External hard drive for expanding iTunes library?

Cytocycle, I haven't heard of ClarkConnect home Linux. I use mostly Ubuntu and Fedora distributions. If you're using hardware RAID, just about any distribution should work fine. And most distributions make it easy to configure software RAID, too.

Most motherboards have up to 4 SATA RAID ports (though some have 2 of them). If you want one contiguous volume rather than mounting two separate RAID systems on two separate mountpoints, then consider a RAID controller such as the following:

3ware 9650SE-8LPML PCI Express SATA II Controller Card

Good luck,

Michael

Get an external HDD box like this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817146602

Then put a 400GB ATA HDD in it for around $110, such as this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822152043

This combo will set you back around $150 and will work with both USB and firewire. (I use it with firewire on my Mac, and it works great.) Very quiet and a cinch to install.

I agree with Herman that you do need an additional one for backups.

Michael

I don't have any experience with the G-drive but it seems to be quite expensive. I respectfully disagree with the poster who said that an external hard drive needs a fan. Hard drives (and computer components in general) are much more rugged than we think. Hard drives are very reliable (certainly much more reliable than vacuum tubes). I have an old computer that kept killing its fans 7 years ago. I finally took the fans out and left the machine for dead, with its 2 hard drives, performing non-critical functions such as the print server and such. Running 24/7 in the 7 years since then, the system continues to function fine. And if you've ever taken apart an external hard drive enclosure shortly after the drive was running, you can pull the HD out and it just feels warm, not hot, to the touch.

Look at it this way: For the price of the G-drive, you could have TWO external hard drives (in other words, you would have the backup unit). Drives don't fail often (user error is a more common reason for data loss), but if it did you'd at least have 2nd drive as the backup.

It all depends on how much you want to spend. If you are OK with the price of the G-drive, then by all means get it. Then get a comparable sized drive for a backup. Simple as that.

Michael

I've had dozens of hard drives over the years (several of them external). Only 1 of them has catastrophically failed. By contrast, I've lost 3 computer power supplies. Maybe I'm just lucky when it comes to drives. (Most of them have been from Seagate, with several Western Digital. The failed one was a Maxtor, but that was only after 5 or 6 years.)

And while temperature is one of the many variables collected by S.M.A.R.T (a tool available in all drives produced in the past decade for predicting drive failure), according to people who know drives a lot more than I do, it's not all that predictive. (In fact, S.M.A.R.T isn't overly accurate in predicting failure.) For most electronic devices, it's the thermal stresses (ie, turning it off and on repeatedly) rather than the steady-state temperature that really causes problems. That's one of the reasons for keeping the units powered 24/7.

I'll disagree with a previous poster's suggestion about a NAS device. They're relatively expensive (you can build a fileserver with similar capabilities cheaper), and they're SLOW. Transferring at only 10 MB/s (at best) will get old really fast. (I have a 1 TB NAS and a gigabit ethernet network, and its chief limitation is the speed.) You can get better throughput with a USB or FireWire device and at a much better price.

Better still, build your own fileserver with 2 drives running in RAID 1 (full redundancy) for well under $500. Then get an external hard drive to back up the fileserver (RAID doesn't protect against viruses or user accidentally deleting things -- just drive failure).

Michael

Edesilva,

I used to think that a NAS was equivalent to a fileserver until I actually got one (Thecus N4100). I have a couple friends with other manufacturer's products, and we compared notes. They're all slow (the best gets around 12 Mbps, nowhere near the 150 Mbps that you're quoting). Despite having a gigabit ethernet interface and 4 decent drives running RAID 5, it lags substantially compared to my 9 year old fileserver (Dell PowerEdge running an ancient version of Linux).

I put all my audio data on it because the data outgrew my fileserver. Unfortunately, the whole process of ripping CD's, organizing the data, and extracting select pieces to transfer to a portable device is now much more time consuming. Don't underestimate the desire for better speed with audio data, as well.

You can construct a fileserver fairly inexpensively. Just skimp on the processor, memory, and video card while getting decent drives and network card. It won't need a monitor or keyboard once you get it up and running; you can administer it remotely from there on. One such example is https://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/Wishlist/PublicWishDetail.asp?WishListNumber=3894685&WishListTitle=Cost%2Deffective+fileserver.

Just get your favorite distribution of Linux (you can download many for free, or pay a few dollars for a DVD). I would run this in RAID 0 because you'll have an external backup unit. This example system would have 800 GB, and would be flexible enough to allow other types of services (ie, you could also use it as a webserver and print server). This is my current recommendation for people needing substantial storage, and use the NAS devices (or just an external hard drive) as backups.

To answer Howell's original question, I think the G-Drive will probably work great for you. Just make sure you have a separate backup unit and you're fine. Many good drives are available in the $100ish range that have 5 year warranties, so I don't think you need to go overboard. As long as you have a good backup, you can fix even a catastrophic drive failure easily and inexpensively. That's just the point that I've been trying to get across.

Michael

I advocate RAID 0 because (non-zero) RAID protects against one thing and one thing only: A single hard drive failure. (Lose 2 and you're hosed.) It allows you to work even when a drive fails. It does NOT protect against the more common reasons for data loss (user screwups, viruses, etc). Hence you still need a backup solution. So if you're a business that depends on having continuous 24/7 access to your data, you use RAID. On the other hand, if 24/7 continuous access is not critical to the application, as is the case here, save your money and just purchase a replacement HDD if/when it becomes necessary. You have backups, so you can restore the data easily. Make sense?

RAID 1 doubles the number of drives you need, and RAID 5 really only makes sense with at least 4 drives. So you're adding an additional 2 drives effectively to achieve redundancy for comparable data storage. You'll have to purchase an additional HDD if any of the drives dies regardless of which RAID type you use.

Edesilva, are you referring to Buffalo's 1 TB Terastation? My friend has one and we're getting nowhere near the 160 Mbps that you're getting. Which model do you have? We do much better transferring files PC to PC across his gigabit ethernet network than we do from Terastation to PC.

And the reason I advocate building your own machine is that it is more flexible in the long run. Want to add additional capabilities to make it some sort of media server? No problem. Want to add Myth TV software to make it like a TIVO? It's doable (although that does take some work and special hardware). Or you can also use it as a router/firewall.

I guess my point is that it's your backups (preferably stored away from your computer), not RAID that really protects your data. You'll pay extra for RAID. Just make sure you need it.

Michael

Cytocycle, I found the link you provided interesting. I don't have the Thecus N5200, but I have the N4100 at home and it appears that they run at vastly different speeds. My N4100 gives 1/10 the performance of the N5200 according to their data.

My impression of my Thecus N4100 is this. The only thing that went easily was installing the drives. That went without a hitch. But then I had a terrible time configuring it. I sent an e-mail to Thecus and got a cryptic response back. I ended up upgrading the firmware, and things got better after that, well, once I figured out a peculiarity of the two network jacks and their default network addresses. The bottom line is that it wasn't the easiest thing to set up, and it's slow as molasses. I use it for backups because it's too slow to be used for anything else. Maybe the newer N5200 has fixed many of these problems?

That's why I now advocate home-built NAS solutions. It's about the same price, and you can spend just a few dollars for an Ubuntu Linux DVD and it's all the software purchase you'll have to make. And it's MUCH faster for me. You can also use it as your web server, router, firewall, etc. Add to that the possibility of automated remote backups and you can see why I much prefer this option.

Michael

Cytocycle, why do you need to have up to 8 drives? That's the constraint that's causing it to be more expensive. You won't find an NAS with >4-5 drives at a reasonable price point. Commercial RAID racks are going to start in the couple thousand dollar range. The 3ware card is actually about your least expensive option given that constraint. If you are willing to be limited to 4 drives (1.5 TB using 4 500 GB drives in RAID 5), then try something like:

Tekram TR-834A PCI-X 133MHz/64bit SATA II Controller Card

I would advise against software RAID, because it's more difficult to configure and to recover, as well as being slower.

Michael