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Using Ready NAS 104 as individual volumes for long term storage of multimedia files
Hi all, I have recently purchased a Ready nas 4 bay system, with 3x 4tb seagate harddrives. The plan is to use this as a long term storage solution for my partners photography business, which...
Thanks.
My local computer store recommended NAS as the best storage solution, which is somewhat frustrating.
I had assumed that given you can hotswap HDD's, it wouldn't be any different to reconnecting an old HDD in order to access the files stored on there. At the moment we are using external Hdd's, but those things are rubbish for long term storage.
tsimmo67 wrote:
Thanks.
My local computer store recommended NAS as the best storage solution, which is somewhat frustrating.
I had assumed that given you can hotswap HDD's, it wouldn't be any different to reconnecting an old HDD in order to access the files stored on there. At the moment we are using external Hdd's, but those things are rubbish for long term storage.
ReadyNAS supports hot-insertion for disk replacement, but it doesn't support routinely removing and remounting volumes.
How much data are you talking about (and what is the approx. growth rate)?
We are looking at approx 10-12tb of data as it stands, with a growth rate of approx 3tbs a year, depending upon how much work comes our way. This is weddings and dance concerts, so needs to be accessible in the long term. I am also advocating Cloud storage as well.
Given that the NAS system and tyhe 3 harddrives came to around a thousand dollars, I better be able to make it work, or I might be sleeping on the couch for a while! :)
tsimmo67 wrote:
We are looking at approx 10-12tb of data as it stands, with a growth rate of approx 3tbs a year, depending upon how much work comes our way. This is weddings and dance concerts, so needs to be accessible in the long term. I am also advocating Cloud storage as well.
Given that the NAS system and tyhe 3 harddrives came to around a thousand dollars, I better be able to make it work, or I might be sleeping on the couch for a while! :)
Cloud storage is probably the most cost effective way to go for archival and backup ($60 per year for unlimited amazon cloud storage is hard to beat). I'd probably still use USB archival/backup, so you aren't fully depending on the cloud storage provider. The main issue is that there is no app on the NAS for amazon cloud storage (or google drive/microsoft OneDrive) and the NAS, so you'd need to manage that manually from a PC.
Then use the NAS with XRAID, which would give you 8 TB of local storage - enough for about 2 years of work. You can of course grow it to 12 TB later (or more if you replace the 4 TB drives with larger ones).
I'm not sure which disks you purchased, but generally I'd recommend NAS-purposed drives (VN for seagate, RED for western digital). They have better warranties than desktop drives, and are intended for NAS/RAID. Enterprise drives are another good option - though more expensive.
DM drives aren't the best choices (though the most trouble-prone appears to be the 3 TB model, not the 4 TB). However, if you have purchased DMs, you might see if you can exchange them for VN.
Although, having said that, there is a large amount of data that we dont REALLY need to store. It's m,ainly weddings, and they might be better stored in a RAid system with a cloud backup. With 3, 4 tb harddrives, is it possible to have 8tbs of storage in a raid system? Cutting down what wer need to store would mean we would nearly elimintate the need to dismount and remount harddrives.
Oh, and I purchased the Seagate NAS drives. :)
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