Hi Hegel,
Thanks for the info. Have been checking out your info and am looking
at this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=NexStar+HX4+Enclosures&N=-1&isNodeId=1
Dunno if that's the one you have or not. Seems like it might be older
than the current ones listed at the Vantec website.
Curious whether most use esata or usb3. I don't think I have port
replication with my system to use esata, which seems to be preferable
to usb3. My understanding is without port replication either in the
computer or in an esata card you can't access the drives individually.
Been collecting myself since the 90's but it's only in the last few
years that I've stopped burning to dvd and am now only saving to hdd
and have been getting things I already have on dvd and putting them on
hdd since they're so much easier to access that way. I use Kodi (was
XBMC) primarily as my media player though sometimes Kodi won't play
some of my dvr (hauppage dual tuner card) captures and I have to use
media player classic to play them (MPC seems to play anything). But I
prefer using Kodi normally since it works so much better with a remote
or portable keyboard. Kodi also has a lot of add ons, so you can
access things like PBS shows, news programs, you tube videos, etc
directly from the player.
I probably have media (mostly video but some audio) spread out on
about 5 hdd's in a very haphazard fashion with almost nothing backed
up. The older drives are 2TB some are 3T and the newest is 4T. I've
been trying to consolidate and organize things. Recoding tv episodes
from saved on hdd as dvd mpeg2 format to h264. Recoding the larger
10-20 GB bluray files down to 2-2 GB mkvs with handbrake, and
consolidating onto a few hdds. Still at this point I'm guessing it's
around to 8-10 TB after recoding.
So the 4 hdd enclosure you mention sounds like it wouldn't be
overkill. I suspect I would use the external usb drives for backup
and keep them unplugged after backing up. I'd imagine they would last
longer that way, occasionally powering them up to refresh them.
Using the 4 disk enclosures the way you are as individual disks means
you don't need to have them all the same size or specs as is necessary
with raid, if I understand correctly.
You plug one of the enclosures into the usb input on the wireless
router and it broadcasts access to it to anything that can pick up
wireless -- phones, tablets, laptop computers or sends it through the
wired connections as well I suppose, in the home. Can't do that at
present. Verizon has been offering a new wireless router if want to
upgrade my service, probably has that capability.
You reminded me about all the OTR I have somewhere in my mp3 files.
Ameche and Langford were great in the Bickersons. I'll have to put
some of them in my car's thumb drive to listen to.
<OTRLibrarian@StTrinians.ac.uk> wrote:
>Hi, Free Agent,
>
>You could set up a "storage bank" with 2 3TB or 4TB (bare drive) HDDs and
>an external enclosure, and then add to it as resources permit.
>
>I've been collecting since the late '90s, and sometime in 2008, I looked
>at the motley assortment of external HDDs (and USB hubs, power supplies,
>extension cords, etc.) on my desk and decided to fix the problem with a
>more permanent solution. It took me a couple of years to get it in place,
>but it now "works like a charm."
>
>I do something similar to fred-bloggs -- with WD-RED NAS 3TB drives in
>two separate NexStar HX4 Enclosures (not a "raid" -- just storage). I
>stagger-cycle these drives so that I replace one in each box yearly,
>after it's been in use for four years. That way, I only replace two
>drives per year -- about $200 total at NewEgg (watch for sales).
>
>One HX4 is the "primary," and the other is a "mirror." It's rare indeed
>that both "boxes" -- or the same drive in each box -- would fail at the
>same time. New files get copied to the primary. Once I set up the HX4s, I
>wrote a simple batch file to backup any changes (new files - deleted
>files) from the primary to the mirror daily at 5am. Two drives are film
>(by genre) -- and two are television series.
>
>The "primary" is on my home wireless network (ASUS RT-N66u Dual Band),
>and I have two recycled small-footprint Win-XP Pro computers (with hdmi
>graphics cards and wireless kb/mouse) attached to the two tvs in the
>house. Any film or tv show can be accessed through the network by any tv
>at any time. I use Media Player Classic to view. Hulu? Netflix? Amazon
>Prime? Nope -- don't need 'em. Oh, and the entire OTR collection is
>stored on one of the tv drives -- but it's only about 1TB. Nothing beats
>listening to the "Battling Bickersons" at breakfast!
>
>Rule # 1 around here is that if there's a fire, one of the "boxes" is the
>first thing we grab (after the cats and each other).
>
>I think that this will probably meet my needs until SSDs reach closer to
>price parity with HDDs. They're not there yet, but in say, 5 years, I
>should be able to get a 2TB or 3TB SSD for about $100-$150. I'll then
>switch to those. Given my age, I suspect that I won't be worrying about
>this very much in 20 years. . . .
>
>Hope this helps!
>
>Cheers!
>
>------------------------------------------
>
>"fred-bloggs" <fred-bloggs@hahahotmail.com> wrote in
>news:56d6909f$0$41807$b1db1813$926ec78a@news.astraweb.com:
>
>> On Tue, 01 Mar 2016 23:24:18 GMT, Free Agent <freeagent@nospam.com>
>> wrote
>>
>>> I'm losing my second Seagate Expansion drive in under a year and want
>>> to rethink my options.
>
>
>>>
>>
>> <snippage>
>>
>> I use Synology NASs (not in RAID) as short term, offline backup. Long
>> term backup is on DVD/BDR. I keep a catalog (titles,size,location) of
>> local drives, NASs and DVDs in case of failures.
>>
>> Hard drives fail.
>> https://www.backblaze.com/blog/how-long-do-disk-drives-last/
>>
>> DVDs fail, less often, verify discs when writing.
>>
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