[eclein]

I'm looking at the Vortexbox and they offer various RAID options, what is RAID? All I want to do is make sure I don't loose my data. Would RAID1 mirroring be where if the one drive fails the second one has a duplicate of your files so you don't loose anything?? I'd love to have something that automatically makes 2 copies of each file I add to Vortexbox so I always have a safe backup. Thanks

[richidoo]

RAID = Redundant Array of Independent Disks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

If you only have space and money for 2 disks, and one of those disks is big enough to hold all your data, then RAID 1 is the way to go.

A D-Link DNS-323 is a quiet little disk host box that runs RAID1. It can stand alone and serve music files to your stereo without running a computer. It can send email notification if a disk fails or other problem. http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=509  Vortexbox looks pretty cool too, new to me.

The thing about redundancy with RAID is that it is critical to replace the failed disk immediately, before another disk fails, which would cause lost data. If you have critical files on the RAID array it is still a good idea to back them up to a flash drive or cloud. If uptime is critical then having a spare drive on hand is necessary.

[eclein]

Thanks, that just gave me a whole bunch of new ideas. But RAID 1 is what I want to do, I can get a Vortexbox with RAID 1 and have it rip my CD's and DVD's automatically and then I can access the audio media via Squeezebox server which is installed on the VB and use my Squeezebox.....Thanks

[skunark]

Keep in mind RAID isn't a backup since RAID1 will only protect against certain hardware failures but not viruses, power failure, stupid-user-tricks, etc.   

If you want a backup solution you need to consider how far you want to go.. i.e. re-rip your CDs, preserve costly one-time only downloads, full restore, etc.   

I do have the CDs, I burn all music downloads to a disc, I consider those as my primary backups, but won't protect against theft, fire and unexpected failures (i.e. restores).  For that protection I do use online backup service (backblaze @$5/month) to protect against theft or fire.     I also perform snapshot style backups (timemachine) to protect against hardware and power failures and also stupid-user-tricks.

After setup, the only user interaction is creating the disc when I download music from an online store.

RAID isn't worth the added costs until you need more than 3TB of storage.

[eclein]

A Vortexbox will only be storing and making use of RAID 1 for just the audio files only, thats it...its a separate unit that will rip catalog and store my music and with RAID1 will keep an identical copy of those files so I'm all set. The Vortexbox is a server only after the initial rip and all so I think I'm set, its also LINUX I believe....

[jeffh]

Good advice skunark,

On a simpler note, I just copy the files from my VortexBox to my NAS on a regular basis. I have CD's for 99% of my music. So in the case of multiple drive failures, I would re-rip my CD's.  The other 1% are hi-res music files I have downloaded.  And like skunark, I copy these to CD's or DVD's for backup.

Yes, VortexBox is based on Fedora Linux. It now has more features than being a server.  It has the capability of playing your files if you want to use the VortexBox Player based on MPD.

[skunark]

A Vortexbox will only be storing and making use of RAID 1 for just the audio files only, thats it...its a separate unit that will rip catalog and store my music and with RAID1 will keep an identical copy of those files so I'm all set. The Vortexbox is a server only after the initial rip and all so I think I'm set, its also LINUX I believe....

So long as you have a copy not associated to the RAID1 solution, that's probably overkill then it's not the best use of funds and only provides you with minimal protection from a hardware failure.   I would probably suggest you have a backup solution (snapshot style) for your primary storage location and consider the Vortexbox drive as an appliance.  Would still be cheaper in the end and give you four or more weeks to recover from dumb-user tricks.  If you have a reasonable broadband ISP, then even having the online backup solution would be less expensive and even offer more protection.

[eclein]

skunark- so your saying-I think??- if I say get a regular Vortexbox appliance, say 2 tb and backup those files to a external USB drive or something thats a better solution?? You might be on to something for me here...I'm maybe over thinking this aren't I??

which is what jeffh said and I just read it closer....duh ed

[Bob in St. Louis]

Hey Ed,

You could get a cheap second SATA drive, and do this:
- Copy your main SATA drive (from that "toaster" unit I gave you) onto your PC temporarily
- Copy that data you just loaded on your PC to the new SATA drive

Bingo. You now have two copies of your tunes. No need for RAID or fancy backup software.
But don't forget about your remote data storage facility. 

Bob

[skunark]

If you are running windows, you might even look at look at Microsoft's "SyncToy".  Assuming your Vortexbox is an appliance, and your other computer is doing the ripping.

You could do the following:
1) The Ripper Machine:  It rips, has a media drive and a backup drive that covers the entire machine and media drives.  Also the place to run blackblaze or other online storage solution that will also backup external drives.
2) The Vortexbox: just has a media drive that appears as a network drive to the Ripper machine.  --Nothing is backed up on this machine, failures are recoverable (I assume).
3) Use SyncToy:  You can use MS's SyncToy to copy your Ripper Media drive to your Vortexbox Media drive on command or even have it scheduled like an automatic backup.  Since it only copies the delta, the only the first sync will take some time, additional syncs will copy new files or updates to existing files.
   
Keep in mind that SyncToy can fall under the category of "dump-user-tricks" so make sure you have a complete backup before even attempting to use.  It's rather simple to use which makes it simple to make a mistake.

Jim

[eclein]

The Vortexbox does all that...it rips, catalogs, gets artwork, stores, does your wash....

[skunark]

The Vortexbox does all that...it rips, catalogs, gets artwork, stores, does your wash....

I misread that then, i thought you had another machine to rip the CDs.   Perhaps Vortexbox can be configure easily to perform backups?  Otherwise you can use SyncToy to sync the files back to your Windows machine (assuming you are using one) as I would guess it will appear as a network share.

Either way, the more separated the media and backup drives are, the more protection you will have.

It's good that you are thinking about this, it's very time consuming to rip a reasonable collection of CDs, something that I don't want to do again.

[eclein]

Bob....whats my remote data facility...LOL...PS3, the cool little toaster drive??

[Bob in St. Louis]

Check your PM.