Video Workstation Backup/Archive

[Less Entropy]

Hello:

My son is studying RTF (Radio, Television, & Film)
at a nearby University. I rely on newsgroup counsel
as I try to help him research his ever expanding
software and equipment needs.


Current Requirement
===================
My son is past due for a stronger approach (as in at
least some approach) to archive and backup. As a
result, I read several posts on this newsgroup with
great interest.

[ We could use a much better backup approach on our
household PCs as well. ]


Removable Drives
================
I think some kind of removable hard drive approach makes
the most sense for my son right now. My son seems
to agree.

Here are the hard drives he has on his system. I
provide a summary of his entire system, from his
computer order of a couple of years ago, at the end
of this message.

80GB Western Digital Drive (system disk)
dual 180 RAID drives = 360 GB (video disk)

Thus, 80GB + 360GB = 440GB


I had thought that my son might get a single "stationary
docking station" for one of his remaining 5.25" drive bays.
He would then get "removable drive trays" for however
many removable drives he ultimately acquires.

[ I have these phrases in quotes--because I have no
experience with removable hard drive hardware. These
are the terms I saw used on a WEB site. ]


Backup/Archive Strategy
=======================
An initial scheme occurred to me.

* An 80 GB removable drive to backup his system drive.
* A 400 GB removable drive to backup his video.


With a complete backup of his system drive, if his regular
system hard drive dies, he *should* be able to boot from
the removable. Is that true?

My son was thinking of just getting a couple of 200 GB removable
drives. His 80 GB System drive is currently only half full. He
is more worried about his video drive than his system drive.

I guess he could partition one of the 200 GB drives into an 80 GB
and a 120 GB partition. He could then save the system drive on the
80 GB partition and still boot off of that partition if the system
drive goes bad. (?)

I would appreciate any other suggestions about a backup/archive
strategy.


Hard Drive Specs Required
=========================
His current system drive was called out on his computer order as
follows.

80GB Western Digital UltraATA 7200RPM 8MB Cache


Would a drive with specs like the following work on his system?
I'm assuming that it would need to daisy off of the same disk
interface cable that hooks up to his system drive. (?)

Western Digital 250GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive, MODEL WD2500BB
Capacity: 250GB
Average Seek Time: 8.9 ms
Buffer: 2MB <-------------------------- Wouldn't 8MB be better?
Rotational Speed: 7200 RPM
Interface: IDE ULTRA ATA100
Features: Quiet Drive Technology

His system documentation isn't available to me here. I'm assuming
his system drive interface provides "IDE ULTRA ATA100". (?)


Hard Drive "Form Factor" Required
=================================
This probably should have been included with "Hard Drive Specs
Required" above. I have the following impressions/questions.

* The removable drive stationary docking station fits into
a 5.25" disk bay in the computer cabinet.

* The removable drive trays apparently accommodate "industry
standard" 3.5" hard drives. Do these all have the same
dimenions?

Are there cooling issues or other physical factors about which
one should be aware?


Storage Case for Removable Drives
=================================
I have read that great care has to be taken with the drives
when they are removed. I noticed on a few sites that one can
buy fancy cases with special foam protection inside to protect
these removable drives when they are not mounted.

This seems desirable. Still, my experience with any kind of
decent case is that it can easily cost more than what's inside.
My son may build up a few of these removable drives over time.
Is there a good way to "take care" of them when they're not
in the system?

I don't think my son will be taking these drives "off site".
Temperature and humidity will probably be OK. I guess the fear
is that one of his college roommates might walk by and knock one
of these things off a shelf. (?)


"Hot" Insertion/Removal
=======================
Here is a quote from "Richard" in a message on a different
list.

Do I infer from this that these drives can only be swapped
at boot time? This is "livable", but I'm a bit surprised.
Isn't Windows XP smarter than that?

[ I don't use XP myself. I clunk along on an old computer
that barely has enough horsepower to run Win98 SE. ]

One of my theories about backups is that they need to be
easy and quick--so that they happen often. It would be
great to avoid rebooting, if possible. (?)


Backup Software
===============
Is there something easy, built into Windows XP, software that
will let one make a copy of the system drive, for example?
I've seen the term "disk image". I don't know if I need that.
The copy I want for the system drive needs to be complete
enough that I can boot off of the removable copy if the fixed
system drive dies.

As far as backup of the video data, I guess one can just
use Windows Explorer. Richard, what kind of software do
you use? My son will probably just be copying over project
directories to a removable drive as required.


Backup Software--Rabbit Trail
=============================
Sometime back, I was considering an external hard drive for
backing up my daughter's laptop. (Her system is still not
being properly backed up at the moment.) I ran across a
review of "Acronis True Image 8.0", which had high praise for
this product. [ http://www.ugr.com/nl0804.html ]

Has anyone used this product?

I think something like Acronis True Image might be more relevant
to my daughter's situation. The software will create a complete
copy of the laptop's hard drive on the external hard drive. After
that initial full copy, one can periodically do incremental backups
of the hard drive to the same external drive. You can also burn
a bootable CD. (My daughter's laptop has a CD burner.)

If the system drive goes bad, one can supposedly boot from the
CD and completely restore the hard drive to any point in the
incremental backup chain. This all sounds pretty interesting
for her situation--but doesn't seem as relevant to my son's. (?)


Brands to Purchase
==================
Are the Kingwin Mobile Rack "stationary docking station" and "removable
drive trays" that Richard uses the best way to go? Are there other
suggestions/recommendations?

I tend to favor Western Digital or Seagate drives. I don't really
know why. I've heard heartburn about Maxtor drives--but never
experienced any. I would appreciate any thoughts on which hard drive
manufacturer to chose.

Also, if there *is* any software to buy, I would appreciate
recommendations on which package is most appropriate.


Where to Purchase
=================
I would appreciate any recommendations that you have on where
to buy these things. I've seen some good comments about NewEgg.com
since I've been back scanning DV_L messages. Is that a good place
for everything, or should I go elsewhere for the docking station
and removable tray hardware, for example.


Apology
=======
If you've made it this far, I really appreciate it. I probably haven't
left you with any energy to respond.

Thank you.

-Less


===========================================================================
===========================================================================
Son's Alienware 2001DV SYSTEM
===========================================================================
Dragon Full-Tower Case (400-Watt PS)
Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 3.06GHz 533MHz FSB w/ 512KB Cache w/H-T
ASUS P4T533-C - Intel 850E Pentium 4 Motherboard
1.5GB RDRAM PC-1066
Promise FastTrak100 TX2 IDE RAID Controller - Select 2 Same Size IDE
Drives
80GB Western Digital UltraATA 7200RPM 8MB Cache
180GB Western Digital UltraATA 7200RPM 8MB Cache
180GB Western Digital UltraATA 7200RPM 8MB Cache
16/48x DVD-ROM - IDE - Black w/Software MPEG-2 Decoder
Pioneer DVR-A05 - IDE - DVD-RW - Black
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro 128MB AGP 8x AGP Dual Monitor
KoolMaxx Video Cooling System (Standard Chrome)
Matrox RT.X100 Digital Video Editing System
Sound Blaster® Audigy 2 - 6.1
Intel® PRO/1000 MT Gigabit Desktop Adapter
NEC 19" FE991SB MultiSync Flat CRT - Space Black
Klipsch ProMedia 5.1 500-Watt THX Speakers
Microsoft Internet Keyboard
Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0 - USB
Powerware 5115 750VA 500-Watt UPS
Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional
===========================================================================

 

[Less Entropy]

Hello:

After a fairly exhaustive WEB search last night,
I am especially interested in this topic. I have
gotten the comment that "hot swappable" IDE removable
drives *are* possible.

People who have said this also say that they think
it is more expensive. I did find these two
advertisements.

http://www.xpcgear.com/kf23ipf.html
http://store.pcpowerzone.com/stididehadrh.html


When I actually go to the vendor's WEB sites, there
is NO mention of "hot swappable".

In the case of a removable drive, mounted in one's
PC case, and tied into the PC's IDE (UltraATA in
my son's PC), is a "hot swap" solution possible--one
that avoids powering down the PC and then booting
up again?

Thanks.

--Less

 

[dg]

In the case of a removable drive, mounted in one's
PC case, and tied into the PC's IDE (UltraATA in
my son's PC), is a "hot swap" solution possible--one
that avoids powering down the PC and then booting
up again?

Thanks.

--Less

While it isn't a real spec, it IS possible. I have used software called
"swapmanager" to hotswap regular IDE drives in removable trays. It lets you
stop a drive, replace it, then refresh and find the replacement drive.

It works fine for me, however I wouldn't recommend it. I like to turn the
PC off before swapping IDE drives.

--Dan

 

[J. Clarke]

Hello:


After a fairly exhaustive WEB search last night,
I am especially interested in this topic. I have
gotten the comment that "hot swappable" IDE removable
drives *are* possible.

People who have said this also say that they think
it is more expensive. I did find these two
advertisements.

http://www.xpcgear.com/kf23ipf.html
http://store.pcpowerzone.com/stididehadrh.html


When I actually go to the vendor's WEB sites, there
is NO mention of "hot swappable".

In the case of a removable drive, mounted in one's
PC case, and tied into the PC's IDE (UltraATA in
my son's PC), is a "hot swap" solution possible--one
that avoids powering down the PC and then booting
up again?

First, I'm going to ask you a question. You said he's studying RTF. Does
he have any intention of becoming a professional filmmaker? If so, then
bite the bullet and get him an LTO or an SDLT. The drive will be hugely
expensive but for the kind of volume that someone who does that kind of
work for a living is going to generate it's going to be pretty much
essential. If you investigate you'll find that most of the the major
studios use one or the other.

Now, getting back to IDE hot swap, the quick and dirty way to do it safely
is to put a PCI to cardbus adapter in the machine (about 65 bucks) and put
an SATA cardbus adapter in that (about 35 bucks) and dismount the adapter
(which is fully supported by most major operating systems) before you pull
the drive. You can run SATA cables to your hot-swap cages from the
adapter. The SATA hardware is supposed to support hot-swap natively but
for some reason there's no support for it in most of the drivers that are
out there, hence the need for a workaround.

You could also use an SATA RAID controller, but how it handles hot-swap on a
device that is not part of a RAID I'm not sure.

 

[Less Entropy]

Hello:

I have kind of "dropped off-line" for a bit--and not
responded to many of the excellent comments offered
previously on this thread. I have continued some
"research"--and have a new "theory" about how my
son should proceed. There are several choices
about which I would appreciate counsel.


"Hot Swap" IDE Removable Drive
==============================
Many of you felt that I was overly "hung up" on
hot swap capability. Perhaps, but you didn't talk
me out of it.

I have continued to look at StarTech removable drive
mounting products. I have also talked to their very
helpful tech support people a couple of times.

http://www.startech.com/


With some of their removable drive products they
include "SwapManger" software. This "SwapManger"
software, that allows the "hot swap" feature, is
actually produced by a different company: SoftHelp.

http://www.softhelp.cc/


On this site there is also another product called "TwinDisk". It
provides a complete drive copy from one drive to another. The "to"
drive can be larger than the "from" drive. If the "from" drive is a
system drive, the "to" drive will be bootable after the copy.

It turns out that with the "Swap Manager", just about any removable
mounting hardware can do the "hot swap". The StarTech DRW115ATA
unit includes this software. One could get a different removable
drive product and buy the software separately and do the hot swap.

One of the features of the StarTech products is that key IDE lines
stay grounded even when the drive is removed. Apparently some units
don't do this--and problems can result.

SoftHelp's WEB site has a lot of information about this whole topic.
There is a key wiring requirement for the "hot swap" to work. Most
IDE controllers provide a Primary IDE bus and a Secondary IDE bus.
The system drive is usually (always?) on the Primary IDE bus.

For "hot swap" to work, the removable drive cannot be on the same
IDE bus as the system drive. The SwapManager will basically
"shut down" all of the devices on a bus during the swap. After
the swap everything on that bus will be in a "working normally"
state again.


My Son's Configuration
======================
After doing all this "research", we opened my son's PC
and realized that all of his existing IDE primary/slave
"slots" are already "taken".

He does have an available PCI slot. I thought about
buying a PCI IDE controller. This would put the "hot
swap" drive on it's own IDE bus.

Since I'm having to buy some kind of PCI card anyway, I
started considering going with Serial ATA (SATA) rather
than IDE. My understanding is that it is a bit faster.
One can also run SATA to an external drive. I've also
read that the SATA standard is more oriented toward "hot
swap". (?)

StarTech has a PCI SATA controller (PCISATA2EXT) that
provides one internal and one external SATA port. This
would cover the internal removable drive now and allow
connection to an external device later.

While talking to one of StarTech's technical support
people, he said that some people are having Windows XP
setup problems when trying to use SATA. I did some
searching on newsgroups. It seems that most of the
problems are with SATA RAID. (?) Are we likely to
have difficulty with our simpler configuration?


Speeds
======
I noticed that my son's PC has two Firewire 400 connections. One is on
his DV card--which he uses for DV "captures" from his DV camera. The
other is on his sound card (Creative SB Audigy). He's not using the
sound card firewire right now.

It occurred to me that I could forgo the PCI card and just get an
external disk enclosure for this firewire connection. My impression
is that this will be much slower. After lots of searching and reading
I am still quite fuzzy on the effective transfer speeds of the
following:
USB2, Firewire 400, Firewire 800, and SATA (and even parallel ATA for
that mater).

I've read that USB2 is "theoretically" slightly faster than firewire
400. In actuality, however, USB2 is probably slower than USB2 (?).
I've also read that SATA is three times as fast as either USB2 or
firewire 400. (?)

Has anyone found (or could they respond here) with a table showing
the relative speeds of all of these choices?


PCI Gating
==========
I also read somewhere that a PCI SATA controller won't be faster than
a PCI IDE controller because PCI is a gating factor. I haven't found
specific performance information for PCI. Does PCI provide such a
gating effect?


IDE Order List
==============

StarTech 2IDE133 PCI IDE controller card
WD 80 GB IDE drive (to back up son's system drive)
WD 320 GB IDE drive (to back up son's video)
StarTech DRW115ATA removable drive mounting hardware
StarTech DRW115CAD extra drive caddy for DRW115ATA Drawer

StarTech IDE100TPO18 18 In. flat Ultra ATA 33/66/100/133 TPO
Internal IDE Cable

OR

StarTech IDE100RND18 18 inch Round ATA 100/133 IDE cable


Is the round cable better? The WEB page says it improves
air flow in the PC cabinet. Are there other issues?


SATA Order List
===============

StarTech PCISATA2EXT PCI SATA controller card
WD 80 GB SATA drive (to back up son's system drive)
WD 320 GB SATA drive (to back up son's video)
StarTech DRW115SAT removable drive mounting hardware
StarTech DRW115CADS extra drive caddy for DRW115SAT Drawer
Serial ATA Internal Drive Connection Cable, 18 inch (SATA18)


Other Items
===========
Both the IDE and SATA StarTech enclosures include the SwapManager
software.

I will probably also buy "TwinDisk" software from SoftHelp. Is there
better software to buy for making a copy of the system drive?


Supplier
========
I am thinking about ordering whatever I order from "PC Connection".

http://www.pcconnection.com/Home


This is one of StarTech's resellers. Does anyone have relevant
experience to share about this supplier?


Advice
======
I would appreciate counsel on anything. Is IDE or SATA preferable?
Are there other manufactures I should be considering for IDE or SATA
PCI controllers? Are their better suppliers? Is there better
backup software? Is there a better choice than Western Digital for
the hard drives?


Thank you.

--Less

 

[Less Entropy]

Dan:

Sorry it's taken me so long to respond to your message.

Why, specifically, do you like to turn off the PC
before swapping? What problem are you avoiding?

Thanks.

--Less

 

[Less Entropy]

John:

Sorry it's taken me so long to respond to your message.

I didn't even know what these were--but I did some searches
and learned. They are quite expensive. Perhaps by the time
he really needs these, they will be less expensive--and the
entire outlay will come out of *his* pocket.

I didn't really understand this. Why would I pursue
a cardbus adapter on a desktop machine? I am considering
a PCI SATA controller (non-RAID). I don't know if it
specifically supports "hot swap"--but I will ask the
manufacturer.

Thanks.

--Less