This time I want something that doesn’t consume as much power, can be powered on and off easily, is fairly small, I can swap drives on it, does Raid 1 (mirroring), and doesn’t fry eggs on the top of the case.

Options. Not many. I looked at the Buffalo Linkstation Pro Duo, but it only ships in a dual drive configuration, and the 2 TB version seems way too expensive (Amazon $510). You get soaked on the drive cost here. The 1 TB version is two 500GB drives for $265. That is $245 to add another TB. (Without subtracting the cost of the other two drives).

I like the looks of the Netgear ReadyNAS Duo, and it ships with one drive and one open bay. For 500GB, Amazon wants $344, and I would have to replace 2 drives. For the 1 TB version the unit jumps to $617. Yikes. I am still 1 TB short of a mirror. Netgear has other 4 bay versions too, but they get even more expensive. Way more.

I suppose there is always the Drobo. It is a 4 bay solution. Not exactly a mirror, but some sort of wacky internal proprietary solution that provides redundancy. Amazon has this for $349 with no drives, but I would still need to add the Drobo Share to make it a NAS for $195. While a lot of photographers use this solution tied to one computer, I am not sure I like it as a NAS.

Lets try to add this up. First, drives. Newegg and Amazon’s stock of 1 TB drives seems to vary quite a bit. You can get Seagate and Western Digital drives from $179 to $240. I will just use $200 for now. Millage will vary. End price is a NAS with 2 TB total.

• Linkstation 1TB : $265 + 2x$200 = $665
• Linkstation 2TB : $510
• ReadyNAS 500GB : $344 + 2x$200 = $744
• ReadyNAS 1TB: $617 + $200 = $817
• Drobo : $349 + $195 + 2x$200 = $944

So, it looks like out of the box the Linkstation 2TB was the cheapest after all. I do have some concerns about the Linkstation. The unit needs to be disassembled to replace a drive, and I hear that it is not the fastest device.  $500 plus right now sounds like a whole lot of cabbage.

I suppose that trying to find a new motherboard that my existing processor and memory could fit into that would have onboard SATA ports would be another idea to explore. Without the external card, maybe the machine could boot up properly. Still, I think that it uses too much power. Maybe someday I will get a Kill-A-Watt and find out for sure.

So, with a trip coming up in July, I thought I would test it out. From a short trip to Rochester MN last weekend, I had some images on my laptop. (I hadn’t deleted the cards before getting the images to the main computer though) I copied the masters to the portable, then imported them into Aperture from the external drive. Oops. Several garbled images. Reformated the drive and I tried again. Same thing, different images. Dead drive, or housing. Guess I am going shopping.

First add some more space to the volume:
# lvextend -L +1G /dev/vgnas/pictures

Then tell ext3 about the extra space.
# resize2fs /dev/vgnas/pictures

Thats it. I did it live, without unmounting. I then went back to my rsync command, and it continued right where it left off. Sometimes I really like linux.

The thing that is really interresting about Scott and my solutions, is that there are a lot of similarities. But mine cost a lot less.

His first step is to save on location to an Epson P-500 (link). That would be cool. I have looked at those wistfully before. I don’t have anything comparable. I don’t travel as much as he does, so I just have to put in my empty card and go from there.

I do have a laptop and a small backup drive (just one) that I can use pretty much as he did to get the images off the cards. Most of the time I go straight to my main computer though.

On the main computer, I use Aperture to import my picures. But I don’t store them in my Library, I store them on a location on my hard drive by year, by reference in the Library. This means I know exactly where the pictures are, and I can use other tools to back them up.

First, I am also useing Time Machine. I use this to backup everything on this computer, and have a seperate drive (also stores my video collecion) that I use Apertures Vaults system to backup the Library.

I also have a backup system. Mine is not a Drobo (link). Mine is a older networked compter that lives under the stairs running Ubuntu that has a couple of drives in a RAID 1 mirrored configuration. I run a script from the command line to rsync the photos. This coppies only the new photos.

rsync –exclude=”.*” -ave ssh /Users/xxxx/Pictures/Aperture\ Masters/ xxxx@xx.xx.xx.xx:/media/pictures

I need to get that command into something automated, because I can go several days without doing a backup.

Ok, so now I have the pictures on a NAS, which means they are backed up, and, they are available on any machine I have via NFS and Samba. (Mac, Windows, Linux)

I also wanted to get some offsite storage. I thought about using an online backup site, but they are slow to get images up there, and I have less control. What was cheaper, was to buy two identical external hard drives, and use a system of rsync and physically rotating the drives to my work location. When I do the rotation, once a week when I remember, I do the rsync, then bring the drive from home to work, then bring the work one home.

This is the command I use with the drive, mounted at /mnt/freeAgent, plugged into my NAS:

rsync –exclude=”.*” –modify-window=2 -avh /mnt/pictures /mnt/freeAgent

At one time I could have my pictures on my Mac, my Time Machine backup, my raided NAS, and my two backup drives. 6 drives. A little redundant, if I follow my procedure.