Offline storage choices...

[Chuft-Captain]

Related to the new computer build....

I need to make a decision on the disk storage architecture...and thought I'd ask for some opinions here.
The options under consideration are:
Option 1: 2 x 1TB SATA3 drives mounted internally in the case
Option 2: 2 x 1TB SATA3 external drives plugged in to e-Sata ports
Option 3: 2 x 1TB SATA3 drives mounted in a NAS enclosure connected to a gigabit network.

... or some combination of all 3 options.

What do you guys see as the pros and cons of each approach?

These are the issues as I see it at present...
Option 1:
is the easiest most typical apprach (and cheapest), but if the computer is stolen you lose all your data as well.
Option 3:
is probably the most secure and versatile as the NAS can be located anywhere on the LAN, however more expensive as it requires purchase of a NAS enclosure for several hundred $ with it's own power supply etc...
Option 2:
I'm not sure what maximum length of SATA cable can be used in this setup before getting performance or reliability degradation. This may be less practical than the ethernet storage approach (option3), but I think this approach should at least be possible, because the Z68 chipset on the mobo's I'm looking at typically supports RAIDs across SATA channels, and I don't believe it matters whether they are internal or external drives.
eg.

Support for SATA RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10
* When a RAID set is built across the SATA 6Gb/s and SATA 3Gb/s channels, the system performance of the RAID set may vary depending on the devices being connected.

Any thoughts or experience?
Any other issues?

Cheers
CC

PS. There would also be a smallish SSD mounted inside the case with the OS, Program files, and some TEMP space for frequently loaded textures/addons.

[t00fri]

While I know my way pretty well around as concerns harddisks, I have always discarded any RAID configuration in my machines for a few simple reasons:

• RAID 0:
  ONLY increases performance (no backup!), but the reliability of N disks in RAID 0 drops to MTTF_disk / N. For 2 RAID 0 disks, the reliability is only HALF of a normal HD reliability.
  
  Since these days a clever selection of HD's leaves nothing to be desired as to performance, RAID 0 is disfavored, e.g. for cost reasons.
  
• RAID 1:
  Here one does have a complete backup option. But the write performance decreases compared to a single disk. The read performance can be faster though. However...In todays systems we all have SMART activated that is pretty well able to predict hardware failures ahead of time. For me therefore, the desire of a complete system backup has become pretty low. I usually backup certain personal directories on an external USB disk that is cheap and perfectly sufficient for smaller amounts of data.

The next machine I'll build will boot from a SSD (read only!) and use a single super fast SATA3 hd for internal data storage. Note that I usually do my serious computer work NOT on my laptops, but on a self-built desktop machine.

Fridger

[Chuft-Captain]

Thanks Fridger,

I'm aware of the issues with RAID. In reality it's really only redundancy and security of data that I'm after, so it would be RAID 1 only, but in that case I'm also inclined like yourself to avoid the complication of RAID and just go for a normal, rather than a RAID setup, using a regular backup strategy onto the second drive. This is probably a more practical and effective way to insure against data loss, than disc mirroring (so long as I keep up to date with the backups! )

My question was really focused on the 3 options (internal SATA, external SATA, NAS) listed above, so I'm actually more interested in what you see as the pros and cons of each of those physical configurations regardless of whether it's RAIDed, rather than the pros and cons of different RAID approaches. -- The RAID issue is a bit of a "red-herring" and distracts from the actual question. (I've edited the original question to remove the references to RAID.)

Cheers
CC

Note that I would also, like you, boot from a fast SSD:

PS. There would also be a smallish SSD mounted inside the case with the OS, Program files, and some TEMP space for frequently loaded textures/addons.

[John Van Vliet]

--- edit ---

[selden]

External drives have the advantage that you can easily unplug them and/or boot the system with them powered off, reducing audible noise and power usage when they're not needed. The room's quieter when the drive I use to record backups is powered down.

I do hope you're planning to store backups of your work at a different physical location. Losing many gigabytes and months of work can be very depressing.

[t00fri]

External drives have the advantage that you can easily unplug them and/or boot the system with them powered off, reducing audible noise and power usage when they're not needed. The room's quieter when the drive I use to record backups is powered down.

I do hope you're planning to store backups of your work at a different physical location. Losing many gigabytes and months of work can be very depressing.

Since I entertain an Intranet with a netserver, the USB disk solution is most handy. It acts as a backup medium for all machines in my network, as well as a storage for music, videos etc that is available to all my machines.

The net server is integrated in my ("intelligent") router that automatically reduces the power usage if some devices are resting.

Furthermore I can easily unplug the USB disk and take it to my office to connect with my office machine, if needed. For example to transfer really large amounts of data that would otherwise produce excessive load for the network of my lab.

Fridger

[Guckytos]

Hi CC,

you could perhaps think about a combination of option 2 and 3 with 1 harddisk being an eSATA/USB and the second being put into a multimedia player with NAS capabilities.

Don't know how the prices in your country for this kind of devices look like, but it could be worth a try. Plus you would have the benefit of being able to use the player to stream any media in your system.

Just my 2 cents.