Advice on moving to new disk drives

[GhostRider 46]

Hi

 

My PC setup has five different RAID devices attached, all with relatively small amounts of stoage: 1 to 2 TB usable (mirrored RAID). I have run out of disk capacity and decided best way forward is to buy a much larger 2*8TB RAID device and consoldiate the smaller RIAD devices onto this one device. I was wondered what advice anybody could offer on these topics please:

 

1. Direct attached or standalone NAS device. Capacity is the same, price difference is massive. I would assume direct attached is best - anybody think NAS is a better solution worth the exra cost?
2. I have five storage devices defined in Emby. Once I have finished moving files around I think I will be down to two. What is the best way to update Emby? Is a simple rescan OK or should I start a refresh install from scratch?
3. I have some old Documentary folders, should I just merge these into the TV folder?

 

Many thanks

[PenkethBoy 2063]

HI

 

i will chip in with a few ideas etc

 

First it would be good to know what you have available from the connectivity and horsepower perspective - i.e. you pc specs and what type of connectors you have / are using esata/usb etc

 

Somethings to consider - if you jump to the 8TB Raid1 dont forget you have to now backup potentially 8TB before you consider any versioning.

Whatever  solution you choose its not going to be a backup solution on its own.

 

Nas vs DAS - well the main reason is connectivity to other devices without pc being on / usually low power as designed to be on all the time/ could run emby without the pc needing to be on/ usually some nice extra's software wise/ usually much better raid performance unless you use an expensive DAS/ nas will do its own maintenance and warn you when things are going bad etc

 

DAS - better than 1g network speeds but only to the pc - not going to help with streaming to other devices/ power consumption a bit less - i.e a few watts/depends on how connected but good performance but only locally

 

One way to look at it is that you do not see as many DAS solutions (apart from the single usb enclosures) compared to a NAS - lots and lots of options

 

However if the "only" use for now and foreseeable future is to store media for emby and nothing else then a DAS solution will work fine - its just limited by needing the pc to share files etc

 

Rescan will do it or you could just partition the new DAS storage in the same drives as you have now and no rescan needed - but might be shortsighted - NAS you could do the same as say mapped/mounted drives

 

If it works now why change it - you are not limited by libraries in emby - but if you want to consolidate just move the docs folder into the tv folder and emby will find it etc

 

Oh if you do consider the nas route - look at a 4 bay nas as it gives you the option to add another couple of drives in the future and go raid5 - if you go above 4 drives raid6

 

As 8TB drives are at a considerable premium it would be approx 50% cheaper initially to go 4x4tb (approx 11TB usuable in raid5) on the disks and with the money you save get the nas  

 

PS. Get NAS spec drives if you can either way

 

Have fun

[pir8radio 1292]

You opened a can of worms here buddy.. lol  You will get 1000 opinions all different when it comes to storage.   

 

I'll chip in as well for #1 on your list...    I have a bit of a datacenter background, but presumably like you, I don't have big datacenter money... Otherwise I would recommend EMC's ExtremIO.   Anyway I have a decent server and I started out with an internal RAID...  But it gets expensive and mildly difficult expanding for the future...  Emby does not need a fast raid especially if a lot of your streams are being transcoded.   I actually ended up using a DROBO and the link to my server is iSCSI, so it appears as a locally attached drive to the OS.  I used to talk bad about drobo products, early on they had a habit of corrupting data, which totally defats the purpose of protecting your data, but the modern units are great... One down fall is, that if the hardware fails, you have to buy another drobo hardware device to be able to access your saved data, you can not pop the drives into your PC.  But I've been though a house fire, and many failed drives, and drobo has been good to me.  I own a few of them.   I know some other raid devices perform similar tasks as the DROBO units, but some of the nice things about the drobo are: Pop any size drive in any slot, replace any size drive with a larger one and get full capacity, supports up to two failed drives, all without having to perform expands, or any raid functions, drobo does it for you, which is why I suggest these for the home.  I started out with an 8 bay drobo, loaded 6 slots with 2TB drives, as those filled up I slowly replaced the 2TB drives with 4TB drives and I still have two slots available for future, not to mention I can slowly replace the 4TB drives with larger ones as I have cash.   It's flexible and that's what I like. Again other devices are out there that now allow you to swap drives all willy nilly like the drobo... I'm just sharing my two cents.  I have been using DROBO's for 12 or so years now, not one bad experience.  Things can still fail even with a raid, so I use backblaze.com to backup my 16TB of "stuff" so I have an offsite backup of everything.

 

Here are some links if interested..

Used Drobo 8 bay's on ebay: http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR1.TRC0.A0.H0.Xdrobo+8+bay.TRS0&_nkw=drobo+8+bay&_sacat=0

Drobo drive calculator:  http://www.drobo.com/storage-products/capacity-calculator/

Edited December 11, 2016 by pir8radio

[moviefan 184]

I have a bit of a datacenter background, but presumably like you, I don't have big datacenter money... Otherwise I would recommend EMC's ExtremIO.

 

LoL.  Even if you have "big datacenter money" buying an AFA to store video files is beyond silly.

 

I use backblaze.com to backup my 16TB of "stuff" so I have an offsite backup of everything.

 

That is really good info.  I was curious if they had any sort of weird limit on storing files there and what their privacy situation was.  Might have to give it a go.

Edited December 13, 2016 by moviefan

[pir8radio 1292]

LoL.  Even if you have "big datacenter money" buying an AFA to store video files is beyond silly.

 

 

That is really good info.  I was curious if they had any sort of weird limit on storing files there and what their privacy situation was.  Might have to give it a go.

 

@@moviefan They allow you to enter your own encryption phrase...  however you have to give it to them should you need them to send you a hard drive with your info on it.. That said if you are restoring via the internet then you can do it yourself..   But if I loose my array they are sending me a few drives, I'll gladly pay for them.    But its been great so far. Their sync software is well made, It keeps up pretty well with my constant additions.  I'm a fan!   Use this link to sign up you get a free month and so do I!  https://secure.backblaze.com/r/01zrsq

 

Trust me if I was rich, I would totally have an AFA lol...

Edited December 13, 2016 by pir8radio

[GhostRider 46]

Hi

 

Thanks for the replies. I have settled on buying direct attached storage, I do not need to access the disks from another source.

 

I was going to buy a Western Digital My Book Duo Desktop RAID External Hard Drive. Having read the reviews I am not so sure of this; it appears the drives are encrypted which means if the case fails you cannot get at the data on the disks. Does anybody know if this correct?

 

What simple external RAID enclosure do people recommend? I just need a two disk mirror setup. I could then just buy the disks to add to the RAID enclosure. I am not a fan of Drobo as I have heard so much bad press on photography forums about them.

[moviefan 184]

What OS are you using?

 

If you want extra cheap just go with something like this and use software RAID to accomplish your drive mirroring.  There is no CPU hit for RAID1 since it's just duplicating the data.

[GhostRider 46]

Hi

 

I am using Windows 10. Ideally looking for RAID control at the hardware level. I have posted a question to WDC about what happens if the case fails in a My Book Duo. Are there any other external RAID devices that would allow the mirrored disks to be read should the RAID device fail?

[moviefan 184]

You could get something like this:  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816111486

 

Should be no problem reading the disks if it fails.

 

With Windows 10, I don't see why you would spend the extra dough to get RAID control at the hardware level for RAID1 though.  Just create the mirrored pair and you're done.  No need to deal with potential external issues.

Edited December 15, 2016 by moviefan

[Bert 49]

I have the 8 bay one of the above and it works pretty well.... You could just duplicate your video drives. I just watch and randomly upgrade the drives as I see them on sale... I had some smaller 500 gig drives laying around to fill the slots. The 8 Bay one can be had for 230 with a card if on sale which it goes on a lot

Edited December 16, 2016 by Bert

[GhostRider 46]

I got an honest reply from WD:

 

To answer your question regarding the hardware encryption on the My Book Duo drives, yes you have heard correctly that, if the enclosure fails, then you cannot read the drives inside another enclosure or by attaching them to a PC.  The encryption key is based in the enclosure itself. 

 

In general, the enclosure rarely dies so it is not a large risk in terms of data loss in that regard.  However, even though this drive supports RAID 1, it is best to have another backup of important data.

 

 

Real shame as the WD My Book Duo is ideal for my needs. I have a hotswap disk caddy for backup disks but not happy if the My Book Duo enclosure fails I loss the data on both disks.

[ShoutingMan 95]

I use internal drives with DrivePool to create single logical volume and SnapRaid for creating RAID parity data. This is one of a few recommendations from folks at AVS. And it's cheaper and more expandable than a consumer NAS. But not simpler than just buying a Synology RAID.

[chrismann5508 0]

Hi

 

Thanks for the replies. I have settled on buying direct attached storage, I do not need to access the disks from another source.

 

I was going to buy a Western Digital My Book Duo Desktop RAID External Hard Drive. Having read the reviews I am not so sure of this; it appears the drives are encrypted which means if the case fails you cannot get at the data on the disks. Does anybody know if this correct?

 

What simple external RAID enclosure do people recommend? I just need a two disk mirror setup. I could then just buy the disks to add to the RAID enclosure. I am not a fan of Drobo as I have heard so much bad press on photography forums about them.

I use the Western Digital My Book Duo Desktop RAID External Hard Drive. Two WD’s Reds for right around 11 Tb (two 6tb drives). I don’t encrypt the drives and the utilities that come with it offer lot of options for it. Also I have a Vantec HR2X with two WD’s Red 3tb drives. Both these units will  work with esata or usb3.0. I prefer the usb3.0 myself because it’s much faster. I’ve had these units for about two years now and they have been flawless.

Edited December 18, 2016 by chrismann5508

[GhostRider 46]

I have three old, but small capacity Western Digital My Book Duos and I was very happy with them until WD confirmed that the disks are internally encrypted which means if the enclosure fails you cannot mount the disks to read the data.

 

After some deep thought and soul searching I decided to go with the new 8TB WD My Book Duo. My reasoning was along the following:

 

1. Price, key point really as I could get a WD My Book Duo with two 8TB drives for a lot less $ than I could buy the drives separately.
2. Reliability - I have had 3 older WD My Book Duo without any issues with the enclosure so the chances of the enclosure failing and not being able to read the drives is a risk I am willing to take (n.b. make sure you have a backup as well).
3. Easy to setup mirroring to protect from disk failure.
4. I have come across some real horror stories on photography forums where people have lost all their photos on drobo devices due to some bug in the firmware, so ruled drobo out.
5. Quiet, there are no fans in the WD My Book Duo so can use in the same room as my main PC.
6. I looked at other RAID enclosures, came to the conclusion I did not know enough about them and I would need to buy drives separately so item #1 won the day.

Edited December 24, 2016 by GhostRider

[Vicpa 559]

Hi

 

I throw in my two cents...  I use a Mediasonic HF2-SU2S2 ProBox 4 Bay enclosure it has usb 3.0 and esata connections. It is fairly inexpensive (100 bucks) I just upgraded the drives to WD Red 6tb. It is attached to a win 10 box. After some research and discussion with @@FrostByte I  configured it as a Windows Storage Space. (software raid, can do mirror or parity) Frostbyte has been using Storage spaces for some time with good success. (key factor  positive results are always good!! ​)

 

The other thing I really liked is the "space" is self contained meaning all the config etc is contained on the drives. Supposedly it can be moved as is as to another win 10 pc or the drives moved to another enclosure if I decided to upgrade that.

 

I am sure there are faster solutions but it is more than enough for storage of media for streaming and direct play in emby

 

-vicpa