• 1
  • 11
  • 12
  • 13
  • 14
  • 15(current)
Cost of Backing up Media
Ah yes, hadn't thought of that… :-)

It is indeed a fun topic !
Reply
(2014-05-16, 04:25)thrak76 Wrote: I'll try to tackle some of your questions...

1. Yes, there is a parity drive, or drives. You can have (i think) as many parity drives as you want. However, the parity drive must be at least as large as the largest data drive. So, an array with 2TB, 3TB and 4TB drives must have a parity drive of at least 4TB.

2. JBOD arrays are not a problem, assuming that you also use the pooling function.

3. Expansion is easy. Add the drive. Assign it to the pool. That's it.

4. As your data increases, you may add more than one parity drive. Multiple parity drives protect against multiple drive failure. One parity drive; one drive can fail without data loss. Two parity drives; two drives can fail simultaneously without data loss. Etc.. How many parity drives is a preference of how much risk you are willing to take. Currently in my setup I have 6 data drives and 1 4TB parity drive. When I get to 8 data drives I'll probably add another parity drive.

5. Don't know about hot spares (or really what a hot spare is?).

6. Restoring a failed drive looks pretty straight forward from the GUI - i have not had to do it yet. I believe your RAID can be online while restoring a failed drive as well.

See? THESE are the questions I wanted answered by the website. I just have a couple of follow up questions.

This SnapShot RIAD thusly only updates the parity information on an interval? Like daily? That I'm cool with, hey lose ONE day's worth of additions to the server, no biggy. Does this snapshot generation time use up a lot of CPU or take up a lot of time? It sorta sounds like the time needed depends on how much new content it adds. So it'd be epic on first run, after you dumped gigs upon gigs upon gigs into it, but a piece of cake if only several gigs per day are new.

Secondly, this parity disk, you can have (Effectively) unlimited other disks and there only needs to be ONE parity disk? Like, in a 10 drive system, 9 could be storage and just one has to be parity? The only catch is that the parity drive must be as large as the largest disks in the pool?
Reply
(2014-05-17, 01:25)DJ_Izumi Wrote: See? THESE are the questions I wanted answered by the website. I just have a couple of follow up questions.

This SnapShot RIAD thusly only updates the parity information on an interval? Like daily? That I'm cool with, hey lose ONE day's worth of additions to the server, no biggy. Does this snapshot generation time use up a lot of CPU or take up a lot of time? It sorta sounds like the time needed depends on how much new content it adds. So it'd be epic on first run, after you dumped gigs upon gigs upon gigs into it, but a piece of cake if only several gigs per day are new.

Secondly, this parity disk, you can have (Effectively) unlimited other disks and there only needs to be ONE parity disk? Like, in a 10 drive system, 9 could be storage and just one has to be parity? The only catch is that the parity drive must be as large as the largest disks in the pool?

You configure your own schedule for updates, validates, and verifies. Generally folks update daily, validate weekly, and verify monthly. So you're correct; lose only what's not been updated in the parity tables. Daily updates for me run around 20 minutes, and the hit on the CPU is negligible. This is also with a throughput on all the drives of around 85 MB/s. The parity creation for me on 18 TB of content took about 8 hours. Validation cycles are little more CPU intensive, and at times I've gotten some stuttering on content if I'm accessing at the same time as the validation. Verify has about the same impact as an update for me.

On your second point, you are correct again. How much risk are you willing to take determines how many parity drives you want to incorporate. My parity drive is the largest of all (4TB), and all my data drives are 3TB and under. On my next hdd acquisition though I'll be buying 4TB or larger drives. If I get a 5 or 6TB, I'll have to recreate my parity tables on the bigger drive.
Quick Links: debug log (wiki) | userdata (wiki) | advancedsettings (wiki) | adding videos to the library (wiki)
Reply
Well, you've helped answer some questions though I'm still undecided. Seeing as it's 50% off till mid July, I wanna take some time to think on it.

A key concern is trying to shift all the data FROM a Drive Bender to a FlexRAID setup. That migration would sorta be a real pain at first,
Reply
You could try snapraid which is free.
If I have helped you or increased your knowledge, click the 'thumbs up' button to give thanks :) (People with less than 20 posts won't see the "thumbs up" button.)
Reply
Your best bet is to use the trial (21 days I believe) and set up an array. It's always 50% off. He keeps running that "sale" back-to-back.

FWIW, I migrated from DriveBender too. Wasn't too bad, but it definitely has a learning curve.

(2014-05-17, 02:54)nickr Wrote: You could try snapraid which is free.

But there's no storage pooling, and no gui (at least not an actively developed gui).
Quick Links: debug log (wiki) | userdata (wiki) | advancedsettings (wiki) | adding videos to the library (wiki)
Reply
There is pooling. And why need a GUI? This is the sort of thing you should set up once and never have to touch unless you add or lose a drive.
If I have helped you or increased your knowledge, click the 'thumbs up' button to give thanks :) (People with less than 20 posts won't see the "thumbs up" button.)
Reply
I didn't know there was pooling. Good to know.

I need a gui because I do not think it is something you set up once and never touch. I often use the gui in flexRAID to monitor processes, configure schedules, etc. I'm not as comfortable with command line only utilities.
Quick Links: debug log (wiki) | userdata (wiki) | advancedsettings (wiki) | adding videos to the library (wiki)
Reply
(2014-05-17, 02:56)thrak76 Wrote: FWIW, I migrated from DriveBender too. Wasn't too bad, but it definitely has a learning curve.

Well, I realize I can just pull the drives out of the Drive Pool and find all the raw files in there to drag and drop into the new setup. But since I have about 13TB spanning 5 physical drives, migration will be a challenge. I imagine I'll need to work like this:

1)Build Initial FlexRAID using 4TB storage + 4TB parity drive
2) Copy contents from a former DriveBender disk to the FlexRAID
3) Format DriveBender disk and add it to the FlexRAID
4) Repeat from Step 2 until all DriveBender disks have been migrated repurposed.


...Sounds like a very annoying afternoon. Tongue
Reply
If you used drive balancing in drivebender, then the directory structure on all the data drives is identical when you stop the storage pool, right? However, the contents of the directories are different.

When I set up the FlexRAID pool, after the RAID initialization all the directories were merged. So all that copying and formatting you were speaking of is really unnecessary. You can choose auto-folder priority, which maintains directory integrity on a disk-by-disk basis (filling up a drive before moving on to the next), or auto-space priority, which is like the drive balancing in drive bender.
Quick Links: debug log (wiki) | userdata (wiki) | advancedsettings (wiki) | adding videos to the library (wiki)
Reply
  • 1
  • 11
  • 12
  • 13
  • 14
  • 15(current)

Logout Mark Read Team Forum Stats Members Help
Cost of Backing up Media0