WD Red for RAID 1 Backup?

[JHZR2]

I have a Guardian Maximus Raid 1, USB 2.0/Firewie 800 HDD system. It currently has 500GB drives, and they are just too small. This will be more the case now, as I got a new digital camera, and the files can be up to 70MB.

So I want to upgrade the drives and/or come up with a new backup scheme.

Say I just want to re-drive the unit with bigger, like 3-4 TB drives. In the WD range, it appears that the Red drives are best for RAID and NAS. But not sure if that is everyones' recommendation.

Also, I like to use a small HDD just to travel light and get files off my computer. I may upgrade my current one to perhaps a 2TB WD My passport. What Im curious of is if there is a recommendation for some SW to easily just backup the one drive to the other.

Usually for surety, I just copy everything over. Honestly I dont have a good backup strategy right now... So any recommendations? I dont want to backup my computer, just all the updated/new files on one HDD to another in as fast/efficient a manner as possible. I dont have a USB 3.0 capable computer at this time, FWIW, but letting something like this run for a day, overnight or whatnot is not an issue...

Thanks!

 

[simple_gifts]

If you are talking your macs, rsync for backups is the way to go. It is able to replicate a filesystem to a new device and on subsequent replications to the destination replicates only what has changed. It does it REALLY fast.

Should be available for macs, because it is basically a univeral unix utility.

Plenty of people here can be cheerleaders for this and probably could write a small script for you to run.

 

[VicVinegar]

The Reds are supposed to be designed for NAS setups, and everywhere I looked when researching my own DIY NAS setup said to buy Red drives.

I haven't used them myself, since i haven't got around to building my setup yet, but they are on my parts list.

 

[JHZR2]

Originally Posted By: VicVinegar
The Reds are supposed to be designed for NAS setups, and everywhere I looked when researching my own DIY NAS setup said to buy Red drives.

I haven't used them myself, since i haven't got around to building my setup yet, but they are on my parts list.


Im not doing an NAS drive, but looking at the description on Amazon, the WD description seems to mention NAS and RAID as having similar design challenges.

It seems that WD green, which does start-stop is a bad choice because it can effect backup and error correction under RAID.

I was going to go for the black drives, which is what I typically used in computers Ive built in the past, but it seems that these red ones are perhaps more optimized.

 

[JHZR2]

Originally Posted By: simple_gifts
If you are talking your macs, rsync for backups is the way to go. It is able to replicate a filesystem to a new device and on subsequent replications to the destination replicates only what has changed. It does it REALLY fast.

Should be available for macs, because it is basically a univeral unix utility.

Plenty of people here can be cheerleaders for this and probably could write a small script for you to run.


Pretty awesome... Super easy to do and can even preserve timestamps, which is something I was worried about... All info here:

http://www.maclife.com/article/howtos/using_rsync_keep_your_files_sync_0

Thanks!

Now I just need some big drives!

 

[dparm]

Agree that you need to use rsync/robocopy whenever possible.

 

[OVERKILL]

Yes, get the Red's. They are good drives. So are the Black's, but they are more money.

 

[Colt45ws]

The Blacks dont have "TLER" since they disabled the ability to use the WD program to turn it on. So, Im getting the REDs for my second array. It says they are for NAS, but there is no reason they cant be used in RAID on a regular computer.

 

[UNC038]

Originally Posted By: simple_gifts
If you are talking your macs, rsync for backups is the way to go. It is able to replicate a filesystem to a new device and on subsequent replications to the destination replicates only what has changed. It does it REALLY fast.

Should be available for macs, because it is basically a univeral unix utility.

Plenty of people here can be cheerleaders for this and probably could write a small script for you to run.


I use this method with my NAS. rsync windows, linux and others. For windows install the free ssh server with the rysnc option. I don't recall the name for windows put if you need to know PM me.