Camera Labs

Ah, I was wondering. It's absolutely true that I was considering it but I updated the parts list in a subsequent post in the thread. Sorry for any confusion - the limitations of a linear thread structure.

Off-topic for this particular thread but I think we both agree that SSDs are still a work in progress and that one needs to be aware of their limitations as well as their strengths. And thanks for your insight regarding the unlikelihood that future Adaptec firmware can emulate the W7 TRIM functionality or offer it indirectly. Oh well, I can live with it and if SSD performance gets badly degraded then I'll have to have a rethink. The read performance, as shown by my earlier post seemed not to have changed markedly after about 9 months of non-TRIM usage under Vista, though direct comparison is problematic.

Bob.

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

Well, Samsung has their own garbage collection routine as well, you can read a bit more about it here http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdo ... =3631&p=14 but it only works when the SSD is idle.
It's not as good as Trim, but it helps which is the important thing.

Supposedly the 2.6.33 Linux kernel also supports Trim which was news to me. We should hopefully see wider support as Trim is likely to become part of the SATA specification.

Also, this is someone running a Samsung drive of the Intel ICH


There might still be some good news with regards to Trim support from Adaptec, at least since you're just running a single drive


http://techreport.com/forums/viewtopic. ... 3&p=991552

Also did you upgrade the firmware on the Adaptec card as that might also help improve/fix things.

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Canon 500D, 18-55mm IS, 55-200mm IS, Nissin Di622

Hi thelostswede,

Well, that CrystalDiskMark result would seem to show that the Adaptec 5805 is adding a little secret sauce of its own and souping up my Samsung SSD - ugh, too many culinary references there!

I did check the firmware of my 5805 shortly after I got it up and running and it's currently two revisions out of date. But I did have a careful read of the fixes that the two most recent revisions applied and decided that nothing was relevant to my own system. The moment I see something necessary then I'll back up the machine and apply the new firmware. That should be a relatively straightforward process as Adaptec Storage Manager can mediate the process and I note that the controller has room for two BIOSes so if an update goes wrong the older BIOS is there waiting to be activated again.

Well, it would be nice if Adaptec does implement TRIM and it should apply to my own setup as my SSD is just a simple volume, not part of any RAID array. I'll keep everything crossed.

Again, many thanks for your input.

Bob.

_________________
OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

Very interesting thread guys - and that's good news Adaptec looks like it's going to implement some specific SSD support in its controllers. I don't think Promise has an update for my own ageing Supertrak 8350 RAID controller, although you have got me thinking I should also hang my boot drive from it rather than the motherboard controller...

Well, Intel is working on TRIM support in RAID mode for its onboard controllers http://www.pcper.com/comments.php?nid=8538 so it's possible we'll see other manufacturers doing the same in the future.
However, for the time being it appears to be limited to RAID 0, 1 and 0+1, but reading that post it appears like RAID 5 will also be supported when they fix the bug in the drivers that prevents TRIM from working at the moment.

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Canon 500D, 18-55mm IS, 55-200mm IS, Nissin Di622

Looks like Adaptec has a brand new controller out, specifically made for SSD's http://www.slashgear.com/adaptec-unveil ... g-1285329/

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Canon 500D, 18-55mm IS, 55-200mm IS, Nissin Di622

I'm curious if anyone has ever tried the G-Safe 2TB RAID 1 setup and what their thoughts are on it? I want to get a RAID system for backup and I'm leaning towards this one... unless there is a better option out there. I must say I'm very ignorant regarding RAID and have just done some preliminary reading on it and with that figured RAID 1 is all I need when looking for backup photo storage support.

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Canon 7D + 50D + EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM + EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM + EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM
Pelican // Black Rapid // Think Tank // Manfrotto // Garmin

Reflections On Canadian Wildlife
My Flickr

Hi Wolfsong,

I certainly wouldn't claim it's better as I have no experience with G-Technology but my QNAP TS-639 Pro has been rock solid. The QNAP website offers a good range of products and you might even find a four bay solution within budget for future expandability. For example, I currently only have four of the six available bays filled so I can expand capacity either by adding two more drives to my (RAID 5) array or actually replace existing drives one at a time with larger units and let the device rebuild the array. It would take time to do as the rebuild must be completed before the next hard disk is upgraded. Whichever way you go I'll heartily endorse your decision to opt for a device with user replaceable hard disks.

Bob.

_________________
OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

I'd consider a Drobo if you're not that techy http://www.drobo.com/
The thing is, NAS boxes and RAID enclosures can be a pita once you want to upgrade your storage. A Drobo is much less of a hassle. It also allows you to add drives as you wish, although you need at least two drives to safeguard your data.

The thing you're looking at is most likely going to be just fine as long as you don't ever intend to upgrade the drives. It should be a simple plug and forget solution in as much as the RAID is controlled by the box itself and it'll just appear as a removable 1TB drive on your system (as the second 1TB drive would be the mirrored disk).

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Canon 500D, 18-55mm IS, 55-200mm IS, Nissin Di622

thanks guys.. more to think about I liked the idea of completely mirroring the drive using RAID 1. It just sounds safer than the other method but I wish the unit had more than 2TB capacity.. Is RAID 5 or the drobo way (which I think is the same as RAID 5?) as safe as RAID 1 when it comes to protecting data from drive failier?

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Canon 7D + 50D + EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM + EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM + EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM
Pelican // Black Rapid // Think Tank // Manfrotto // Garmin

Reflections On Canadian Wildlife
My Flickr

Hi Wolfsong,

There's a pretty detailed description of the various RAID options at Wikipedia which you can read here.

Again, I'll only speak to the QNAP solutions and with those you can configure pretty much any RAID type you want. My choice of RAID 5 and 4 physical hard drives (RAID 5 needs at least 3 drives) gives me good efficiency while retaining redundancy (I can tolerate failure of one disk without losing any data). RAID 5 can sometimes suffer from slow write speeds but the QNAP units were, at the time I purchased last year, amongst the best in that regard. Having a NAS with four or more drive bays offers a lot of flexibility if the budget will stretch. For example you could configure three drives as a RAID 5 array and install a fourth drive as a hot spare ready for the NAS to use immediately should one of the three RAID 5 drives fail. That would be an option if you might not have quick physical access to the NAS. Or you could just have all four drives up and running to give you a larger RAID 5 virtual disk.

Another option I find useful as my own NAS is actually in an outbuilding (not that it needs to be because of noise) is its ability to send me an email if it detects an error situation. Fortunately the only emails it has sent me so far have been test emails I've asked it to generate.

These are capabilities you may not need right now but they might be worth considering for future-proofing. My expectation is that my NAS will last me for many years as the only components likely to fail are the hard drives themselves and they are easily user replaceable. In fact I'll be disappointed if my NAS isn't still my primary backup device well beyond 2015.

But even if you decide a two bay unit is all you can reasonably afford right now it is still a really worthwhile investment, IMHO. Having backup storage online 24/7 allows you to schedule daily backups without hassle and it's the hassle of using removable HDDs which is the most likely reason for failing to perform daily backups. But those also have their place as they can be stored in a physically separate location or, possibly, in a fire safe.

Bob.

_________________
OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

thanks for all the help bob... money isnt an issue for me... that being said I dont like throwing it away either . Ideally I would love to have 4 - 6TB of drive space after taking into account the disk space that needs to be put aside for safe backup just in case 1 or 2 drives fail. I'm lazy on the best of days so I dont want to be having to upgrade this item for years. Replacing a HDD is of course expected but whatever I buy I dont want to have to fiddle with it for 5 years or so if I can help it.

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Canon 7D + 50D + EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM + EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM + EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM
Pelican // Black Rapid // Think Tank // Manfrotto // Garmin

Reflections On Canadian Wildlife
My Flickr

starting to lean towards your setup bob... the 459 with 4 Seagate ST32000641AS HHD each being 2TB for a total of 8TB. Running this in a RAID 6 configuration to allow 2 HDD to die without loosing data do you have any idea how much storage space I would have taking into account space lost for backup?

is it basically plug and play as far as computer hookup? Its gonna be hooked up to laptops so it needs to be a stand alone unit I think.

also.. how loud are these guys bob? do they run pretty quiet or do they need to be in another room?

_________________
Canon 7D + 50D + EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM + EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM + EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM
Pelican // Black Rapid // Think Tank // Manfrotto // Garmin

Reflections On Canadian Wildlife
My Flickr

Hi Wolfsong,

The Wiki site gives the space efficiencies. For RAID 6 it quotes 1-2/n which, for a four drive array, equals 0.5 (or 50%). Not surprising as the ability to lose two drives with no loss of data means that all the data must be storable on the two remaining drives. My very personal take on this is that RAID 6 is too much of a good thing and that RAID 5 is good enough for a home NAS box. It's pretty unlikely that you'll lose a second hard drive before you have a chance to replace a failed drive and let the NAS rebuild the array and it still doesn't make sense for any NAS to be the only backup solution deployed, particularly for critical data.

To give my own NAS setup as an example, it supplies online backup for my main PC, it also provides "always available" storage for my Media Center files (a lot of data) and provides a convenient way to transfer files between PCs when the target PC isn't switched on. But, and it's a big "but" IMHO, I also make Windows backups to an external HDD, albeit far less frequently than my daily ones to the NAS courtesy of SFFS, and I store the external HDD in a fire safe. All of my media files are also backed up onto a couple of external HDDs, not because I couldn't recreate them if disaster struck but simply because it would take months of work to do so.

This may seem to be a bit over the top but with the cost per gigabyte of external drives being so reasonable these days it's a relatively low premium to pay for a significant extra layer of data security while still retaining the convenience of a 24/7 NAS solution which, by the very nature of it always being switched on, does run a tiny risk of losing all the data stored on it due, for instance, to a major voltage spike (e.g. lightning) frying all the electronics including possibly the individual hard drives.

As for noise, I could live with my QNAP TS-639 Pro (now replaced I believe by the TS-659 Pro) in the office. That's not something I could have said for any of the LaCie units I previously employed but as I had already made the investment of adding a suitably run of "gigabit" Ethernet cabling it made good sense to keep my NAS in an outbuilding.

Bob.

_________________
OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

thanks for all your help bob

_________________
Canon 7D + 50D + EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM + EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM + EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM
Pelican // Black Rapid // Think Tank // Manfrotto // Garmin

Reflections On Canadian Wildlife
My Flickr