Help create my Mac Music Server
I would add to Sid's excellent post the thought that even if you were to install a hardware RAID card, which might help a bit in some of the areas he mentioned, it would introduce another substantial potential downside. If in the future the RAID card were to fail, and if an identical or similar replacement were no longer available, your music and everything else on the drives would be irretrievable. Regards, -- Al |
I have raid on my main computer which is where I either convert or download flac files. Raid it built into the motherboard. It's a Dell box but I wouldn't buy Dell again. They have cut so many corners that everything is cheap (low quality). I would build one. I built a music server for my Slim Device. I debated long and hard about making it Raid. Since it's running all the time I wanted to save as much power as possible and built this except I used a KPC48 with dual-core. I used a 1 TB WD green drive. The whole thing is supposed to only pull about 40 watts at maximum load. There's a free program called syncback that lets you configure backups however you'd like. It works very well. So in essense I'm mirroring my raid drive on the server in the closet. I decided it was unlikely for all three drives to fail. I'm finding this works very well. I have three computers that are networked with the server. All computers except one are using XP and the other is using Vista. I'm pretty happy with this setup and don't have to worry whether it backed up or not. I access the servier with remote desktop from any of my office computers. Once you set it up it doesn't even ask for your password if you set it up that way. I know you asked for mac but this is another way of doing it in case anyone is interested. |
I am using a Mac Mini with 4gb of RAM using a Firewire 800 cable to an Icy Dock 2 bay RAID enclosure with hardware RAID. It is set up for RAID 1 for mirrored operation. I realize that there are some risks of both drives failing or slow rebuild time but I felt it would be easier to deal with than having to back up on an ongoing basis. The computer sees it as one drive and you never have to deal with it once it is set up. I went with two 1TB WD green enterprise level drives. Not the fastest but plenty fast enough for music with less vibration and very quiet. |
Dmailer, I think it's important to realize that RAID 1 doesn't eliminate the need for backups. It protects you only from a hard drive failure. That's it. There is no protection from accidentally deleting files, the filesystem becoming corrupted for some reason, or damage from a virus. You still need backups, even with the RAID, in order to be safe. If you only have the money for 2 drives, I would advocate using one to backup the other, rather than in RAID. Of course, the best solution is to have 2 in RAID 1, and another one for use as the backup drive. Michael |
Michael, your points are well taken. I imagine that I am taking on more risk than going with normal backup. My thoughts were that this is a music only system with no email and minimal internet usage lowering the risk of virus infection. Of course accidently deleting files will have its consequences. I will probably end up getting a 1TB drive to back up as some point. |
