing up mp3s or iphoto or mail, etc is all reasonably done by a number of backup utilities. But backing up 1TB worth of movie collection is unreasonable. Your only real option is fault tolerance. Raid 5 or 6 or even 10 depending on how much you're willing to spend.

Fault tolerance is great so long as you actually respond to failures. A good practice is to have a cold spare laying around so you can restore tolerance as quickly as possible in the event of a failure. Otherwise you're sitting on a time bomb until you get your RMA/replacement.

Enough rambling.
My file server

Cheap ECS motherboard with an old athlonxp 1.8Ghz CPU
3ware 9500S-8
4x 250GB drives in a raid 5 config. ~675GB formatted capacity. Will probably add 2 more drives in the near future.
FreeBSD 6.2

UD.

[Fastfwd]

When you start talking about storage for a media library full of movies, even well compressed x264 movies, a true backup simply isn't a viable option for home users.

What I do is that I always buy drives in pair. So I got two 500GB external drives instead of just one. But if you really like swapping CDs and DVDs you could live without a backup and just re-rip everything in case of disaster.

[Diranged]

When you start talking about storage for a media library full of movies, even well compressed x264 movies, a true backup simply isn't a viable option for home users.

What I do is that I always buy drives in pair. So I got two 500GB external drives instead of just one. But if you really like swapping CDs and DVDs you could live without a backup and just re-rip everything in case of disaster.

I agree though ... a true 100% backup is a bit difficult when you have 1+TB of data. Thats why I opt for the more reasonable RAID solution where I can loose 1-2 disks (in this particular setup, 1 disk... but 2 if I choose to re-config the RAID) and still have all of my data. Its a much more likely scenario.

[Cerebus]

I agree though ... a true 100% backup is a bit difficult when you have 1+TB of data. Thats why I opt for the more reasonable RAID solution where I can loose 1-2 disks (in this particular setup, 1 disk... but 2 if I choose to re-config the RAID) and still have all of my data. Its a much more likely scenario.

Yeah, but the problem with the RAID levels above 0 is that you sacrifice total capacity for parity. This is a problem for me because I've got over 500 titles in my DVD collection now, so I'm looking at a minimum of 1TB.

However, that leaves me with no room for growth, and I typically add 4-5 DVDs per month. I'd prefer to have 2TB usable capacity to start, but that means if I want parity I need a raw total capacity of 4TB at RAID1 or 3TB at RAID5 (or 4TB for RAID6, but with this small number of disks double fault tolerance is just wasteful).

RAID5 (and 6) storage efficiency goes up as the number of spindles in the chassis increases (16 spindles at RAID1 or RAID0+1/1+0 would be, well, kinda dumb), but so does the cost. For example, a two-disk desktop 1TB RAID0/1 chassis from LaCie can be had for $440, but a desktop 4-disk 1TB RAID5 hits you for $1370. I can buy 3TB worth of the RAID0/1 boxes for that much.

So while RAID fault tolerance is a good idea, it comes at a cost--and it's still enough of a cost to push it out of most peoples' hands.

-- C

[jlipsit]

Just as a follow up... I have purchased the Infrant ReadyNAS 1100 unit for my storage and backup. I loaded it with four 750GB drives in a Raid 5 configuration. This gives 2.2TB of storage.

http://www.infrant.com/products/product ... NAS%201100

[nightstrm]

http://www.drobo.com

Just dropped the price to $500... I'm definitely interested now, but it isn't available until June.

[Scarpad]

I've been using HandBreak for some time and just wanted to personally thank all the developers that have put so much time and hard work into developing this program. It really is appreciated! Thank You!

As many on the forum I had been waiting patiently for the AppleTv hardware and now that it's here i'm looking to transfer my extensive DVD collection to a server.

Before investing in a hardware storage soultion I was wonder how others are storing their video, audio and photo collections (for primary use with Apple TV). Since each Apple TV can only hold 40gig I assume most will be placing their collections on some sort of remote server that will be running iTunes. (Streaming not synced)

Could anyone please post their hardware solutions on this thread. i.e. Are you using raid drives, what size, off-the-shelf solutions, is it backed up, using an old pc, windows, mac based, trade-offs....etc.... Also any best practices in configuring itunes to run in this type of environment?

Thank You,

Jim

Currently I'm streaming from a Mac Mini conncted to two external drives, I'm currently using a 300mb for music and a 400gb for video, once that's full I have another 500gb My Book ready to go Online. After that I'll be looking into a 1tb solution

[nekogami13]

Mac Mini Core Duo 1.6Ghz, 1GB RAM
2 Firewire Drives-160 GB, 150GB-one contains my entire iTunes library, one is spare/backup drive. Will be adding others soon.

1 USB drive 300GB-contains my other media(entire Series of 3rd Rock, Entire Series of Frasier, Wire in the Blood, etc.). Only went with a USB drive because it was on sale.

Mini is hooked to the network through a wireless router, feeds media to an iMac G5 in the living room that kids use and an iMac 20" Dual Core in my bedroom.

No AppleTV, no plans to get one.
If I were getting one and planning on having an extremely large iTunes library-some sort of 1TB raid set up would be the way to go as well as a 802.11N network.

[Gak]

Two Lacie BigDisk 500 gig configured as a RAID mirror connected to a G5 using FireWire.

Biggest problem I have is when the drives timeout and spin down. I takes them something like 10+ seconds to spin back up again. AppleTV doesn't wait long enough before it times out. And then I have to select the movie again. By then the drives have spun up.

I wish the Mac had a way to set drive timeouts on a drive by drive basis.

I'm streaming through an Airport over G not N. Or at least I think I have that right. It's whichever one that is the slower one.

[loyalty_anchored]

www.drobo.com

Just dropped the price to $500... I'm definitely interested now, but it isn't available until June.

there is not much i would not do for one of those man.