External Storage Unit

[Byrthnoth]

I am looking to make some kind of external storage solution for my aunt, who is a photographer and regularly deals with extreme amounts of storage but can't tolerate any failures.

I was thinking that RAID10 with four 4TB harddrives might be the answer. So some questions:
1) Is that actually the answer, or is there some other cheaper/superior solution?
2) I need to get an enclosure and a raid controller, I think. Any suggestions? She has a Mac.
3) Which cables do I need?

[xopher]

Look into a NAS

[Hellfury]

not sure why you'd want RAID10, either RAID 1 (cheaper and easier) or RAID5 (better) is probably better for her use. I would be surprised if you found a NAS that didn't support RAID1 and I would assume most of the better ones support RAID5. I assume she doesn't have the need for SAS units, so regular SATA HDDs will probably suffice.

Get a NAS, or build a cheap computer serverstyle with a large cabinet for massive disk arrangement.

The cable question is entirely based on what solution you go for, if you don't go the NAS/Server Route, you need to check what her Mac supports.

I believe several producers make just enclosed HDD units that would suit your purpose, LaCie comes to mind right off the bat.

Stay the hell away from online picture services unless you're ready to really read the TOS, I am of the impression from a series of articles I read some time back that a lot of them have theoretical openings for claiming usage of photos stored.

(Unless you're ready to configure a server, just go for a NAS with RAID1 or 5, and have an extra external HDD to take random backups of the NAS, shit can and will happen)

[Totien]

Look into a NAS

This. They can be expensive tho. If she really needs 16gb of storage I would also look into some cloud based storage like Geek Squads service or Carbonite. She'd pay monthly for that but she would never have to worry about hardware upkeep.

[Artemicon]

a RAID 10 with (4)4TB drives will only result in 8TB of usable space because its a mirrored(1), striped(0) raid. Two of the drives will result in increasing space through striping and the other two will be a backup of the data.

A RAID 5 is what you want if you have 4 drives and want combined storage.

IMO cloud storage because replacing bad drives sucks when they start getting flakey and you lose data. But 4 drives raid 5 on a NAS will work but to be honest unless you need one huge volume I wouldn't raid it as there performance gains are minimal and only really worth it if she needs the transfer speed.

[SephYuyX]

More stuffs: http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/117...Storage-Thread