I am looking for a reasonable priced External Hard Drive Array with at least 4 bays that can take high capacity internal hard drives (removable and replaceable). Hopefully it will make a capacity of say 4TB per array. I was hoping that I could get two of them, so I had a back-up of the back-up! I know these are available in the states but does anyone know of any suppliers in the UK that’s not asking £1000’s upon thousands!
I'd like the following options if possible; RAID 1 & 5, Plug-n-Play connectivity using USB 2.0 and eSATA Connections, eSATA hard drive technology, and high transfer rates up to 100 MB/s.
Something like the following example (if anyone knows a UK dealer let me know);
Buffalo DriveStation Quattro Turbo USB Hard Drive Array - 4TB - 4 x 1TB
Hi paul, I would look at these products (lacie and Netgear), we use them at work (i work in IT) , buffalo stuff to be honest isnt that good, from our experience.
Check out Scan, they have various external NAS/DAS enclosures available - populated and unpopulated.
Another to try is dabs, another I've used professionally is Insight (They do ship to Joe Public too). Both Dabs and Insight list Buffalo gear if you're hell-bent on using them.
One thing I'd suggest, if you can, set the array as a 4 or 5 drive array + hotspare and, if you don't buy one with included drives, then source your drives from at least a couple of different box shippers - it'll reduce the likelihood of the disks being from the same manufacturing batch and several of the drives failing simultaneously (I once had two IBM machines with 6 drives each loose 3 drives apiece within weeks of each other... needless to say IBM weren't in my good books for quite some time! . The servers kept running tho' - just!).
Hi Paul, I work in IT too and wouldn't touch buffalo kit either. I use some lacie gear for external usb and firewire storage but they're only Samsungs inside. I'd say if you want high performance and fault tolerance, you have to pay for it...and it's usually expensive. Suppose it's how valuable your data is.
You might want to consider building it yourself if you're inclined to do that kind of thing. It might make you a bit loopy though. Unfortunately I don't see the prices on the kind kind of setup you want coming down anytime soon. I think you could import it since it would be considered an information device under EU rules, but don't quote me on that though.
Stay away from Insight. I've found their support pretty rubbish. Trying to get them to send me a new fan cage for a brand new server was like pulling teeth with a crow-bar. Lacie and Maxtor hae always been favorites with me. I even have a Western Digital hard drive that hasn't called it quits yet (amazing!!)
Its always interesting the results from this type of thing.
I'm network and server admin where i work, and the others where i work rate Buffalo gear highly, with reasonable prices and good stability and resiliency. Same for linksys/cisco and such.
From our experiance we also wouldnt recommend Lacie due to failures and sometimes really bad product design, (who wants a USB HDD which you can only read and write to as FAT and read only as NTFS...)
Yet others here dont recommend buffalo and do Laclie, i think the reason is low sample size. We all recommend products which we have used and worked or seen working with other.
I'd just setup a small server with an expandable RAID array...
I'm having the same thoughts as Paul: amazing how the brands I've seen fail are the ones that are recommended. I wouldn't worry too much if you are going to have two back-ups of everything- it is better to have two very cheap devices, than to spend the same money on one expensive one of the same capacity.
I have used Span.com for these sort of enclosures. Not particularly cheap, but there support is good when things go wrong.
Thanks for all your replies! I wasn't quite expecting so many! It’s very interesting to hear all your views and opinions. I will check out all the suppliers mentioned here (I knew a couple and forgot a couple!) and I’ll post my findings and what decision I eventually made on this thread!
I think it all comes down to budget Paul. I wouldn't use these types of kit anyway for work just because of the critical data and the speeds needed, but I've probably got a lot more budget available for this type of thing (although I'm not sure about that ) If you're flush look at fibre channel SANS and even iSCSi which i think can use sata technologies. Then get Veritas to back it all up Sounds like a mammoth project! good luck
Discussion
11 repliesI am looking for a reasonable priced External Hard Drive Array with at least 4 bays that can take high capacity internal hard drives (removable and replaceable). Hopefully it will make a capacity of say 4TB per array. I was hoping that I could get two of them, so I had a back-up of the back-up! I know these are available in the states but does anyone know of any suppliers in the UK that’s not asking £1000’s upon thousands!
I'd like the following options if possible; RAID 1 & 5, Plug-n-Play connectivity using USB 2.0 and eSATA Connections, eSATA hard drive technology, and high transfer rates up to 100 MB/s.
Something like the following example (if anyone knows a UK dealer let me know);
Buffalo DriveStation Quattro Turbo USB Hard Drive Array - 4TB - 4 x 1TB
I like a cheapish option if anyone knows of one!
Many thanks,
Paul
and now could you just run that by me in Welsh because I certainly can't understand the English!
Robert (computer luddite)
Buffalo gear is usually pretty good, most of the guys here use their stuff for personal backups at home. I use a raid 5 server my self.
http://www.lacie.com/uk/products/range.htm?id=10061
Another to try is dabs, another I've used professionally is Insight (They do ship to Joe Public too). Both Dabs and Insight list Buffalo gear if you're hell-bent on using them.
One thing I'd suggest, if you can, set the array as a 4 or 5 drive array + hotspare and, if you don't buy one with included drives, then source your drives from at least a couple of different box shippers - it'll reduce the likelihood of the disks being from the same manufacturing batch and several of the drives failing simultaneously (I once had two IBM machines with 6 drives each loose 3 drives apiece within weeks of each other... needless to say IBM weren't in my good books for quite some time!
You might want to consider building it yourself if you're inclined to do that kind of thing. It might make you a bit loopy though.
Stay away from Insight. I've found their support pretty rubbish. Trying to get them to send me a new fan cage for a brand new server was like pulling teeth with a crow-bar. Lacie and Maxtor hae always been favorites with me. I even have a Western Digital hard drive that hasn't called it quits yet (amazing!!)
I'm sorry I wasn't more help.
Payat
I am useing four x 500gb western digital (my book) stacked array piggy backed on two firewired the other two works for me!!!
I'm network and server admin where i work, and the others where i work rate Buffalo gear highly, with reasonable prices and good stability and resiliency. Same for linksys/cisco and such.
From our experiance we also wouldnt recommend Lacie due to failures and sometimes really bad product design, (who wants a USB HDD which you can only read and write to as FAT and read only as NTFS...)
Yet others here dont recommend buffalo and do Laclie, i think the reason is low sample size. We all recommend products which we have used and worked or seen working with other.
I'd just setup a small server with an expandable RAID array...
I have used Span.com for these sort of enclosures. Not particularly cheap, but there support is good when things go wrong.
Thanks for all your replies! I wasn't quite expecting so many! It’s very interesting to hear all your views and opinions. I will check out all the suppliers mentioned here (I knew a couple and forgot a couple!) and I’ll post my findings and what decision I eventually made on this thread!
Thanks once again!