'Analog Dinosaur' succumbs to the joys of FBA : enter Raspberry Pi 2/IQ-Audio DAC+!!

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Originally Posted by r100

Sorry, but I dont agree, it is far safer than backing up to multiple DVD's or CD's in a backup set. If one of them goes down you loose your backup set or at best the CD/DVD that went down. And it is a known fact that home burnt optical media is not stable over time. I agree it is not 100% safe but it is as close as you can get. Your are also right about the rebuild time it is a long process and can fail, but even with a power outage during rebuild, 99% of the time, the rebuild will resume. If not, you have the backup for your data on an external USB drive. These systems are used in professional environments. They dont use optical media to back up as far as I can see.


I absolutely agree with that. The cost of an external USB enclosure with a large enough drive is not that steep and will save you hours of pain in case of a catastrophic data loss.

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+1 RAID is a back-up system. But like any other medium of data backup you need to retire the drives after 1 to 2 years or so just to be on the safe side so it's imperative to do stored backups. BUT NOT ON CD/DVD.... Arrgh!..:doh:

So you must ghost the RAID anyway. But of course it depends on how valuable you see your data in the end.

If a drive fails the data can be retrieved too... it's expensive but so is mostly anything in hifi... well, apart from the Pi... lol

+1 loosing valuable data is the most expensive item on my list :)

Guys, guys, guys, trust me RAID is not a backup system!!! You are fooling yourselves if you think it is. Don't just take it from me....(I do work in the computer data storage industry though ;) )

One of many Google links: http://www.overclock.net/t/1254683/w...ackup-solution

I never mentioned backup to CD/DVD (BTW I have ripped CD's from 1997 that still play perfectly well ;) ) use another disk set preferably 2.

I will even go as far to say you maybe better off with a single high reliability drive for your music store and perform regular incremental backups to a second and third drive...like I do :)

To me the best solution is just to have two identical drives, one for data, one for back up.

The problem with a lot of back up software is it tries to compress and in some cases encrypt the data. I lost a lot of data/my portfolio due to this and as the company had gone out of business I could not retrive any of my images, even though I still had the files that had been backed up. Unfortunately the machine that had the back up software on had been scrapped and I did not have a copy of the software used.

What is needed is software that will just dump everything unaltered on to another drive (full back up) or only additional/altered files since the last back up (progressive back up). The chances of loosing two drives simultaneously by them malfunctioning is so remote as not to be a worry. If you have a fire or are burgled you have bigger worries than just the data, the only way to protect against this is to keep the back up off site, I used to be responsible for incrumental back ups at work for the design data and kept a copy in the fire proof safe at work and also one at home. I will not use any third party web based back up of ANY kind.

Guys, guys, guys... Could we please draw the conversation about RAID to a swift an end as possible, and return to discussing the Pi? All this techy-talk about non-hifi related bollox is making me YAWN.

Ta! :cool:

Marco.

To be honest Marco the issue of reliable (and inexpensive) storage and backup is the one thing that puts me off getting a Pi to use as you described and I think that Neal has some very sound advice to offer.

Like others, I hadn't realised that dual drive raids were not self supporting and require additional drives of equal size for backup - this knocks this system out of my price range straight off. I have no need to use another device such as Pi to access Spotify or other online sources - I have my Mac/DAC combo for that already.

Storage reliability is one of the main drawbacks of digital systems - and I've lost enough data over the years to take it lightly ...

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Originally Posted by NRG

Guys, guys, guys, trust me RAID is not a backup system!!! You are fooling yourselves if you think it is. Don't just take it from me....(I do work in the computer data storage industry though ;) )

One of many Google links: http://www.overclock.net/t/1254683/w...ackup-solution

I never mentioned backup to CD/DVD (BTW I have ripped CD's from 1997 that still play perfectly well ;) ) use another disk set preferably 2.

I will even go as far to say you maybe better off with a single high reliability drive for your music store and perform regular incremental backups to a second and third drive...like I do :)

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I can see where you are coming from, sure. The thing is you can use RAID as a back-up system. You just need to retire the drives after a couple of years and make sure that you ghost them after year one.

Inherently RAID is a data security system designed to make sure that the data (a mirror of drive A to drive B,C,D etc.) is safer being stored twice+ rather than once but it's a very good way of backing up data so long as you do the above.

It's much easier to use these days too than the SCSI drives of olde too. Still, nothing wrong with SCSI, still does the job in the end.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Toshiba-HDTB...500gb+external

just buy a few of these folks. cheap n cheerful...just like the pi.

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Originally Posted by mikmas

To be honest Marco the issue of reliable (and inexpensive) storage and backup is the one thing that puts me off getting a Pi to use as you described and I think that Neal has some very sound advice to offer.

Like others, I hadn't realised that dual drive raids were not self supporting and require additional drives of equal size for backup - this knocks this system out of my price range straight off. I have no need to use another device such as Pi to access Spotify or other online sources - I have my Mac/DAC combo for that already.

Storage reliability is one of the main drawbacks of digital systems - and I've lost enough data over the years to take it lightly ...

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These are great... http://www.ebuyer.com/661687-wd-my-b...XEMRoCBsPw_wcB

I know of a few who has them for music, including myself. It's not a professional answer but it's just the ticket for a small budget.

Storage stability is extremely good these days. Don't be put off by all this talk of losing data, the chances of you losing everything is pretty remote. Sorry if it's scare mongering. lol

So long as you look after your kit (which I'm sure you do) there is no reason why one HDD shouldn't just last and last. You have more chance of scratching an LP than for a good quality drive to go down.

If a HDD does go down, well ... what if your cd collection gets pinched or your cd player's laser foobar's? Both examples are quite remote in todays terms but in a way, it's a similar thing... the ability to play your music has therefore diminished.

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Originally Posted by mikmas

To be honest Marco the issue of reliable (and inexpensive) storage and backup is the one thing that puts me off getting a Pi to use as you described and I think that Neal has some very sound advice to offer.

Like others, I hadn't realised that dual drive raids were not self supporting and require additional drives of equal size for backup - this knocks this system out of my price range straight off. I have no need to use another device such as Pi to access Spotify or other online sources - I have my Mac/DAC combo for that already.

Storage reliability is one of the main drawbacks of digital systems - and I've lost enough data over the years to take it lightly ...

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Absolutely, Mike.

Don't get me wrong, Neal's advice is appreciated and very relevant, but once some reasonable discussion has taken place in reference to storage and back-up (and we're reaching that point now), I'd like to return to discussing the usefulness/functionality and sonic merits of the Pi, as that was the main purpose of the thread.

The storage and back-up issues apply to any FBA set-up, not just the Pi, so let's get back on-topic and discuss matters of specific relevance to the above. If someone wants to start a thread about functionality or reliability of RAID and/or any matter pertaining to HD storage or back-up, they are welcome to start another thread on this section of the forum.

Cheers :cool:

Oh, and just one quick point about safe back-up, which is certainly relevant in my case, and the main reason why I bought the Pi in the first place, was to rip my own physical music collection, on vinyl or CD, and add to that library of music, through the continual purchase of CDs or records, and ripping them to hard-drives (for convenient access to the music, through streaming it), not to download music that I don't own from the Internet - especially the paid-for variety! :nono:

Therefore, what better fail-safe back-up system is there than owning and retaining the original music? If anything should get lost, through hard-drive failure, then I still have the original records or CDs to play on my CDP or turntable, and I can then repeat the ripping process again. In that respect, nothing is really 'lost'. It's not as if the only music I've got is on hard-drive.

Job done! :)

Marco.