Karaoke Forums

Ok, so finally I am ready to move over to computer for both Karaoke and DJ. So I have been looking around for right options. Right now I am converting over my music for DJ first since I found a DJ program I like (VDJ rocks). I am using a laptop with 15" screen as my main but I will be moving to building my own rackmount computer in the near future. I also bought ECHO Indigo DJ audio card.

So, I have been shopping around for sturdy storage device for a while and haven't really found one that suited me. There are a few criterias I needed. First, I wanted a RAID protection, at least RAID 1. So, during rough transportation a drive fails, I can still run the show without worry. Second, I needed a rackmount case that fit in to my rack. Third, it has to be easy to connect to computer so if my main computer goes down, I can use my back up to connect quickly and start using it.

So that took out a lot of devices out of running. I didn't want SCSI or FC interface since it's almost impossible to find those for laptop (besides my laptop only has one PCMCIA slot used for the audio card). So, it had to be Firewire, USB or Ethernet. Most of the Firewire or USB devices don't come in rackmount or were just too expensive, specially with RAID onboard. So, my best choice  was some kind of NAS device.

Unfortunately, most NAS devices are meant for network racks, i.e. 20" or longer.

Today, I finally found the right solution and bought it. It's Infrant 1000S 1U rackmount NAS.

Picture is here:



It's 19" long, which leaves just enough room for right angled power cable and an Ethernet cable to be connected, and still fit in to my rack. I bought 2, Maxtor 300GB SATA drives for $99 each and going to run it in RAID 0 configuration under their X-RAID. What X-RAID allows you to do is add another drive, up to total of 4, and it just adds the capacity so you can grow with it.

It seems to be a perfect solution. I can connect directly to my computer using Gigabit Ethernet connection (my laptop doesn't have it but my rackmount definitely will) so the speed is not an issue. So, for under $1000 I have a full redundant 300GB system and if I add another 300GB drive, I will get fully protected 600GB storage.

What do you think? I will install it this weekend and post more impressions on it. If anyone is interested, I maybe able to get a group discount from them if enough people are buying together.

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Seize the day and SING!!!

lot of cash for a specific thing...

I have a $600 pc for everything. USB enclosure for a backup drive in case the one on the pc fails is $25.  Backup IDE drive is $150 for a 300gb drive.

It's not Raid. It's not a SATA... but they work just fine my brother!

Yep, you can go that route. It's an economical way to do back ups. However, I did it my way for several reasons. First, it's rack mounted in a sturdy case. I would hate the day I drop the USB case and ruin the drive. I rather have a proven rackmount system that can take the abuse of moving things around and it moves with my rack.

Second, what happens when that 300GB is full? Well, typically, you'd have to back it up to somewhere or get a second drive that is larger, like a 500GB drive, and move the data to that drive. Then you use the 300GB drive as a second drive. My configuration, I add one 300GB drive and it automatically creates a single volume that is 600GB without having to do any date movement. If I add the 4th drive, it automatically configures it to 1.2TB without doing anything.

Lastly, I can share the volume between multiple computers and transfer data between any of my computers.  I can use it to back up all my computers. I can store everything on the RAID system and not much on the primary drive on my laptop. I don't have to have 300GB of internal storage, which is impossible right now with laptops since largest size laptop drives I know is about 120GB. I can use it live and put all of the music on the NAS and not have to worry about it when a drive fails on the NAS. I don't have to have any music on my internal drive.

As I said, I am paying for convenience more than anything but I think it's worth it.

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Seize the day and SING!!!

1.) rack mount cases when full get VERY heavy. If it's not mounted yet, I'd hate to drop somethng that expensive. I hate to say it, but if I did drop a usb drive, I'm not out the whole investment! !

2.) the flexibility of if I had to hook up via usb offers a ton of ways to do it, and I've been doing it this way for a while now. I can also hook up to mulitple computers. In fact, for every computer, I HAVE a backup drive. I have a shelf of just these suckers.

And it's not breaking my bank.

The reason I'm going on this way, is very few folks here have the resources to just dump a grand into a system as complex as yours, nor would they want to. Also, the name of this thread is "Storage option for going computer" and I was a bit worried that someone would read your nifty raid unit as one of the only ways of doing this...

I DO admit that when it comes to increasing your storage drive size, RAID offers a flexibility that nobody can touch. As you said, you put in a larger drive as the secondary unit, and it automatically builds the 300 onto the other one. With USB or internal drives, it's a manual process, or one dedicated to software utilities... and it's clumsy at higher drives!

I have seen adaptors, however, that enable IDE drives to be recognized in a RAID system... ya got me thinkin' on that one!

Mtu use to use RAID on their computers and had to discontinue for some reason, maybe hardware conflicts or something. Flipper might know more about this one.

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The Line Array Experiment is over. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Yep, as I said in the title, it's an option. First of all, $1k was a high estimate. I got a special discount for the case for $500 plus $200 for the drives, plus tax. I don't know what they actually sell the case for so that's why I said a $1k as an estimate. I had to put the system together myself.

The case will be mounted in to the case like all my other equipment so I am not worried about dropping it.

There are USB/Firewire based RAID systems out there but they are not any cheaper. Getting RAID systems the offer RAID 0 or 1 only limits you to 2 drives, you need RAID 5 to expand beyond 2 drives. I don't think you will find RAID 5 system any cheaper. I looked around.

Again, it's a personal choice. I have 6 computers around the house, including 2 laptops. With a USB drive, I have to unplug from one and plug in to another just to use it. With this NAS, since I have all my drives on the network, I plug in to my network switch and all my computers can use it at once. And with expanding capacity, I can back up all my computers in to same NAS unit.

I apologize if I seem a bit too happy about this unit. I have been working in storage industry for about 20+ years. When I see something this good, I get a bit giddy. Only a few years ago, something like this was going for like $5k. I understand that not everyone is used to the price of higher end storage but I am telling you, this is a good deal for me. You will have to decide if it's right for you.

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Seize the day and SING!!!

Dropping a rack mout compared to a USB drive could do as much dammage on both.  Just casue it is rackmountable doen't mean it is stronger.  Most rack mout stuff is designed to be place in a NON-MOBILE environment, just mount it in the rack, and it never moves.

Personally I have 2 external USB drives, and 2 internal ones.  They all have identical info on em.  THe 2 USB drive go to shows with me.  One hard drive is mounted into a computer that I use as a file server.  ANd the other internal is stored at my parents house, in case of an "act of god" and my other 3 get destroyed.

The computer I have as a files sever is a stripped down 2ghz system with USB 2.0 which the 2 external USB drive get docked in when updating.

Just my 2 cents

Here's an Idea" DON'T DROP ANYTHING "  LMAO  Just

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ROBDOG *WOOF WOOF*

I'm glad butterfingers isn't moving my stuff.

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ROBDOG *WOOF WOOF*

Guy's question, since you mentioned "costly drives",  I haven't flown since I've had a notebook computer.  What happens if a hard-drive goes thru a strong electromagnetic field ? Does it wipe out everything ?

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

Kappy, the short answer is yes it can. The data is written on magnetic material via magnetic field. If you get a drive near electromatnetic field, it can wipe out everything. It's not the data you need to worry about per se, because you can re write them, but something called servo data. Servo data is a magnetic patterns written on the disks to keep the heads that read the data on track. Those are written by special machines very precisely and if they are messed around even a little bit, those heads can't find where to write the data and the drives will shut down.

Of course it all depends on the strength of the field. Some weak field can be protected by the case, as you will notice that outer case of all disk drives are metal. If the case is well grounded, it can provide some protection but I would keep them away from anything that could damage it.

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Seize the day and SING!!!

is there an enexpensive way of stacking or daisy chaining hard drives my laptop has only 4 usb inputs, I use a usb mouse usb light and 3 hard drives, I tried the little usb hud, did'nt care for that, is there, a box that I can plug all my usb devices into and one usb cable to the lasptop, I have all my stuff in a brief case, drives etc.

I am afraid the best way really to get there is using USB hub, which you tried. I would may be try for a powered hub, rather than a passive hub. Or another option is to try a USB switch, rather than a hub. Many of the storage devices don't like hubs since they have to "share the wire". Which means the bus on the hub is shared by all devices. Some storage devices don't like this since they need to maintain connection at all times. Also, they don't like cascading, i.e. hubs connected to hubs connected to hubs, etc.

Switch, on the other hand, gives all devices access to all other devices at once. Give that a try and see if it works.

Other than that, your 4 ports on your computer is using a hub internally. So, you may be able to connect the storage directly to your computer and attach your mouse and light to your powered hub. That may work.

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Seize the day and SING!!!

One more thing I found about my solution I like, security. If you get your USB storage device stolen, they can connect it to any computer and able to read the content. My NAS device has very secure encryption option that if someone steals it, you would need NSA level super computer to get at the content. I like that fact a lot, secure data.

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Seize the day and SING!!!

there are mutiple drive enclosures out there...

http://www.cooldrives.com/ulrafi800qub.html

that one is a firewire unit

http://www.cooldrives.com/worlds-smalle ... rives.html

I like this sucker because it has it's own mini USB hub built into it.

Unsure if you can use either of these two as single drives or they have to be a RAID setup.

Bottom line... for every drive I've ever hooked up externally, I never had any problems with them via a USB enclosure. Unsure what problem Pat had, but using a 4-port 2.0 hub, I've never had issues!