This year I’m considering replacing my desktop machine – it would be really nice to be able to run virtual machines on my desktop for testing, etc.1 When I did a little pricing, I was rather surprised to see the effect upgrading the internal drive configuration had on the overall sticker price: an additional $1000-2000.
So now I’m considering setting up an external storage solution that can survive several machine upgrades. Maybe something simple and cost-effective like a FireWire 800 RAID 5 set-up. I found these options, does anyone have anything good/bad to say about them or alternatives to suggest?
Of course, eventually I’ll also need a way to back up the big external drive (even though it is RAID 5) – perhaps a ReadyNAS for that once my data outgrows my current external drives.
I’ve got a hodge-podge of drives right now, largely because of recent necessity purchases:
- 2 300GB SATA Seagate drives which are my current internal drives (bought when I had to send my Hitatchi drives out for recovery)
- 2 250GB SATA Hitatchi drives that I had as my original internal drives
- 1 250GB SATA Western Digital drive – came with the Mac, not in use
- 1 300GB Seagate external drive
- 2 200GB Seagate external drives
- 1 100GB Seagate external drive
Perhaps I could do something like this:
- Pull the internal Seagate drives, add a couple more and set them up as the primary external RAID.
- Use the Hitatchi drives as a RAID 1 internally.
- Use the external Seagate drives (300GB and 2x200GB) for rotating backups.
- Keep the 100GB external as an emergency drive – always need an extra.
That leaves the Western Digital, which I intend to put back in the Quad when I sell it.
I’d also need to test that I can make my user directory (/Users/aking) a symbolic link to a directory on the external drives – anyone done that?
- My MacBook is my only Intel Mac – it’s pretty dog slow with the virtual machines. [back]
There are also options for setting up raid 5 arrays with internal drives. I wrote about my 2TB version: http://treemeat.com/text/32/. It’s specifically for Quad G5’s, but the raid card can be used in any PCI-X Mac.
At Macworld, I saw a company that had routed the sata cables from the four internal drives to a raid 5 card, and used the extra drive bay for a boot-up drive (since they can’t boot off the raid array). But they were only selling it as a full package, already set up (and for way more money).
Also, eSATA is showing up more and more in cheap multi-drive external enclosures. Then you could still use a third party controller card, and get the benefit of the raid speed (rather than having it bottleknecked by the Firewire). Though that makes it only usable by that computer.
There’s also something like this:
http://www.3ware.com[...]ta2-9000.asp
Wow, really? You and I have almost identical setups if I remember correctly and mine doesn’t seem all that slow to me, although I will admit I don’t put it under what could be called extreme stress by any means. Is it video that seems slow to you or all things in general?
I’ve been thinking about trying to set up some sort of external drive system, but mainly for backups. I’m running into a bit of a problem with the size of my internal hard drive on my macbook … one that I doubt I’ll ever truly solve, but some sort of disk array at home might be my best option is what I’m figuring. Then just ‘cacheing’ my music and recent video that I might want to use while ‘on the road.’
Some of the options you linked to look pretty cool, thanks for mentioning them.
For what it’s worth, I’ve run into a lot of the same problems. I’ve taken the approach of setting up a file server on my LAN for all the machines to share (rather than just sticking the big array of drives off a single machine). Sure it requires a tad more setup, but since I’m a Windows sysadmin by trade that’s not a big deal.
Also, for the prices of some of those RAID 5 enclosures, you could build a pretty kick ass little home server.
As Matt W said, backups are going to be an issue when you get into that much storage space. Backing it up period is a problem, and off-site backups are virtually impossible (3 TB over a home DSL or Cable connection? I think not…).
One or more smaller retail NAS solutions may also be a viable option for you, depending on your exact needs. Small Net Builder (formerly Tom’s Networking?) has NAS Charts if you’re interested in performance. They also do some pretty solid reviews of features and setup that may be of use in deciding if you want to go the NAS route.
When you find the perfect solution, please let the rest of us in the same boat know. If you go with one of the monster 3 TB solutions, maybe the rest of us could store some backups at your house? 😀
Pete–
I know. Like I said, I want something external so it’s easy to move between machines.
Matt– it’s only when using Parallels that the MacBook dogs. Much is due to the HD speed, some to lack of RAM (only 2GB).
My experience with VMWare is that it’s best to run the (free) server on a linux box and then use the server console to access the virtual machines over the network. That way your desktop doesn’t get weighted down by several VMs.
I’ve got a 800mhz linux laptop that’s mostly being used as a client for the virtual machines and it’s working great for that. I think it’s only got 128MB of RAM. You can even use local hardware (like sound, CD/DVD, and USB devices) on the remote virtual machine over the network.