JBOD recommendations?

[Rick McCleary]

Peter -

Thanks for yesterday's excellent session.

A couple of follow-up questions regarding storage:

1) I spent a while online looking for bare drives/enclosures.  I'm fairly bright and computer literate, but not a full-fledged propeller-head, so I was a bit overwhelmed by the choices.  SATA, IDE, Firewire, controller cards, etc, etc, etc.  Can you give me a nice, concise shopping list of what to buy and how to implement it into my system?  I'm currently using just one computer, so I'd like to have this JBOD appear as volumes on that machine.

2) Would it be best to get this storage system set up before I start doing a lot of iView cataloging, or is it easy for iView to "redraw" the path for every record if I migrate the media files from one drive to another?

Thanks - Rick

[peterkrogh]

Rick,

1) Here's a firewire version. I think I bought from them, but I'm not sure:
http://www.cooldrives.com/qubayredk1st.html

If you bought a 1 or 2 bay unit as well, that could be the enclosure you took on the road with you.  Buy some extra drive caddies while you're at it.

Here's a SATA version:
http://www.macgurus.com/productpages/sata/sataguide_1.php

I think Firewire 400 is good enough, but you could also do Firewire 800.  Even if you upgrade the case before too long, you won't have too much money sunk in to the thing.  The SATA version will require some hacking (Install SATA card, install conversion kits to the JBOD, run cables that look kind of non-standard..)

2) I'd put the files in their permanent home, then catalog.  Just go ahead and order the 4 Bay firewire case today, and you'll be working on this soon enough.  iView does a good job of redrawing paths, but since you are so close to getting started with the real hardware, I'd hang on a bit.

BTW, I have a copy of the new build of iView and the thumbnail thing is fixed, along with some other bug fixes, and new stuff.  Will report when I think it's time to put it in to service.
Peter

[Rick McCleary]

Peter,

Thanks for the links. 

As we were talking about yesterday, I don't think speed is a big factor.  That, and the fact that the firewire drives seem to be cheaper, make me think I'll go with the firewire setup.  Also, the SATA box does not support removeable drive/sled assemblies.  That seems to be restrictive.

Will I need a separate host board?  Or should it just plug straight into a firewire port?

Also, when I'm shopping for drives, are "bare drives" and "internal drives" the same thing?

Thanks - Rick

[peterkrogh]

Rick,
It should go straight into the firewire port, no cards needed.

Bare drives annd internal drives are the same thing.
Peter

[Rick McCleary]

BTW, I have a copy of the new build of iView and the thumbnail thing is fixed, along with some other bug fixes, and new stuff.  Will report when I think it's time to put it in to service.

I have build 4272.  Is there a more recent one?

[peterkrogh]

Rick,
It looks from the download page like they have a new build. I'll ask if the keywords issue is fixed in this.  The version I have is a beta of the .01 release: cool new stuff on the way.
Peter

[Rick McCleary]

1) Here's a firewire version. I think I bought from them, but I'm not sure:
http://www.cooldrives.com/qubayredk1st.html

If you bought a 1 or 2 bay unit as well, that could be the enclosure you took on the road with you.  Buy some extra drive caddies while you're at it.

Peter -

I'm having a heck of a time finding a 4-bay firewire enclosure.  The cooldrives one mentioned above doesn't exist.  I ordered it, and got an email saying that they're permanently out-of-stock.  Checked all over the internet for 4-bay firewire enclosures, and the one that CoolDrives is out of is the same one everyone else is out of.

Any ideas?  I don't feel like spending $1200 - $1500 for this.  Seems like I ought to be able to get an enclosure for around $200 and four 320Gb drives for $130/ea.  The whole thing would come to about $720.  There are plenty of drives out there, I'm just hung up on the enclosure.

Thanks - Rick

[peterkrogh]

Rick,
That's curious.  These things are just made out of generic parts.  The box is a box, the power supply is similar to ones you can get at any compUSA, and the drive sleds are inexpensive interchangeable parts.  How about these guys:

http://www.firewiremax.com/fire-wire-1394-ilink/qubaylcdfi80.html

These guys seem to have the parts, but it looks like a project:

http://www.xpcgear.com/harddrives.html

You could also call these guys, but I think they will act French to your choice of Firewire:

http://www.macgurus.com

These guys have the cases and the "mobile racks" that make the drives sled-mounted

http://store.sunshinestor.com/noname8.html

These guys have cheaper SATA than Firewire.  Go figure:

http://www.granitedigital.com/catalog/pg55_satahot-swapbackup4.htm

Smalldog has the Wiebetech version:

http://www.smalldog.com/product/38551

Let me know when you find one that seems suitable. Frankly, I'm utterly confounded by how hard it is the find these right now.  I have been thinking, for at least a year, that I would start to see these in every CompUSA or BestBuy by now. 

Peter

[peterkrogh]

Rick,
This looks exactly like the one I am currently using.  8 Bays may seem like a lot now, but gives you room to expand in the future.

http://cgi.ebay.com/8-bay-IDE-to-FIREWIRE-USB-2-0-Hard-Drive-Enclosure-Case_W0QQitemZ8721127583QQcategoryZ167QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Peter

[Rick McCleary]

Peter,

Thanks for all the links.  I did some more hunting today and came up with this:
http://www.cooldrives.com/fi80qu5fitoi.html

The price is right.  Also, found 320Gb Maxtor drives for $115/ea here:
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=100719-5

Seems like a good price.  I can get the box and 1.2Tb of storage for about $725.
Whaddya think?

Rick

[peterkrogh]

Rick,
I think that looks great. I like the individual temp gauge on the drive bays, as well as the number of fans.

I would get extra caddies either at the time of purchase or shortly thereafter, probably at least two.

Also, you should strongly consider getting on of the removable racks/frames inside a single-bay case for your location work.

Any idea how it differs from this:

http://www.cooldrives.com/qulcdfi80inc.html

As to which drives to buy, I don't think anyone can say definitively.  I have been tending to the hitachi and seagate drives myself.  I find many Seagate drives now come with 5-year warranties.  While I don't expect to keep any drives in critical use for 5 years, I would expect that a drive of this size will still be useful over a 5 year period for many purposes.  Since I buy quite a few drives, this seems to be a good feature.

There is also a school of thought that says if the manufacturer is willing to warrantee a drive for 5 years, then they must have a high level of confidence in them.  Take that with a grain of salt or not.

I would suggest, however, that you mark your drives with a small notation of the purchase date and warranty period before you mount them in the case. Otherwise matching up this information down the road will probably not even be worth it.

This is a good place to look for drives:
http://www.pricewatch.com/

Peter

[Rick McCleary]

Peter -

I've ordered the box and 4 Seagate 300Gb Barracuda drives (at $139/ea.).  I'll let you know when it's up and running.

This morning, I also just bought a Canon 5D and a couple more "L" lenses.  I feel like I just gave blood.  Oh well, money in and money out.

Thanks so much for your help.

Rick

[Dan Westergren]

Peter,
Regarding the firewire multiple drive enclosures. They have started to become scarce in the last two months. It seems like a supply problem, but I would guess that the world is going to SATA. Something to keep in mind.

Dan Westergren

[peterkrogh]

Dan,
That probably is true, but there are still comparitively few ready-made SATA enclosures, as well as PCI cards that have external ports.  And I don't know of anybody who is shipping computers with external SATA ports as a standard feature. And it may be possible to hook these up to a laptop,but I have not seen the hardware needed (some kinf of PC-card thing, I expect). It's the wave of the future, certainly.
Peter

[Mark Beckelman]

I am currently using 2 Seritek / 1EN2 external enclosures:
http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-1en2/
with SATA Seagate 200 gb and 250 gb drives (each is mirrored).

A friend has been asking about my set-up, and, wanting to give him the best advice I can, decided to see if there were any better archiving options or products for him.


Mark Beckelman