prototype wrote:
Scorpion0x17 wrote:
Storing 3TB's of porn, downloaded movies, apps, games and mp3s (appologies proto if it's not all porn/movies/apps/games/mp3s) DOES NOT REQUIRE A BACKUP SOLUTION - it requires a STORAGE SOLUTION.
Again, prototype - can you clarify here - what is it, 'backup' (where you've got important files that MUST NOT be lost, ever) or 'storage' (where you just want somewhere to dump stuff out of the way, but where it's reasonable accessible) that you're after?
yes, long term storage
but all the files are important and will be accessed when needed/wanted but not more than 2 or 3 times a month.
I am just going to buy a few decent external HDDs
Thanks prototype, that's clearer.
I still recommend moving towards building a 2nd PC.
As I said previously, it doesn't need to be brilliant, and if you put Vista Business or Premium on it, you don't need keyboard, mouse, monitor or even graphics card (well, as long as there's graphics on the mobo), but it does need plenty of SATA/IDE ports (which most mobos have now-a-days) and, ideally, RAID5 across all of them).
You could easily put together a base unit, in decent, large, case and a good PSU for around £500, or less if you're willing to cut some specs.
Then, fill it with as many HDDs as it'll take/you've got, hook it up to your router, and you're (pretty much) away.
The reason you don't need keyb/mouse/monitor, but do need Vista Business/Premium is remote desktop.
Once you've got it set up and it's plugged into your LAN (i.e. into your router), then you can just remote desktop over to the storage PC from your main PC.
Not that you'll need to very much, for access to the storage, you can just configure some shares so you can just drag-n-drop files, as though the storage were permanently plugged in to your main computer.
But, you say "all the files are important"...
This is where backups come in - how important are they? would it be a disaster if someone where to reformat all your storage?
If so, then you should also consider backing up
all important files - storage alone does not make your data safe - backups make your data safe.
Also, will you be changing the files in storage, or are they just, for example, movie files that you want to dump somewhere, but somewhere accessible so you can watch them easily? and would it matter if someone went in to your files and changed stuff?
Again, if you're storing files that change often, and you want to protect against disastrous changes being made to them, backups are the order of the day.
In either case, because you've got a lot of data, you want a good compressed, incremental, backup onto a media that know is relatively 'safe' - ideally mirrored in some form.
Essentially what you're doing now is 'mirroring' - only it's manual on-to-disc mirroring - the same will apply if you do just decide to buy some external drives, for now - all you're doing is mirroring the data - this is the most basic form of backup and is why everyone started harping on about backup solutions.
Now, I'm sure Bertster et al will now proceed to tell me I'm wrong, for some reason or another, but again, RAID can help here, but not RAID5 this time, rather RAID1 (or one of the other mirrored RAIDs).
But now we are getting into max-overkill territory.
Spoiler (highlight to read): pun intended, btw, max
