Questions about RAID.

S

sn1ckers

New Member
I read through the RAID FAQ up top and I have a couple of questions, but I'll need to provide some info first.

My step-father runs a business from home. We have a small home network. It just a wireless router with 4 wired ports.

My step dad uses a Mac for his work (lots of photo editing and such). He stores all of his data on an external drive (no enough room on the Internal drive [just 30 GB - he uses 130 GB of his external]). I want to find a way to back up all of his data. Tapes and DVDs are out, because he needs regular backups and it would cost too much and take too much time to backup all of his data.

I was thinking that network attached storage would be the way to go.

Could I build a PC that haw 2 hard drives and use RAID 1 to have redundant copies of everything?

So assuming I can do that, what would I need to make it as easy as possible to periodically copy all of the data from his external drive to the other PC?

Let me know if there is any other info you need.

Thanks
 
i dont know about the raid. but what you will need. i would go with linux and setup a samba server. from there he does not need the externel hard drive. the samba will allow him to connect to it as if it was a hard drive. If it is all from the same place the speed is incredible so there is no wories there. If you need help just ask i can help you along the way (as well as everyone else)
 
You could. The easiest way to schedule backups would be to setup a shell script on the Mac to copy files to shared folder on the NAS machine or you could setup an FTP service on the NAS and have the script ftp the files over. Then you can run the script with a cron tab or use iCal.
 
Which of these is easiest?

The Samba server has more appeal to me. I've never done a server before, though. If I used the Samba server, could I still have a RAID setup to have backup hard drive of everything?

If I used the shell script, how would I go about doing that? Could it be done automatically? And, would it work with RAID?

Why I keep asking about the RAID, is because my main goal is to make sure that he will not lose his data in case his external (or an internal drive he were to stop using the external with the Samba suggestion) drive fails. I guess my main goal is to make an efficient, fault tolerant (at least one drive) backup/storage system.

Thanks for he quick replies.
 
if you want that i would go with a externel server. somewhere where if there is a fire, you still have your data in a different place. But if you want to keep it simple, yes raid can do both. i think raid is just a chip in a motherboard that backs your entire drive up as you go along.
 
So if I simply had a networked PC that had a RAID1 setup, would all I have to do is periodically transfer files over to one of it's drives and it would copy them to the other?

If that is the case... how hard would it be to have it automatically do this? I'm guessing that is how Cromewell's suggestion would work?

Would I need any specific OS to make everything easily compatible?

Thanks for all the help! I'm a total noob.
 
So if I simply had a networked PC that had a RAID1 setup, would all I have to do is periodically transfer files over to one of it's drives and it would copy them to the other?
Click to expand...
Yes that's all, the shell script would be how you automate it. You can use special backup software too but you usually have to buy it.

For the shell scrip all you do is make a list of copy/FTP commands for the files/directories you need then when you run the script it copies them automatically. OS X should play nicely with Windows and other Unix OSs so whatever you are more familiar with will be the one you want to use.
 
Could I copy entire directories? For example: say the drive has three folders (A, B, and C). Say each of these has 5 subfolders, and each of those has 2 files.

Could I simply copy folders A,B, & C and be done?

Also, where can I learn to make the shell script?

I'd probably go with a Linux system, simply to save money.. no point in having an expensive OS on a computer used to store data.

Thanks for the help.
 
Thanks for the link. I read some of it. I'll read through it more when I have more time.

But this is enough to get me started for now.

Thanks guys.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top