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3-2-1 backup advice

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butternutsquash

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Ordered a new Imac and want to beef up my backup processes as well.

Currently implementing 3-2-1 backup as follows:

Mac internal SSD - applications, system, LR catalog, etc, about 300 GB used

Sandisk 2TB Extreme Portable SSD - all data - about 1.5 TB used

Old Airport base station 3 TB - no longer used as router, connected to google mesh in a diff location in same house. Backs up Mac SSD and Sandisk external via time machine.

Backblaze $6/month plan cloud storage

When the Sandisk gets full, it looks like I would be looking at some sort of DAS RAID 5 solution. Maybe something along these lines? https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/thunderbay-4/thunderbolt-3-raid-5

Looking at 12 TB RAID 5 would be 9TB available storage, $870

But what's the solution for when the Airport base station fills? NAS?

Do I really need both RAID in both DAS and NAS? Seems like a bunch of overkill for what I expect to be somewhere in the 3-6TB range of data in the next few years.

Thanks in advance!
 
basil92008 said:
Ordered a new Imac and want to beef up my backup processes as well.

Currently implementing 3-2-1 backup as follows:

Mac internal SSD - applications, system, LR catalog, etc, about 300 GB used

Sandisk 2TB Extreme Portable SSD - all data - about 1.5 TB used

Old Airport base station 3 TB - no longer used as router, connected to google mesh in a diff location in same house. Backs up Mac SSD and Sandisk external via time machine.

Backblaze $6/month plan cloud storage

When the Sandisk gets full, it looks like I would be looking at some sort of DAS RAID 5 solution. Maybe something along these lines? https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/thunderbay-4/thunderbolt-3-raid-5

Looking at 12 TB RAID 5 would be 9TB available storage, $870

But what's the solution for when the Airport base station fills? NAS?

Do I really need both RAID in both DAS and NAS? Seems like a bunch of overkill for what I expect to be somewhere in the 3-6TB range of data in the next few years.

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
I don't see a need for RAID, at least for still photo work. My config:

Active projects on Mac Pro's 1TB SSD. Completed projects moved to 8TB HD, backed up to another 8TB HD. Déja Vu backup software keeps deleted and changed data (à la Time Machine) for a set number of backups. Ideally, all photos backed up to a third HD stored offsite (though I've outgrown the 4TB drive I was using for this). Mac Pro cloned & Time Machined to a 4TB hard drive partitioned 1TB/3TB. Other big data (iTunes, downloads, etc.) stored & backed up on an old pair of 2TB drives.

My main 8TB archive drive is a LaCie 2big Thunderbolt RAID0 that I bought years back for speed. Now that I have enough rocket-fast SSD storage in my Mac Pro to keep all my active projects, I really don't need the archive to be fast, so single USB3 drives would suffice for all my long-term storage.
 
basil92008 said:
Ordered a new Imac and want to beef up my backup processes as well.

Currently implementing 3-2-1 backup as follows:

Mac internal SSD - applications, system, LR catalog, etc, about 300 GB used

Sandisk 2TB Extreme Portable SSD - all data - about 1.5 TB used

Old Airport base station 3 TB - no longer used as router, connected to google mesh in a diff location in same house. Backs up Mac SSD and Sandisk external via time machine.

Backblaze $6/month plan cloud storage

When the Sandisk gets full, it looks like I would be looking at some sort of DAS RAID 5 solution. Maybe something along these lines? https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/thunderbay-4/thunderbolt-3-raid-5

Looking at 12 TB RAID 5 would be 9TB available storage, $870

But what's the solution for when the Airport base station fills? NAS?

Do I really need both RAID in both DAS and NAS? Seems like a bunch of overkill for what I expect to be somewhere in the 3-6TB range of data in the next few years.

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
Yeah, not sure why you need a RAID.

That's what, 4TB of stuff you need to back up? there are plenty of affordable USB 3 external drives that could back that up via TM. Or via attachment to your router if its TM capable. With what you save by not buying RAID you could have more storage, a bootable clone, or a portable to take offsite.

I'd just rotate the Airport TM backup out of service; you could keep it for really old files, but that's old hardware on its own, and hence maybe in need of the upgrade.
 
I just finished pulling together all my old data from a bunch of old laptops and small portable 256 GB hard drives that I had laying around, and I was very lucky they all worked, so I don't want to risk it again and I would like to keep everything on one disk. All data files at least. And that way everything backs up smoothly with Backblaze.

I guess there are a few >2TB SSD options but they are pricey and not much cheaper than a bigger DAS RAID. I'm not sure what I'm missing.

I guess I'm still unsure how to go about replacing the Airport base station portion without a NAS. I would like to connect a simple cheap external hard drive to the router for this but I can't figure out how to do that?
 
basil92008 said:
I guess there are a few >2TB SSD options but they are pricey and not much cheaper than a bigger DAS RAID. I'm not sure what I'm missing.
Click to expand...
You don't need an SSD for backup; absolutely pointless. 4-8TB USB HDs are cheap and plenty fast enough fr backup.
butternutsquash said:
I guess I'm still unsure how to go about replacing the Airport base station portion without a NAS. I would like to connect a simple cheap external hard drive to the router for this but I can't figure out how to do that?
Click to expand...
The Airport has a USB port on it, to plug in an external disk, no?
 
If you want to spend money, time and complicate your life, by all means get a RAID 5.

RAID 5 consists of block-level striping with distributed parity. Unlike RAID 4, parity information is distributed among the drives, requiring all drives but one to be present to operate. Upon failure of a single drive, subsequent reads can be calculated from the distributed parity such that no data is lost. RAID 5 requires at least three disks.

Like all single-parity concepts, large RAID 5 implementations are susceptible to system failures because of trends regarding array rebuild time and the chance of drive failure during rebuild. Rebuilding an array requires reading all data from all disks, opening a chance for a second drive failure and the loss of the entire array.

Take Control of Backing Up Your Mac Third Edition Chapters on RAID, NAS, etc. with excellent detailed info including various hardware options. The info is regularly updated with email notices of free updates (with direct download links) and online appendices.
 
johnbandry said:
basil92008 said:
I guess there are a few >2TB SSD options but they are pricey and not much cheaper than a bigger DAS RAID. I'm not sure what I'm missing.
Click to expand...
You don't need an SSD for backup; absolutely pointless. 4-8TB USB HDs are cheap and plenty fast enough fr backup.
Click to expand...
The DAS is not for backup, that would be for primary working storage. The Mac SSD is just for operating system and applications. It would defeat the purpose of this fancy new computer I just bought to be working off a USB HD. If I don't want to go moving files around, I can't see another option >2TB? I would really like to be wrong.
johnbandry said:
johnbandry said:
I guess I'm still unsure how to go about replacing the Airport base station portion without a NAS. I would like to connect a simple cheap external hard drive to the router for this but I can't figure out how to do that?
Click to expand...
The Airport has a USB port on it, to plug in an external disk, no?
Click to expand...
Someone above said I should ditch the Aiport. I suppose there is little risk in using it as a connector between the router and a new HD though.
 
johnbandry said:
basil92008 said:
I guess there are a few >2TB SSD options but they are pricey and not much cheaper than a bigger DAS RAID. I'm not sure what I'm missing.
Click to expand...
You don't need an SSD for backup; absolutely pointless. 4-8TB USB HDs are cheap and plenty fast enough fr backup.
Click to expand...
An SSD really is terrible overkill for backup, both speed wise and price wise.

Yet I chose to use the 2TB Sandisk SSD as backup.

For one, I use it as a CCC clone and hence it runs reasonably well when I boot it up, much more pleasant than booting off a hard drive.

Secondly, APFS provides snapshots that give you some time history, like Time Machine. Although APFS is possible on a hard drive, it's poor performance on a hard drive argues for staying with HFS+ and the CCC Safety Net there.
johnbandry said:
johnbandry said:
I guess I'm still unsure how to go about replacing the Airport base station portion without a NAS. I would like to connect a simple cheap external hard drive to the router for this but I can't figure out how to do that?
Click to expand...
The Airport has a USB port on it, to plug in an external disk, no?
Click to expand...
I tried that once with the squat rectangular Time Capsule and the transfer speeds were slower than molasses.

Like basil, I have a bunch of drives and would really like to clean up my backup configuration, but there seems to be no good answer. Having lots of source disks and lots of cheap slow backup disks means getting a hub like the TS3. My 1 bay Synology NAS run as a JBOD is about as cost effective for backup as I've found, and it's nice to access it from a laptop and share space with the various uses, but one failure of the NAS is an issue. I've thought about disk arrays like Drobo, but can't seem to choose between the DAS and NAS connections, but it would simplify the expansion problem.

pdj
 
This is an older thread but I'll chime in just in case....
basil92008 said:
Ordered a new Imac and want to beef up my backup processes as well.

Currently implementing 3-2-1 backup as follows:

Mac internal SSD - applications, system, LR catalog, etc, about 300 GB used

Sandisk 2TB Extreme Portable SSD - all data - about 1.5 TB used
Click to expand...
I assume your raw files on the Sandisk and "referenced" from the catalog (which is on SSD). I see little need for your referenced files to be on SSD. Sure, it's a bit faster but the catalog being on fast disk is much more important than the referenced files. I'm not sure when using LR when you'd notice the difference, perhaps during mass exports or during preview creation but it may not be a big deal.
butternutsquash said:
Old Airport base station 3 TB - no longer used as router, connected to google mesh in a diff location in same house. Backs up Mac SSD and Sandisk external via time machine.
Click to expand...
I was using an airport time capsule for a while that way, I even added an additional USB drive to it to allow for more backup space. Ultimately I found the backup process to be quite sluggish over the network . The TImeMachine "cleaning up" process seemed to last forever.

Timemachine works better for me when the destination is a locally attached drive. Given you can get a 4TB external drive for about $100 (and an 8TB drive for less than $150), I don't think I"d use that old Time capsule at all. Sure, you could also get a cheap NAS config, but TimeMachine can be a bit quirky with non-Apple NAS , sometimes breaking after macOS updates.
butternutsquash said:
Backblaze $6/month plan cloud storage
Click to expand...
I moved from Crashplan "Small business" to Backblaze this summer. Cut the cost in half and I think Backblaze is faster at backing up too. Hard to argue with it as an "offsite" solution (if your ISB/internet speed is adeqate).
butternutsquash said:
When the Sandisk gets full, it looks like I would be looking at some sort of DAS RAID 5 solution. Maybe something along these lines? https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/thunderbay-4/thunderbolt-3-raid-5
Click to expand...
I think you are limiting your options here unnecessarily. If you have to have SSD for these files (and I'm not sure you do), look at https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/express-4m2 which can hold four nvme SSD cards and can be configured about anyway you want (e.g., you could start with 2 and add 2 more later).

That said, again, if these are just referenced files, you could use a slower/cheaper spinning USB-3 drive and probably not suffer much perfomance-wise.
butternutsquash said:
Looking at 12 TB RAID 5 would be 9TB available storage, $870
Click to expand...
If I were going to put in a RAID with that 12TB configuration (four 3TB drives), I'd probably go for a RAID 1+0 configuration yielding 6TB (instead of 9). It's more robust and ensures a much simpler/faster rebuild process after a drive failure (there's lot of chatter about the risk of RAID 5 rebuilds failing).

But again, I'm not sure a RAID is that important since you'll be backed-up in a 3-2-1 config anyway. You could also put in a two-drive USB-3 external enclosure mirrored (RAID 1) to give it some protection. https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/External-Drive/OWC/Elite-Pro-Dual. You'd need two 4TB drives or two 6TB drives.
butternutsquash said:
But what's the solution for when the Airport base station fills? NAS?
Click to expand...
The solution is to get an 8TB external USB-3 drive for $125 and attached it directly as a Timemachine destination. Done.

butternutsquash said:
Do I really need both RAID in both DAS and NAS? Seems like a bunch of overkill for what I expect to be somewhere in the 3-6TB range of data in the next few years.
Click to expand...
No you don't need RAID. RAID gives you higher availability (to survive a drive failure) but you will be backed up twice (to the TimeMachine target and the Backblaze cloud). RAID 1 (mirroring) is an option if you want some more insurance.
butternutsquash said:
Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
 
PeterGuyton.com said:
This is an older thread but I'll chime in just in case....
Click to expand...
Not too old! :)
PSGimages said:
basil92008 said:
Ordered a new Imac and want to beef up my backup processes as well.

Currently implementing 3-2-1 backup as follows:

Mac internal SSD - applications, system, LR catalog, etc, about 300 GB used

Sandisk 2TB Extreme Portable SSD - all data - about 1.5 TB used
Click to expand...
I assume your raw files on the Sandisk and "referenced" from the catalog (which is on SSD). I see little need for your referenced files to be on SSD. Sure, it's a bit faster but the catalog being on fast disk is much more important than the referenced files. I'm not sure when using LR when you'd notice the difference, perhaps during mass exports or during preview creation but it may not be a big deal.
Click to expand...
Yes, this is the configuration I have currently. I guess I was under the impression that by having the RAW files on a spinning usb drive, I would take a substantial hit in performance. Maybe I am wrong.
PSGimages said:
PSGimages said:
Old Airport base station 3 TB - no longer used as router, connected to google mesh in a diff location in same house. Backs up Mac SSD and Sandisk external via time machine.
Click to expand...
I was using an airport time capsule for a while that way, I even added an additional USB drive to it to allow for more backup space. Ultimately I found the backup process to be quite sluggish over the network . The TImeMachine "cleaning up" process seemed to last forever.

Timemachine works better for me when the destination is a locally attached drive. Given you can get a 4TB external drive for about $100 (and an 8TB drive for less than $150), I don't think I"d use that old Time capsule at all. Sure, you could also get a cheap NAS config, but TimeMachine can be a bit quirky with non-Apple NAS , sometimes breaking after macOS updates.
Click to expand...
Ha. My old Time Capsule has refused to back up my new iMac, though it was working with my old MacBook fine (both on Catalina). I haven't had a chance to trouble shoot it, but I do think it needs to move on.
PSGimages said:
PSGimages said:
Backblaze $6/month plan cloud storage
Click to expand...
I moved from Crashplan "Small business" to Backblaze this summer. Cut the cost in half and I think Backblaze is faster at backing up too. Hard to argue with it as an "offsite" solution (if your ISB/internet speed is adeqate).
Click to expand...
Yes, it has been effortless, and $110 for 2 years is not bad.
PSGimages said:
PSGimages said:
When the Sandisk gets full, it looks like I would be looking at some sort of DAS RAID 5 solution. Maybe something along these lines? https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/thunderbay-4/thunderbolt-3-raid-5
Click to expand...
I think you are limiting your options here unnecessarily. If you have to have SSD for these files (and I'm not sure you do), look at https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/express-4m2 which can hold four nvme SSD cards and can be configured about anyway you want (e.g., you could start with 2 and add 2 more later).

That said, again, if these are just referenced files, you could use a slower/cheaper spinning USB-3 drive and probably not suffer much perfomance-wise.
Click to expand...
I don't think I need SSD necessarily, but was under the impression that a thunderbolt 3 RAID system of drives would be faster in performance than a single usb hard drive. I guess I need to look into that further and quantify it.
PSGimages said:
PSGimages said:
Looking at 12 TB RAID 5 would be 9TB available storage, $870
Click to expand...
If I were going to put in a RAID with that 12TB configuration (four 3TB drives), I'd probably go for a RAID 1+0 configuration yielding 6TB (instead of 9). It's more robust and ensures a much simpler/faster rebuild process after a drive failure (there's lot of chatter about the risk of RAID 5 rebuilds failing).

But again, I'm not sure a RAID is that important since you'll be backed-up in a 3-2-1 config anyway. You could also put in a two-drive USB-3 external enclosure mirrored (RAID 1) to give it some protection. https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/External-Drive/OWC/Elite-Pro-Dual. You'd need two 4TB drives or two 6TB drives.
PSGimages said:
But what's the solution for when the Airport base station fills? NAS?
Click to expand...
The solution is to get an 8TB external USB-3 drive for $125 and attached it directly as a Timemachine destination. Done.

https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Des...external+drive+8tb&qid=1574976229&s=pc&sr=1-3
Click to expand...
I had/have some security in knowing that the time capsule is in another room...I lost a computer once from a spill on the desk, so I have concern about a pipe burst or whatnot but maybe that is being overly cautious. Plus it's nice to not have more clutter on my desk! But yes, this is likely the easiest solution for Time Machine at this time since the Time Capsule doesn't want to work anymore.
PSGimages said:
PSGimages said:
Do I really need both RAID in both DAS and NAS? Seems like a bunch of overkill for what I expect to be somewhere in the 3-6TB range of data in the next few years.
Click to expand...
No you don't need RAID. RAID gives you higher availability (to survive a drive failure) but you will be backed up twice (to the TimeMachine target and the Backblaze cloud). RAID 1 (mirroring) is an option if you want some more insurance.
PSGimages said:
Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Thanks for your advice!
 
basil92008 said:
Click to expand...
butternutsquash said:
Yes, this is the configuration I have currently. I guess I was under the impression that by having the RAW files on a spinning usb drive, I would take a substantial hit in performance. Maybe I am wrong.
Click to expand...
It's worth checking. Again, LR's catalog is on SSD and that's the most important part. I think the referenced file location speed will have much less impact on your perceived performance.
butternutsquash said:
butternutsquash said:
butternutsquash said:
Old Airport base station 3 TB - no longer used as router, connected to google mesh in a diff location in same house. Backs up Mac SSD and Sandisk external via time machine.
Click to expand...
I was using an airport time capsule for a while that way, I even added an additional USB drive to it to allow for more backup space. Ultimately I found the backup process to be quite sluggish over the network . The TImeMachine "cleaning up" process seemed to last forever.

Timemachine works better for me when the destination is a locally attached drive. Given you can get a 4TB external drive for about $100 (and an 8TB drive for less than $150), I don't think I"d use that old Time capsule at all. Sure, you could also get a cheap NAS config, but TimeMachine can be a bit quirky with non-Apple NAS , sometimes breaking after macOS updates.
Click to expand...
Ha. My old Time Capsule has refused to back up my new iMac, though it was working with my old MacBook fine (both on Catalina). I haven't had a chance to trouble shoot it, but I do think it needs to move on.
Click to expand...
Another problem with the old Time Capsules is that I believe they had only USB 2.0 ports which are very slow (the later ones may have had USB 3.0? not sure). Mine had USB 2.0 only and may have served as a choke point for my backups.
butternutsquash said:
butternutsquash said:
I think you are limiting your options here unnecessarily. If you have to have SSD for these files (and I'm not sure you do), look at https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/express-4m2 which can hold four nvme SSD cards and can be configured about anyway you want (e.g., you could start with 2 and add 2 more later).

That said, again, if these are just referenced files, you could use a slower/cheaper spinning USB-3 drive and probably not suffer much perfomance-wise.
Click to expand...
I don't think I need SSD necessarily, but was under the impression that a thunderbolt 3 RAID system of drives would be faster in performance than a single usb hard drive. I guess I need to look into that further and quantify it.
Click to expand...
RAID is faster than a single drive, for sure. But ..... LR's catalog is on SSD in your case and the external drive is for your referenced RAW files, thus the speed difference of the single drive vs RAID for those referenced RAWS may only be noticeable when importing new images as that's when you write to the drive and when the previews are built. Full disclosure: I'm a CaptureOne user and haven't used LR in 4 years, but I've read enough threads to believe this to be true.
butternutsquash said:
butternutsquash said:
butternutsquash said:
Looking at 12 TB RAID 5 would be 9TB available storage, $870
Click to expand...
If I were going to put in a RAID with that 12TB configuration (four 3TB drives), I'd probably go for a RAID 1+0 configuration yielding 6TB (instead of 9). It's more robust and ensures a much simpler/faster rebuild process after a drive failure (there's lot of chatter about the risk of RAID 5 rebuilds failing).

But again, I'm not sure a RAID is that important since you'll be backed-up in a 3-2-1 config anyway. You could also put in a two-drive USB-3 external enclosure mirrored (RAID 1) to give it some protection. https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/External-Drive/OWC/Elite-Pro-Dual. You'd need two 4TB drives or two 6TB drives.
butternutsquash said:
But what's the solution for when the Airport base station fills? NAS?
Click to expand...
The solution is to get an 8TB external USB-3 drive for $125 and attached it directly as a Timemachine destination. Done.

https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Des...external+drive+8tb&qid=1574976229&s=pc&sr=1-3
Click to expand...
I had/have some security in knowing that the time capsule is in another room...I lost a computer once from a spill on the desk, so I have concern about a pipe burst or whatnot but maybe that is being overly cautious. Plus it's nice to not have more clutter on my desk! But yes, this is likely the easiest solution for Time Machine at this time since the Time Capsule doesn't want to work anymore.
Click to expand...
I get that concern of having things in different rooms. I have a couple laptops in the house (that have nothing to do with my photos) and I have them setup to use a time machine disk attached to an old Mac I stuck in the basement. The old Mac essentially becomes a time capsule with full macOS. The issue I noticed is how long it takes for Timemachine to do it's thing on the laptop and complete a backup over wifi or even the LAN. It's not a deal breaker and it works, but I just find the backups much quicker to complete to a device locally attached. For my photo workstation, there is enough activity (new RAW files being added, and changes to the system) that Timemachine would be very, very busy almost constantly over the LAN.

Anyway, I think a 10gig ethernet LAN configuration would help remote TimeMachine performance dramatically, but that's a whole other technical challenge and cost etc. However, if you were to leverage TimeMachine backjups to a remote machine/location, and found it too slow, you could consider a 10GIG upgrade, possibly (but the Time Capsule won't support 10GIG so you'd need another TimeMachine compatible NAS or similar with 10gig ports).

Note: if you get a long USB cable, you could put a USB drive , say ,16' away from the computer.

butternutsquash said:
butternutsquash said:
butternutsquash said:
Do I really need both RAID in both DAS and NAS? Seems like a bunch of overkill for what I expect to be somewhere in the 3-6TB range of data in the next few years.
Click to expand...
No you don't need RAID. RAID gives you higher availability (to survive a drive failure) but you will be backed up twice (to the TimeMachine target and the Backblaze cloud). RAID 1 (mirroring) is an option if you want some more insurance.
butternutsquash said:
Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Thanks for your advice!
Click to expand...
... that said, I actually am a fan of "more protection" when I can get it (or afford it); For your "referenced file drive" I'd personally lean toward a two-drive external enclosure with maybe two 6TB drives mirrored. It just gives you higher availability and avoids having to go to a "restore" process.

Thunderbolt devices cost a lot more than USB 3 enclosures and probably don't yield much of a speed advantage for standard spinning disks so I"m not sure it's worth the spend. (Maybe someone has measured this?) . There may be USB-C enclosures now that are not technically Thunderbolt but which may be a good middle ground. Note: RAID enclosures get dramatically faster as they get bigger. An 8-drive RAID array will get crazy fast speeds, but that would be way overkill for you I think.
 
PeterGuyton.com said:
basil92008 said:
Yes, this is the configuration I have currently. I guess I was under the impression that by having the RAW files on a spinning usb drive, I would take a substantial hit in performance. Maybe I am wrong.
Click to expand...
It's worth checking. Again, LR's catalog is on SSD and that's the most important part. I think the referenced file location speed will have much less impact on your perceived performance.
Click to expand...
This is good to know. At the very least I can try it out and see if it is a problem.
PSGimages said:
PSGimages said:
PSGimages said:
PSGimages said:
Old Airport base station 3 TB - no longer used as router, connected to google mesh in a diff location in same house. Backs up Mac SSD and Sandisk external via time machine.
Click to expand...
I was using an airport time capsule for a while that way, I even added an additional USB drive to it to allow for more backup space. Ultimately I found the backup process to be quite sluggish over the network . The TImeMachine "cleaning up" process seemed to last forever.

Timemachine works better for me when the destination is a locally attached drive. Given you can get a 4TB external drive for about $100 (and an 8TB drive for less than $150), I don't think I"d use that old Time capsule at all. Sure, you could also get a cheap NAS config, but TimeMachine can be a bit quirky with non-Apple NAS , sometimes breaking after macOS updates.
Click to expand...
Ha. My old Time Capsule has refused to back up my new iMac, though it was working with my old MacBook fine (both on Catalina). I haven't had a chance to trouble shoot it, but I do think it needs to move on.
Click to expand...
Another problem with the old Time Capsules is that I believe they had only USB 2.0 ports which are very slow (the later ones may have had USB 3.0? not sure). Mine had USB 2.0 only and may have served as a choke point for my backups.
Click to expand...
Yes, the Time Capsule was quite slow, on par with the Backblaze upload speed, when it was working. Now it just keeps telling me that the backup failed.
PSGimages said:
PSGimages said:
PSGimages said:
I think you are limiting your options here unnecessarily. If you have to have SSD for these files (and I'm not sure you do), look at https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/express-4m2 which can hold four nvme SSD cards and can be configured about anyway you want (e.g., you could start with 2 and add 2 more later).

That said, again, if these are just referenced files, you could use a slower/cheaper spinning USB-3 drive and probably not suffer much perfomance-wise.
Click to expand...
I don't think I need SSD necessarily, but was under the impression that a thunderbolt 3 RAID system of drives would be faster in performance than a single usb hard drive. I guess I need to look into that further and quantify it.
Click to expand...
RAID is faster than a single drive, for sure. But ..... LR's catalog is on SSD in your case and the external drive is for your referenced RAW files, thus the speed difference of the single drive vs RAID for those referenced RAWS may only be noticeable when importing new images as that's when you write to the drive and when the previews are built. Full disclosure: I'm a CaptureOne user and haven't used LR in 4 years, but I've read enough threads to believe this to be true.
PSGimages said:
PSGimages said:
PSGimages said:
Looking at 12 TB RAID 5 would be 9TB available storage, $870
Click to expand...
If I were going to put in a RAID with that 12TB configuration (four 3TB drives), I'd probably go for a RAID 1+0 configuration yielding 6TB (instead of 9). It's more robust and ensures a much simpler/faster rebuild process after a drive failure (there's lot of chatter about the risk of RAID 5 rebuilds failing).

But again, I'm not sure a RAID is that important since you'll be backed-up in a 3-2-1 config anyway. You could also put in a two-drive USB-3 external enclosure mirrored (RAID 1) to give it some protection. https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/External-Drive/OWC/Elite-Pro-Dual. You'd need two 4TB drives or two 6TB drives.
PSGimages said:
But what's the solution for when the Airport base station fills? NAS?
Click to expand...
The solution is to get an 8TB external USB-3 drive for $125 and attached it directly as a Timemachine destination. Done.

https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Des...external+drive+8tb&qid=1574976229&s=pc&sr=1-3
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I had/have some security in knowing that the time capsule is in another room...I lost a computer once from a spill on the desk, so I have concern about a pipe burst or whatnot but maybe that is being overly cautious. Plus it's nice to not have more clutter on my desk! But yes, this is likely the easiest solution for Time Machine at this time since the Time Capsule doesn't want to work anymore.
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I get that concern of having things in different rooms. I have a couple laptops in the house (that have nothing to do with my photos) and I have them setup to use a time machine disk attached to an old Mac I stuck in the basement. The old Mac essentially becomes a time capsule with full macOS. The issue I noticed is how long it takes for Timemachine to do it's thing on the laptop and complete a backup over wifi or even the LAN. It's not a deal breaker and it works, but I just find the backups much quicker to complete to a device locally attached. For my photo workstation, there is enough activity (new RAW files being added, and changes to the system) that Timemachine would be very, very busy almost constantly over the LAN.

Anyway, I think a 10gig ethernet LAN configuration would help remote TimeMachine performance dramatically, but that's a whole other technical challenge and cost etc. However, if you were to leverage TimeMachine backjups to a remote machine/location, and found it too slow, you could consider a 10GIG upgrade, possibly (but the Time Capsule won't support 10GIG so you'd need another TimeMachine compatible NAS or similar with 10gig ports).
Note: if you get a long USB cable, you could put a USB drive , say ,16' away from the computer.
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I'm not likely to start threading wires around my house :)

I may eventually like to have a NAS to be able to access files remotely, but that's not priority #1 at this time.

PSGimages said:
PSGimages said:
PSGimages said:
PSGimages said:
Do I really need both RAID in both DAS and NAS? Seems like a bunch of overkill for what I expect to be somewhere in the 3-6TB range of data in the next few years.
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No you don't need RAID. RAID gives you higher availability (to survive a drive failure) but you will be backed up twice (to the TimeMachine target and the Backblaze cloud). RAID 1 (mirroring) is an option if you want some more insurance.
PSGimages said:
Thanks in advance!
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Thanks for your advice!
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... that said, I actually am a fan of "more protection" when I can get it (or afford it); For your "referenced file drive" I'd personally lean toward a two-drive external enclosure with maybe two 6TB drives mirrored. It just gives you higher availability and avoids having to go to a "restore" process.

Thunderbolt devices cost a lot more than USB 3 enclosures and probably don't yield much of a speed advantage for standard spinning disks so I"m not sure it's worth the spend. (Maybe someone has measured this?) . There may be USB-C enclosures now that are not technically Thunderbolt but which may be a good middle ground. Note: RAID enclosures get dramatically faster as they get bigger. An 8-drive RAID array will get crazy fast speeds, but that would be way overkill for you I think.
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One of the things I ran into is that when I start looking at 2 bay systems, it is often not very much more money to go to a 4 bay system. So on the OWC site the 2 bay enclosure is $320 and the 4 bay is $475 so that's a $155 difference for some future proofing. And if I understand correctly I could always run the 4 bay system with 2 mirrored drives as you describe and 2 empty bays? Overkill maybe but not all that much money in the grand scheme and would maybe last longer? I don't know.
 
basil92008 said:
One of the things I ran into is that when I start looking at 2 bay systems, it is often not very much more money to go to a 4 bay system. So on the OWC site the 2 bay enclosure is $320 and the 4 bay is $475 so that's a $155 difference for some future proofing. And if I understand correctly I could always run the 4 bay system with 2 mirrored drives as you describe and 2 empty bays? Overkill maybe but not all that much money in the grand scheme and would maybe last longer? I don't know.
Click to expand...
Well, yeah a 4 bay is nice and you can run even JBOD on it.

But a mirrored RAID is protection against an internal drive failing. Useful, but it rather depends on the risk you're protecting against. For me, since spills were mentioned, having two different enclosures with two drives is more robust protection, since I've had enclosures fail as well as the drives inside. If for say storing photo files, I'd say copy from SD onto one (maybe a faster one) and then use Chronosync to make a copy to a second drive, which could be quite slow since speed won't matter. Then if a latte goes into the drive and it goes POOF! I'm covered.

As for the future, consider that drives do have lifespans. It didn't sound like you are growing your data that fast. So perhaps by the time you've filled a 2 bay it's going to be time to retire the drives for new ones anyway, and in the future they'll be bigger and hence you might not reach the need for 4. Assuming you need RAID at all. Especially now with TB3 external SSDs coming down in price.
 
So I was at Costco today and they had a Seagate 8TB external drive for $120 after $50 off so I picked that up. It's on my desk now and Time Machine is running to it and will take however many hours to complete.

I'm already slightly annoyed at the noise and dust this will pick up and wish I could put it in another room :)

I did purchase and skim through the article recommended. It is very good info. I am still not sure of the necessity of a bootable drive that he is so keen on. It also doesn't really answer the question of the best solution for a >2TB of fast storage accessible at all times rather than spread out over multiple drives.

I suppose I'll stick with the Sandisk for now and hope it doesn't fill too fast. Hopefully by then maybe larger SSD prices will come down.
 
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