[JohnR]

I'm contemplating writing an article on storage options for music servers. Since my whole storage and backup system needs an upgrade anyway. So, two parts:

1. A poll here: how much space does your music library take? Just the music files.
2. Any particular "success stories" or "epic fails" that you've had?

Thanks for any thoughts

[Crimson]

Went from Buffalo NAS (big mistake), to external Lacie FW.

[lokie]

I'm busting at the seems. 1 TB in both main and back up. Along with another TB in various "left over" hard drives.

I have 3 kids , so... between photo and video files, movies, tv shows, etc. I'm going to need expansion capabilities to 10 TB's.

[Atlplasma]

Given how much effort is required to burn or download tunes for a library, I would focus on selecting a storage system that offers RAID capability.

[srb]

Given how much effort is required to burn or download tunes for a library, I would focus on selecting a storage system that offers RAID capability.

RAID is most useful for eliminating expensive downtime in a business setting if a single drive should fail, but is not considered backup.  It is a good idea to maintain a library backup on an independent piece of hardware, which could be a USB, FireWire, ESATA or NAS drive.

Steve

[SteveRB]

I've had RAID drives fail. The good ones get really expensive.

I have been sticking with cheaper drives and a monthly backup. They last about three years.

I also use an online back up service called Backblaze. $5 per month to backup everything off site.

[lokie]

RAID is most useful for eliminating expensive downtime in a business

That's my take as well. I haven't had good luck with NAS, but, I'm hoping it's become more stable.

I'm looking at this:Synology DiskStation DS1511+   
 http://www.cnet.com/network-storage/synology-diskstation-ds1511/4505-3382_7-34473223.html

I'm not sure you can assign certain back ups to particular blades but it would be cool if you could put pictures on one, music on another and so forth. Then just back up the blades using another blade and it would make it easy to swap blades in other units.

[skunark]

A key point should be made that a sole copy of the files on a RAID(1,3,5) drive is not a backup.  Several folks have this incorrect notation that RAID drives have a built in backup, which isn't true, they just improve the hardware reliability of the overall solution and can normally can withstand a single hardware failure.   RAID doesn't protect against fire, theft, virus, crashes and dumb user tricks.

In addition for the external drive for music, I feel it's important to have:
1) the original CD or original files burned to a CD/DVD
2) Local backup utilizing something like:
* TimeMachine on a separate external drive (or timemachine server)
* RSYNC solutions like Synkron for Macs (or MS SyncToy for PCs0)
3) Offsite backups:
* If you download your music, hopefully that service will allow you to redownload the files without restrictions
* Offsite backups like Backblaze that will backup both your local and attached drives

If one is comfortable with the lengthy recovery time to redownload your files, a local copy is less meaningful.

For iTunes video, I no longer keep a local copy since I can redownload it or just stream it.  I have kept a local backup just in case what I purchased is no longer available for any number of reasons.

[jtwrace]

I did vote above.

I use multiple HD"s onsite and offsite.  I do this so there are incrememtal backups.  I don't backup to every drive right away.  I do wait a week or so between each one.  I have found that this works very well for me. 

[shadowlight]

PC User Here
I use hardware mirrored drive on desktop pc, backing up external usb drive using scheduled robocopy on a daily basis, which backs up incremental source files used to backup music, pictures and important documents.

[planet10]

I have 1 GB USB (Firewire DAC), backup regularily to internal 1 TB.

When i start archiving my vinyl i will need to get bigger drives

dave

[JohnR]

A couple of other thoughts on RAID. During the time the array is degraded, the likelihood of failure of a second drive is high (relatively speaking). Also, I've come to the conclusion that a UPS is needed (for level 5, not sure about RAID 1). They are not expensive, but do add to the cost.

[JohnR]

* Offsite backups like Backblaze that will backup both your local and attached drives

I found this article on Backblaze about their storage to be quite interesting:

http://blog.backblaze.com/2009/09/01/petabytes-on-a-budget-how-to-build-cheap-cloud-storage/

[skunark]

I found this article on Backblaze about their storage to be quite interesting:

http://blog.backblaze.com/2009/09/01/petabytes-on-a-budget-how-to-build-cheap-cloud-storage/

Yeah, that article was the "sales-pitch" for me to use them over other solutions.

If you have a reasonable broadband connection, for $5/month or $50/year for unlimited storage, it's cheaper than any storage solution out there for your backup drive with the added benefit of offsite storage.   I feel this allows me to get away with a cheaper non-raid (or raid0) for both the media drives and timemachine/backup drive.    Given that the HDDs either wear out or that I outgrow the capacity every few years it's significantly cheaper to avoid raid solutions at home and I have better protection. 

Assuming both the media and backup drives failed at the same time (very unlikely), the only drawback is the time it would take to download terabytes of data from the offsite storage.  One might argue this as inconvenient to download but you can pay to overnight the data (~$200/TB).  The key benefit with offsite storage, is protection from fire, theft and perhaps a power surge.

In the end I have more cash and time for music.   

Last year I did notice a corrupted music file that reported a size of zero bytes, which spilled on to the timemachine backup and the offsite backup.   Without knowing the actual cause, a better filesystem like EXT4 and ZFS might have caught that since they offer file checksums, but there is no solutions for the Mac and PC users.   Thankfully I was able to snag the trusty CD and re-rip the file but I might have also had that file on a retired media drive, but at that time it was just easier to re-rip the CD.