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Do you rely on RAID as your NAS backup?

It seems that using RAID architecture in your NAS is not the best backup strategy for various reasons.
Why even bother with RAID if that is the case?  Just use a single HD NAS and back it up periodically to another HD or the cloud.
Am I missing something?
albireo13
kijanki's avatar
kijanki
4,428 posts
 
Again, RAID is not a backup.  It can be destroyed by controller failure, virus, voltage spike, bug in OS or controller software etc.    If you use Crashplan you can use it with single drive as well.  Crashplan is your backup - not RAID.
In addition, as Al mentioned, recovery can take forever.  Also, companies have system problems, go out of business, change rules etc.  I would rather trust my plain backup drive.  Unpowered drives in storage tend not to fail.  In addition simple solutions are always the best  - read this link:

http://jeffreydonenfeld.com/blog/2011/12/crashplan-online-backup-lost-my-entire-backup-archive/
williewonka
3,075 posts
 
One other strike against RAID - you need to use "server grade" drives which are more expensive - the more affordable drives on the market will fail much quicker in a RAID configured NAS drive.

The company that I’ve purchased all my computers from over the past 30 years (and now good friends) recommends to all their customers contemplating RAID of any type to use server grade drive ONLY. They seen far to many standard drives fail within 12 months.

Having said that - I use a NAS drive configured as mirrored RAID to provide protection against hard disk failure of my music library. It works well, is really simple to recover (just pop in a new drive) and is extremely stable. I keep it in the basement where it is nice and cool, which it appreciates.

I first tried the NAS drive using a couple of standard drives (from a couple of redundant and hardly used USB drives) just to see how a serving music from a NAS drive would perform - perhaps thinking that the case for server grade drives had been "overstated"? - RESULT: one drive failed within 6 months. I replaced both drives with server grade drives and 4 years later - still not missing a beat :-)

Convenience, is perhaps the biggest selling point of RAID. If a drive fails there is minimal down-time - unless both drives fail (always a possibility, but quite rare according to my computer buddies)

Server grade drives are more robust and fail with much less frequency - since they are built to handle far more transfers that what is required from serving up music in a home environment.

I agree with other posters...
- RAID is NOT a backup!
- it may have some other "warts", but I have yet to experience them - perhaps due to my network configuration

BTW - I use a Dlink NAS drive - configured with two server grade drives - cost me around $450 - jeepers - I’ve got cables that cost more than that !!!

"Perfect Solution" maybe not - but it sure does reduce the need of having to restore from a backup - at least so far :-)

Regards...
ozzy's avatar
ozzy
7,491 posts
 

Thanks for the help. It was a Western Digital 3TB that failed. I need more education on the different back up options.

Quick question: My source is a Bryston BDP-2 usb player. I like to leave the player on all the time so its ready to play. I thought that the hardrive goes into sleep mode when not being used. But, since the hardrive had failed now I am wondering if it would be better to turn off the BDP-2 when not being used.

The external hardrive blinks and the BDP-2 screen goes dark after a period of inactivity.

kijanki's avatar
kijanki
4,428 posts
 
Ozzy, I also keep my "source" drive ON but it goes into sleep mode. Check "Power Options".  In Windows 7 hard disk timeout is in "Advanced Settings".
hevac1
812 posts
 

Yes and No.

I use both Raid5 & Raid10 configurations all should be backed up.

As stated above Raid5 should be backed up and can fail in a number of ways. If you have 1 drive and only 1 drive fail in the Raid5 you can put a new drive and in most cases the Raid will rebuild. BUT if your drives are old you can have a catastrophic failure. The other drives may not be up to the task of working that long or as hard as required to rebuild the Raid and if any more drives fail while it is rebuilding, say by to all data.  The older the drives are the more likely that this could happen.

RAID 10/5 works by striping and mirroring your data across at least 4 drives and is the same as Mirroring, or RAID 1, means writing your data to 2 or more disks at the same time. Even if one disk fails completely, the mirror preserves the information. The chances of a drive failing in both is minimal but is still possible. This also reduces useable space by half plus some. 24TB = !!Tb. As said this is still not fool proof.

Make sure you have a UPS as a sudden loss of power can destroy all data and or may require your Raid to be verified and that can take days.

All this said you can buy WD 6tb My book for under $200, so backup your data. Most in this hobby have cables that cost more than $200.

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