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Best eSATA JBOD?
redlandmover writes "I already have an HP Media Server (upgraded processor, and memory) that has already been upgraded internally to 3.5TB. I'm sure everyone already has their favorite backup solution (RAID, WHS, a billion external hard drives, etc). My question is: what is the best JBOD (Just a Bunch of Drives), eSATA-connected, external hard drive enclosure? (Preferably, at least 4 drives.)"
RAID 1 + swapping out/rebuilding a mirror disk periodically is a perfectly reasonable backup solution.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
You're better off with an SAS external enclosure and a SAS card with external connections. These can be expensive, but will pay for themselves quickly with the lack of extra management.
What management ? You get an eSATA chassis with a port multiplier, slot in some drives, and run a single cable to the eSATA port on the computer. "Management" doesn't even come into it.
It's a home media server. In what was is SAS even remotely justified ?
You do know that a RAID can be used for STORING backups don't you? Making your primary storage a RAID is no substitute for a backup. Adding an offline RAID storage can be a backup.
Until your controller goes berserk and craps all over your disk or your other disk fails in the middle of the rebuild. Or...
A single disk is more risky than I would like. Especially since it's offline, it can fail without warning leaving me (unknowingly) without a backup and unable to update my backup until I get a new disk (and hopefully I didn't need any of the archival versions of any of the files)
A RAID is far less likely to suffer that problem. When a disk fails, I have a signal that I should replace enough disks to maintain the RAID even when the remaining old disks fail.
And, as tsalmark said, it's nice when the backup disk is bigger than the primary.