[Leica] [Leica} Tina's Drobos... Update: All loaded.

Sat Jun 1 01:46:36 PDT 2024

For any reader with a low tolerance for techie, geeky, nonsense talk, please stop reading this and delete it from your computer.  If you continue, I 
will not be held responsible for your mental health.

Richard:  All true... and if I could figure out what ZFS means, I might be totally in your camp.....

For Richard's clarification, this is a 6 HDD array in a 6HDD array box (2 open bays), using basically Raid 5.  ( Actually Synologiy's SHR which is a 1 
disk failsafe system.... just as Raid 5 is.  We use SHR because we are going to put in a pair of smaller HDD ( 10TB each) in with the 16TB drives.  
This will be incorporated into a single volume, and the only way to do that is with SHR.)

The other part of this particular setup, and to go further in agreement with what Richard is saying, ...

Even RAID is a crapshoot. Failures happen.  You should ALWAYS have a backup.  ( Go back to how this job started, her Drobos are failing.  2 out of 3 
are dead.  She swaps around HDD to get access to all her images. Her backups are all over the place on various sized external HDD.  It sounds 
discombobulated.... but Tina has done an excellent job of keeping it together.  It is well organized. She understands what she has where.  But it is 
unwieldy.)

Keep in mind that this is not your normal amateur photographer collection of maybe 10,000 to 50,000 images,  It is TEN TIMES that size.  What is 
needed for Tina is overkill for most of us.... !

There will me a big backup HDD array for the NAS.  It will utilize a pair of 4xHDD boxes.

Why 4 HDD per box?  Because Tina has them and a bunch of 10TB Seagate Ironwolf HDD as spares now... and She wishes to use them for the backup...as 
they re already bought and paid for... basically free HDD and free enclosures..... given that she really has 40.2TB of data to backup, it will require 
at least 5 HDD of 10TB each to have a complete backup.  Means the boxes must be x5 boxes, and she has x4 boxes.... thus we need two x4 boxes to do the 
job... and since we have them, why not?

If you had to start from scratch, you would use bigger HDD or Bigger enclosures (x8 is available at about another $100 in cost as x4) and have only 1 
enclosure for the backup HDD box...

if you were starting from scratch, you could also use a bigger NAS or a second one,and have backup done that way

Every time you buy something, it costs for HDD $150-500 EACH, enclosures are $250-many, many thousands EACH....

It is just an infinite money sink...you need to draw the line somewhere.....

Frank Filippone
BMWRed735i at Gmail.com

On 5/31/2024 8:29 PM, Richard Man via LUG wrote:
> I'm in the "don't trust RAID unless you really know what you're doing"
> camp. One bad controller and you are hosed.
>
> This is one reason I went with ZFS, 2 disks for redundancy, and if one disk
> drive, it should be reasonably easy to recover.
>
> On Fri, May 31, 2024 at 10:05 PM Jayanand Govindaraj via LUG <
> lug at leica-users.org> wrote:
>
>> Interesting. A layman's question - would it not be less
>> complex/faster/cheaper/easier to have a data library on 20TB drives from
>> Seagate/WD with USB 3.1 or 3.2 ports , either as an external brick, or with
>> high quality enclosures? The specs say 10-20 GB/S, though that is only in
>> Never Never Land, not in the real world!
>>
>> Cheers
>> Jayanand
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Jun 1, 2024 at 1:30 AM Frank Filippone via LUG <
>> lug at leica-users.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> If there are any of you still interested in the terribly nerdy, and not
>>> Leica related, IT based information of this subject, I continue my
>> tale....
>>> Those that do not care, can hit the delete key and save your time and
>>> patience for other things.....
>>>
>>> Tina has all her images, 40.2TB of them, now on one Synology NAS.  At
>> this
>>> moment, she is directing LR to find all the new places for these images.
>>> Not a fast task, but a necessary one.
>>>
>>> FYI, the copy speed of the Drobos to the NAS was 5TB/ DAY..... the 40TB
>> of
>>> this installation, would have taken 8 Days running 24/7. I made some
>> errors
>>> and there were some duplicated folders, so it took longer... about 12
>>> days.   The Drobo was directly plugged into the back of the NAS, and the
>>> NAS was
>>> running directly with the USB port,, no computer in the "middle".  This
>> is
>>> the fastest configuration.  The copy was done by use of the faster O/S of
>>> the NAS, not Windows.  (This is SOOOOO nerdy,, if you wish to know more,
>>> contact me directly.  )
>>>
>>> The Drobo source files are being preserved for a while until we are sure
>>> all the images have been copied properly, none forgotten or misplaced.
>>> They
>>> sit on a shelf, without power ( or purpose) for now.  Later they will be
>>> cannibalized for the HDD inside, to go into her ProDrives for a archive
>>> backup to the NAS.
>>>
>>> If anyone has interest in Drobos, and has the insane ( Value judgement is
>>> mine) death wish to use these, please contact  Tina, directly. It is not
>>> time to get rid of them yet, but you should check with her to make
>>> arrangements....
>>>
>>> I do not suspect there will be a big stampede, but who knows?
>>>
>>> Note on the Probox:  These reasonably cheap ( few hundred $$$) HDD
>>> enclosures have an interesting feature that I will use when we get that
>>> far... they
>>> have an eSATA port.  So does the NAS ( not all do).  This is of value
>>> because eSATA is significantly faster (so I am told, 5GB/Sec on USB 3.0,
>>> 6GB/Sec
>>> for eSATA) then USB 3.0.  Backup times will be reduced significantly.
>>>
>>> If you are thinking about also putting all your images on one HDD array,
>>> NAS or RAID or not, AND you have an eSATA port on your computer ( some
>> do,
>>> others do not) this is probably the best way to wire up your computer...
>>> use eSATA to ProBox directly rather than use USB to make the connection
>>> faster.
>>>
>>> Be Aware that eSATA does not support hot-swapping, therefore the computer
>>> has to be restarted to recognize the connected device.  Not a big deal.
>>> Especially if you have only one eSATA device.
>>>
>>> More to come as I get everything working.... better, faster, and more
>>> protected.
>>>
>>>
>>> Frank FilipponeBMWRed735i at Gmail.com
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Leica Users Group.
>>> Seehttp://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug  for more information
>> _______________________________________________
>> Leica Users Group.
>> Seehttp://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug  for more information
>
>