Hi All,

 

I'm just in the process of setting up my first unRAID array.

 

I'm using the array to serve music and video, but also backup photos etc. I've just started making shares and moving my music and video, however after reading the wiki I've got a question about allocation methods.

 

To minimise the effect of loosing two disks, I want my photo share to be distributed across as many disks as possible so that I could recover something. I will be performing occasional backups to an alternative target but I'd like to increase my chances of recovering *something* on this share if two disks fail. Whats the best allocation method for this?

 

Thanks,

Martin

I'd like to increase my chances of recovering *something* on this share if two disks fail. Whats the best allocation method for this?

 

Thanks,

Martin

Off-site-backup.   

Hi Joel,

 

Yep I'll be backing up to an external disk monthly and I'm possibly going to stick something on cloud storage, but what allocation method could achieve the most splitting between disks?

 

Thanks,

Martin

Hi Joel,

 

Yep I'll be backing up to an external disk monthly and I'm possibly going to stick something on cloud storage, but what allocation method could achieve the most splitting between disks?

 

Thanks,

Martin

manual allocation.  none of the allocation methods are designed for most distribution, but the opposite, least number of disks involved..  If all the disks were the exact same size, then perhaps "most free" might be best.

Thanks Joel - thats what i suspected. Theres no avoiding being lazy with the backups then!

It doesn't matter what method you use. If you lose 2 of the data drives all the files on those drives are gone.

 

Are you just meaning to minimize the losses? It might make a little sense to use the most free if you have a bunch of drives and all the drives are the same size. Still, if you have 4 drives you'd lose 50% of your pictures and if you had 20 drives you'd lose 10% of your pictures. Both are fairly large losses. Also, placing other media on the server could mess with the even distribution of pictures.

 

What I do for critical files is have 2 copies on separate disks in the unraid array. I would then have to be unlucky enough to lose those exact 2 drives. To accomplish this, you can assign shares to only occupy certain disks, or manually allocate files directly to the disks you want to use. As an example, on disk1 you could have Photos, on disk2 you could make a copy of the Photos folder and name it PhotosBackup. The problem with that is it's not automatic, you have to remember to update both sets. You could set it up to rsync from one disk to another on a cron schedule to automate the process. If you have enough space you can duplicate files to all your disks, as long as the complete path is different.

 

Joe is right though, unraid IS NOT A BACKUP. The ability to recover from a single disk failure does nothing to keep accidental (or on purpose) file deletion or corruption from making you lose data. If it's important, you NEED ANOTHER COPY ELSEWHERE.

I think the OP realizes that unraid is not a backup, just trying to figure out how to minimize the amount of loss in the event of 2 drive failure. If you plan on keeping the photo's on your main PC, then unraid is acting as a backup for the photos. But only if you keep them on your main PC as well.

 

The best backup plan I've heard is the 3-2-1 backup.

 

3 different copies on atleast 2 different media types, and 1 being offsite.

 

This way if a harddrive fails, you have two other copies. If both harddrives fail, you can still load them back from the dvd's. If your house burns down, you still have a backup somewhere else.

 

I actually have a small firesafe that I keep at my parents house. It has backups of important pictures and documents, as well as hard copies of those I deem most valuable/irreplaceable. This way, I'd have to be extremely unlucky on the exact same day my parents are extremely unlucky.

Thanks for all the great replies guys!

 

I think I'll probably implement a similar setup to Jcalton88 and take the NAS that I'm replacing to my parents house. A rsync job via a crontab should satisfy my pessimistic side.