Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Streaming Lessons learned from almost losing data!

First, I'd like to again thank the members here for their assistance with my issues on the Sooloos, but this has caused some reflection.

I am going to start viewing the Hard Drives as consumables with a shorter lifespan than I previously expected and will start marking and replacing my hard drives on a 24 month basis. With 2TB drives about $119 and 3TB drives about $179 here in the US, replacing four drives over this time period means it's going to cost about $300 a year to insure that I don't have this problem again.

AND.

Serious offline backup to follow!

I've learned my lesson

I'm realy please you are back up and running again. What Sooloos kit do you have (please add. to sig box)?

I assume you don't not have a RAID 1 setup, with RAID 1 if a disk fails your system is still available, so there realy no need to perform preventative maintainance by swapping out 'good' HDD periodical.

Of course, as has been stated many time on here, RAID 1 does not protect against total failure so a second (and I suggest third) off-site back should be taken.

I keep one copy at home and the other at my office and alternate them each time I make a security copy.

Regards,
Carl

For those of us running RAID 1 TwinStore/MD600, is it possible to use three discs and rotate them, keeping one off site?

So if I power down, remove a disc and replace with a blank one and allow it to rebuild, I have a full backup on the removed disc?

Experts, please advise on the suitability or not of this as a backup routine, and any pitfalls and dangers.

I'm far from an expert but that is a very interesting proposition Ludwig and should work. The last time I had an experience similar to what you describe (placing a new drive in beside one containing data) I found the TwinStore active with heaps of flashing, for many days. And that involved only 1000 or so albums for a 2 TB HDD. I suspect a full quota of 4000+ would take up to a week to settle down - quite a bit longer than a backup. However once drive 2 had been copied the incremental backup, changes should be similar to those with an external drive and not take very long.

About the only possible hiccup I can see would be if you deleted albums. That could confuse the system as I have been told by my dealer such changes are not registered in backups. So, although the main TwinStore drive (call it no 1) would register the new library with some deleted, No 2 would still have those albums on file.

Experts - please comment.

John

For economy and convenience I would simply use an external USB 3.0 HDD.

For example, the Hitachi 4TB external HDD is cheaper than the internal HDD equiv. So, rather than run the risk of pulling internal HDD in and out of the unit (probably a few unintended consequences in doing this), I just use regular Sooloos backup to ext. HDD.

For 'belt and braces' I also run a full native export to another HDD.

FWIW I am pretty sure that RAID is not really designed for frequent swaps. The reconcilliation must get messy.

+10

One main difference between backup and RAID is that RAID is dedicated to the individual device at that point in time whereas a backup is designed to be a more system orientated backup over a longer time span. Thus, you may find your RAID 'backup' being unusable on any type of device other than that from which it was taken, where as a backup is generally good, or can be made good, for transfer between systems. Ie your spare MD600 RAID disc would have a high probability of not working in a (ficticious) MD600.2 (or ficticious v401 firmware) where as a backup should. Ignoring any issues in the backup process.

It would be interesting to see how people's experience with drives in the various store units plays out over time. For the MD600 (self-serving, 'cause that's what I currntly use :)), for example, what is the mean time to failure - and is it any different than for a typical hard-drive installation. I suppose it won't be terribly scientific, given that people will use different drives and under different conditions of duress, but it would be interesting.

Related question is how do people manage potential (inevitable?) disc failure in a RAID1 box. Is best practice to keep a brand new dive on hand to quickly replace a bad drive, or is Amazon prime adequate - in other words, can a box like MD600 run for a few days with only a single drive working?

Hi everybody,

I backup on a external NAS in RAID configuration. I also backup on an external USB drive.

The MTBF is specified by the manufacturer. There are often two versions of a hard disk model. One for consumer use and one for 24/7 server use. Those made for server use are a little bit more expensive.

A good way eliminate that both hard disks in a RAID configuration crash at the same time is to use disks from different brands. If there is a fault in the disks it is very unlikely that the faults appear at the same time.

It is also a good idea to keep a backup in bank or friends house in case of fire or theft.

I am not a computer specialist, but this is what I have been told by people who work with computers.

Best regards, Per Nilsson, Sweden

If you had an external back up I see no issue with running MD600 with one drive. If you don't have external back up you run the risk (albeit small) that the second drive fails before the new drive is mirrored.

I too had the idea of using an MD600 to create a duplicate of an original disk in order to create a perfect backup disk, and I understand the risk.

But because the normal incremental backup function doesn't include deletions (or edits to existing material I presume), I do not see is as a good method. Does anyone know of a better alternative besides swapping drives in a RAID set?

Your presumption is incorrect.

Album edits and track play counts are updated during the backup. If you look carefully you will see two phases:
1) Updates xx of nn
2) Backup xx of yy

However, you are correct that deleted albums are not removed from the backup (I can understand why M don't do this).

I tackle this twofold:
1)
- Tag album that is wish to delete with DELETE.
- Perform a backup, which updates the tag in the backup.
- Delete the album(s).
Then if I did need to restore from the backup, all one has to do is bulk delete the albums tags as DELETE.

2)
- Periodically (say 6 months), delete the files from the backup disk (normally by reformatting as it's quicker).
- Perform a clean backup.
Repeat on second backup disk at a later date.

Regards,
Carl

I think this is a very good idea. It took me a little while to work out how I best wanted albums to be on my original MS200, so I ended up redoing a bunch of them. When I moved to MD600 and did a restore from backup, all versions returned. Subsequently I wiped the original and performed a new backup as Carl suggests.