One 500GB External, or Two 250GB externals?

[SeanD]

Hello all...I have a relatively minor question that I would appreciate some feedback on.At the moment my archive and backup consists of two 250GB Firewire external drives (one drive being a mirror for the other). These serve as image archive and backup as well as general backup. The photos (originals only) take up approx. 170GB. I am ready to expand my storage capacity and begin implementing some of the practices outlined in Peter's excellent book.

Let me preface this by saying that at the moment, I do not need a JBOD configuration. I can see switching to that at some point down the road, but for now I just want to keep it simple (which, in this case, also means less money). My initial thoughts were as follows:

Buy a 500GB Firewire external and transfer the photo archive from one 250GB drive onto that and then use one of the 250GB drives as offsite HD backup (I have a large safe deposit box for this). This would give me plenty of room to expand my capacity for original files and I could use the 2nd 250GB drive for Derivatives, or for general system backups.

A LaCie 500GB Big Disk Extreme w/ triple interface runs about $340. I have since found that I can get two 250GB Firewire externals for about $295. Same capacity (more or less) for $45 less. I would still use my existing drives as offsite backups as outlined above. The question is really not so much about the money, since $45 is not much, but this:

Is it better and perhaps more convenient/flexible to have the two 250GB drives vs a single 500GB drive? The downsides to the two drive approach (based on what I am considering) are having to deal w/ two power bricks, and the fact that the 250GB drives are Firewire 400 whereas the 500GB has Firewire 800 capability (though I don't really see the speed difference as being much of an issue).

The upsides are less money spent and perhaps more flexibility in terms of having more drives for both onsite and offsite backups.

Thoughts?

--Sean

[peterkrogh]

Sean,
I would stay way away from any of the solutions (like the LaCie BigDisks) that put two drives into a single case.  Lots more to go wrong, and much less you can do abbout it.

Furthermore, I would suggest that you buy your own cases and put drives of your choosing in (Hitachi or Seagate, for my money).  LaCie does a lot of buying the cheapest drives available.  The boards of full of people who have had bad problems with these.

Otherwise, if you can get by with singles, rather than multiples, do it. Most people who don't shoot a lot of pictures for a living can probably get away without a JBOOD.
Peter

[SeanD]

Peter...thanks for the lightning response. I appreciate your time.

Am I correct in assuming the interface for the drive (i.e., Firewire, USB 2.0, etc) is determined by the external case?

--Sean

[Rick McCleary]

Yes.  The case will determine the interface. 

I buy Firewire enclosures (about $60) and put in Seagate 300Gb 7200rpm Barracuda drives (about $130).  A good source I've found for these drives is zipzoomfly.com.  Good service and free 2nd-day shipping. 

Once you start buying drives this way, you'll see them as expendibles - kind of like film.  You buy 'em, you use 'em up, you buy more.

[SeanD]

I buy Firewire enclosures (about $60) and put in Seagate 300Gb 7200rpm Barracuda drives (about $130).  A good source I've found for these drives is zipzoomfly.com.

Thanks for the tip on the reseller, Rick. Much appreciated!

Can you provide a link to which case you got for those drives?

--Sean

[Rick McCleary]

I bought the enclosures from CompUSA - an actual bricks-and-mortar, walk-right-in, talk-to-the-sales-guy store.  The brand is Mad Dog.  They're very nice compact aluminum enclosures.  I like the size because I take them on the road when I shoot for back-up.

[wombat2010]

I recently bought this Coolmax enclosure http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817146057 from Newegg (obviously, given the link).  I like that it has all three common external connection types: USB2, Firewire, and SATA.  I have an external SATA port on my motherboard (ASUS P5LD2 Deluxe), so it is just as fast as an internal drive.  Noticeably faster than Firewire to say the least.  Note: the SATA port on the enclosure is SATA, like the connections inside your computer, but the external connection on the motherboard, and probably on most add-on PCI cards, is eSATA.  This meant I had to buy a cable that was SATA on one end and eSATA on the other, but that's okay--I wanted a nice, long 2m cord anyway.

The enclosure works well and takes both SATA and PATA (IDE) drives.  The computer recognized it, I gave it the letter Z: and called it ExtBackup.  Done!  I highly recommend it, especially at $50, which is hardly more than a decent USB/Firewire drive, and with this you're covered if you decide to upgrade MB's or get a PCI SATA adapter card.  Let us know how it goes.

Stephen

[SeanD]

Thanks for the recommendations, Stephen. It looks like I will probably go with the 300gb 7200rpm Barrcacuda. I appreciate the tips on the cases from you and Rick. I've installed bare drives into my older Mac G4 before, but I have not yet had to buy drive enclosures so the "intelligence" will come in handy!

-Sean

[peterkrogh]

Stephen,
I'll probably order one of those today.  That looks cool, and I was looking for another single-drive enclosure.

Sean,
I assumed that you were adding a drive to a G5 that already had two drives.  Is this correct?
Peter

[SeanD]

I assumed that you were adding a drive to a G5 that already had two drives.  Is this correct?

Peter...no, at the moment my main machine is a G4 laptop (through a gradual process of computer accumulation where it eventually became my fastest computer -- I wish I had a G5...maybe this year) that is hooked up to a Sony Artisan display when I am in the office. I am looking to expand my external Firewire storage (currently this is the two 250GB drives that are mirrors), so I can have a good sized "live and local" archive as well as use one of the older 250GB as offline/offsite backup.

For now I think I can get by with a 300GB drive at this time (since my originals archive is currently only about 170GB) and then add another 300GB drive later on down the road. The 250GB drives I will reassign to other backup purposes (offsite, other files, etc)

--Sean