What storage cloud do you use? (Page 7): O they tell me of a home where my files have gone O they tell me of a server far way O they tell me of a home where no storm clouds rise O they...

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

O they tell me of a home where my files have gone
O they tell me of a server far way
O they tell me of a home where no storm clouds rise
O they tell me of an uncloudy day

chrissybabe Loc: New Zealand

jeffcisp wrote:

If you're backing up to a local external hard drive, the only "safe" solution is to use a RAID drive configured as mirror (RAID 1); it is the only way to guarantee against drive failure or corruption.

That will work. However about 10-20% of my working life with computers I have had BOTH drives fail in a mirror or TWO drives fail in a Raid 5. Plus you have an extra point of failure with the controllers and I have seen these fail as well.
However TWO independent drives means you still have the redundancy ie when you backup you need to have two backups and not just rely on any redundancy provided by a Raid system. Even better is the Raid plus an additional backup drive. And even better still is a pair of Raid systems.
Forgot to add buy the best raid controller you can and preferably from a well known vendor who has been around for a while. I have seen a few people with various Raid systems that have worked for years but when the controller fails they were unable to buy a replacement (out-of-business or just obsolete) so they lost everything since that was their only backup. You MUST HAVE TWO copies.

johngault007 Loc: Florida Panhandle

jeffcisp wrote:

If you're backing up to a local external hard drive, the only "safe" solution is to use a RAID drive configured as mirror (RAID 1); it is the only way to guarantee against drive failure or corruption.

RAID 5 and 6 add striping with parity, so RAID 1 isn't the only "safe" solution, and in the event of a single drive failure, RAID(s) 5 or 6 will allow for replacement of the bad drive.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

jeffcisp wrote:

If you're backing up to a local external hard drive, the only "safe" solution is to use a RAID drive configured as mirror (RAID 1); it is the only way to guarantee against drive failure or corruption.

It is one good way to protect against a drive failure, but not the ONLY way. Mirroring (RAID 1) uses 2 drives (minimum) and gives you 50% of the total drive space as usable space. You can also use other RAID levels, such as RAID 5 (or 3 or 4) if you have 3 drives or more, and provides a higher % of usable space vs total space.

srt101fan

CHG_CANON wrote:

O they tell me of a home where my files have gone
O they tell me of a server far way
O they tell me of a home where no storm clouds rise
O they tell me of an uncloudy day

Miller time....?😕

Traveller_Jeff

Nikon1201 wrote:

BackBlaze and 2 external hard drives

Agreed. One further point:

When the Twin Towers fell on 9/11/2001, the entire system housed in Deutchebank, just across the street from the WTC, was destroyed. However, they had mirror sites all over the world, and an IT friend of mine who worked there told me not one "bit" of information was lost. The entire system was mirrored second by second at locations extremely remote from one another. Now, THAT'S how to run a worldwide network.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Traveller_Jeff wrote:

Agreed. One further point:

When the Twin Towers fell on 9/11/2001, the entire system housed in Deutchebank, just across the street from the WTC, was destroyed. However, they had mirror sites all over the world, and an IT friend of mine who worked there told me not one "bit" of information was lost. The entire system was mirrored second by second at locations extremely remote from one another. Now, THAT'S how to run a worldwide network.

appcoop Loc: Boston, MA

CHG_CANON wrote:

I've looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It's cloud illusions I recall
I really don't know clouds at all ...

Joni was ahead of her time...

Sam9987

BackBlaze for sure.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Sam9987 wrote:

BackBlaze for sure.

Better than all the others?

genocolo Loc: Vail and Gasparilla Island

Jim Eads wrote:

I should have stated that it isn't fear. Its practicality of not having local internet bandwidth to transmit large files.

I back up on four specific drives and was is kept offsite in secure (fireproof) location.

Also, if hackers can get your medical records, they can certainly get your photos. I work closely with data/IT managers storing medical records and developing business continuity plans.

Why would hackers be interested in your photos?

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

genocolo wrote:

Why would hackers be interested in your photos?

They're not. They want account numbers and credit card numbers.

tonyjag Loc: Bolton, Ma.

jeffcisp wrote:

If you're backing up to a local external hard drive, the only "safe" solution is to use a RAID drive configured as mirror (RAID 1); it is the only way to guarantee against drive failure or corruption.

Questions to all:
1. If you have a MyCloud with 2 8TB WD red drives in RAID1(mirroring) and one fails, when you replace the bad drive, will it copy all of the data from the good drive to the new one and how long will that take?
2. Can you set up a 4 slot MyCloud to do RAID1 over 3 drives?
3. Several have suggested swapping in an extra (e.g. 3rd drive in a 2 slot RAID1) drive periodically. Does MyCloud bring the newly inserted drive up to date incrementally, or does it write over all of the data?
Your answers will be much appreciated.

chrissybabe Loc: New Zealand

I have just downloaded the My Cloud user manual (you have done this of course ?).
Very bad manual and it really tells you nothing because one of the first things you want to know is how long will it take to do things. My experience is that if there is something NOT included in a manual there are only two reasons - the manual writer is pretty ignorant or second its not included because it is bad and they don't want you to know.
Now I am presuming you are talking about a My Cloud Duo which takes two drives. Two drives allows mirroring between two drives. It is called Raid 1. Note this is TWO drives not three.
There will be no communication between two My Clouds to allow them to function together as one device.
I would imagine that a rebuild could take up to 24 hours for an 8TB drive.
Low cost Raid towers are not known for their speed performance.
And you will need two of them because one is not sufficient for proper backup.
Swapping one of the working drives can be a good idea in that it does make sure that the spare drive is still functional. Bad spares do happen. Even just sitting there a spare can go bad. You would be better using the spare drive as an additional 8TB storage thus giving you TWO copies.
A Raid device normally assumes that swapping in a drive is because a drive has failed and that the spare is empty. So it will do a full copy over taking the same 24 (?) hours I mentioned above.
And the problem is what happens if the controller within the Raid box fails ? Then you have lost everything unless you have another copy. And if you are able to source another My Cloud box you need to make sure the box is the same firmware level because sometimes one firmware level won't work (read) with another earlier one. I would want to keep two Raid boxes myself and make sure that drives can be swapped between them (always making sure that I had another copy first anyway).
While Raid boxes are working everything is sweet. Its what happens when the raid box fails that the fun starts.
Relying upon your single Raid box as a form of redundancy is crazy. A Raid box mirroring is best used to allow you to keep on processing in the event of a drive failure with fixing the failed drive in the evening or at a more suitable time. It does have a slightly more obscure function which I never see mentioned here in that a mirrored box can allow some performance gains because while one drive is being accessed for data the other drive can allow quicker access to different data on the other mirror. Unfortunately the My Cloud is connected via a network cable so that might make any performance gains somewhat moot.
Raid, in its various levels, can be usefull BUT you must make sure you have also allowed for the downsides otherwise you might be in for a nasty surprise. Typically at home I would have a lot of trouble justifying any sort of Raid system. Maybe if there were two (or more) users doing heavy processing there may be some justification but otherwise I would stick with 2 single drives and copy between them periodically.

In a commercial environment I have seen so much grief when a Raid controller or multiple drives have failed and it all could have been avoided with proper practice.

tonyjag Loc: Bolton, Ma.

chrissybabe wrote:

I have just downloaded the My Cloud user manual (you have done this of course ?).
Very bad manual and it really tells you nothing because one of the first things you want to know is how long will it take to do things. My experience is that if there is something NOT included in a manual there are only two reasons - the manual writer is pretty ignorant or second its not included because it is bad and they don't want you to know.
Now I am presuming you are talking about a My Cloud Duo which takes two drives. Two drives allows mirroring between two drives. It is called Raid 1. Note this is TWO drives not three.
There will be no communication between two My Clouds to allow them to function together as one device.
I would imagine that a rebuild could take up to 24 hours for an 8TB drive.
Low cost Raid towers are not known for their speed performance.
And you will need two of them because one is not sufficient for proper backup.
Swapping one of the working drives can be a good idea in that it does make sure that the spare drive is still functional. Bad spares do happen. Even just sitting there a spare can go bad. You would be better using the spare drive as an additional 8TB storage thus giving you TWO copies.
A Raid device normally assumes that swapping in a drive is because a drive has failed and that the spare is empty. So it will do a full copy over taking the same 24 (?) hours I mentioned above.
And the problem is what happens if the controller within the Raid box fails ? Then you have lost everything unless you have another copy. And if you are able to source another My Cloud box you need to make sure the box is the same firmware level because sometimes one firmware level won't work (read) with another earlier one. I would want to keep two Raid boxes myself and make sure that drives can be swapped between them (always making sure that I had another copy first anyway).
While Raid boxes are working everything is sweet. Its what happens when the raid box fails that the fun starts.
Relying upon your single Raid box as a form of redundancy is crazy. A Raid box mirroring is best used to allow you to keep on processing in the event of a drive failure with fixing the failed drive in the evening or at a more suitable time. It does have a slightly more obscure function which I never see mentioned here in that a mirrored box can allow some performance gains because while one drive is being accessed for data the other drive can allow quicker access to different data on the other mirror. Unfortunately the My Cloud is connected via a network cable so that might make any performance gains somewhat moot.
Raid, in its various levels, can be usefull BUT you must make sure you have also allowed for the downsides otherwise you might be in for a nasty surprise. Typically at home I would have a lot of trouble justifying any sort of Raid system. Maybe if there were two (or more) users doing heavy processing there may be some justification but otherwise I would stick with 2 single drives and copy between them periodically.

In a commercial environment I have seen so much grief when a Raid controller or multiple drives have failed and it all could have been avoided with proper practice.

I have just downloaded the My Cloud user manual (y... (show quote)

Thanks for your very thorough reply! We visited your most beautiful country a year ago. Here is a link to an overview album on Flickr:https://flic.kr/s/aHsmBQdLh9