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I keep waiting for a product that solves the failing hard drive problem at the consumer level. For most people I know, the most likely cause of data loss is ha

I keep waiting for a product that solves the failing hard drive problem at the consumer level. For most people I know, the most likely cause of data loss is hardware failure. Are any manufacturers offering a package that contains multiple hard drives but behaves as one? If performance isn't a factor, is there something I don't understand that makes this impossible?

thorax 18y ago
Windows Home Server actually uses a duplication scheme that makes sure all your machine backups (and shared folders) are stored, in full, on more than one drive on the server. It behaves pretty much like one big drive and duplicates across all the drives as needed. It's pretty likely a consumer won't need more than this since that equates to three copies of your data at any given time (laptop, server disk B, and server disk C).
wmf 18y ago
Drobo? Time Capsule?
- JoelSutherland 18y ago
  Drobo is along the lines of what I am looking for. (I use a D-Link DNS 323) Instead though, I want it to have a SATA interface so the problem would be solved in hardware. Time Capsule fails if the disk fails (and backups aren't stored elsewhere).
  - wmf 18y ago
    I want it to have a SATA interface so the problem would be solved in hardware. I don't see much difference between SATA and Firewire; in both cases Drobo is hardware RAID. Time Capsule fails if the disk fails (and backups aren't stored elsewhere). But then you just make a new backup. To protect against disk failure, you can use backup or RAID. (RAIDed backup is a little expensive for personal use.) Backup also protects against file deletion or corruption.
briansmith 18y ago
* Most hard disks are actually multiple hard disk platters packaged together. Even with today's systems, the filesystem can multiplex data across the platters so that the platters mirror each other. Even on a single-platter drive, the file system could just mirror the data on the same platter. * People want increasingly-higher-capacity, smaller, cheaper, thinner, lighter, and cooler laptops. Adding a second magnetic hard drive into a laptop runs counter to all those goals, as does the kind of mirroring described above. The consumer market demands higher capacity over safety. * Solid state hard drives seem to be the future, at least for laptops. It might be practical to install dual SSDs into a laptop since they are smaller and lighter. It might even be practical to have a rotating set of three as a backup system. Eject hard disk #1, then insert hard disk #3. Hard disk #1 becomes the backup. Hard disk #3 gets synced with hard disk #2 until they mirror each other. Then, relabel the disks 1->2, 2->3, 3->1. * People are being encouraged to save (or at least back up) their data on the network if it is really important.
- JoelSutherland 18y ago
  "The consumer market demands higher capacity over safety." My contention is that this is beginning to change. Short of video (and at the risk of being wrong in 5 years) there is nothing to do with a 500GB drive. I think given the trade-off, consumers would choose safety.
  - briansmith 18y ago
    For the same price point, maybe. But, hard drives are one of the most expensive components of a laptop. Choosing between $500 and $600 is a big deal. Network backup like Mozy is competitively priced, especially when you consider the high chance of catastrophic loss that laptops have (stolen, lost, dropped, flooded). Plus, if you were going to trade 50% of capacity for safety, there are a lot of other kinds of safety precautions to consider. For example, file history versioning (like a local, always-on Mozy or Dropbox or Subversion) would probably protect the user from more data loss than RAID, because most data loss is due to human error, not mechanical failure. That said, I would really like my laptop to have RAID-1. Actually, I have two 100GB hard drives and an Ultrabay...maybe I will give it a shot on my Linux partition.

thorax 18y ago

Windows Home Server actually uses a duplication scheme that makes sure all your machine backups (and shared folders) are stored, in full, on more than one drive on the server. It behaves pretty much like one big drive and duplicates across all the drives as needed. It's pretty likely a consumer won't need more than this since that equates to three copies of your data at any given time (laptop, server disk B, and server disk C).

wmf 18y ago

Drobo? Time Capsule?

JoelSutherland 18y ago
Drobo is along the lines of what I am looking for. (I use a D-Link DNS 323) Instead though, I want it to have a SATA interface so the problem would be solved in hardware. Time Capsule fails if the disk fails (and backups aren't stored elsewhere).
- wmf 18y ago
  I want it to have a SATA interface so the problem would be solved in hardware. I don't see much difference between SATA and Firewire; in both cases Drobo is hardware RAID. Time Capsule fails if the disk fails (and backups aren't stored elsewhere). But then you just make a new backup. To protect against disk failure, you can use backup or RAID. (RAIDed backup is a little expensive for personal use.) Backup also protects against file deletion or corruption.

briansmith 18y ago

* Most hard disks are actually multiple hard disk platters packaged together. Even with today's systems, the filesystem can multiplex data across the platters so that the platters mirror each other. Even on a single-platter drive, the file system could just mirror the data on the same platter. * People want increasingly-higher-capacity, smaller, cheaper, thinner, lighter, and cooler laptops. Adding a second magnetic hard drive into a laptop runs counter to all those goals, as does the kind of mirroring described above. The consumer market demands higher capacity over safety. * Solid state hard drives seem to be the future, at least for laptops. It might be practical to install dual SSDs into a laptop since they are smaller and lighter. It might even be practical to have a rotating set of three as a backup system. Eject hard disk #1, then insert hard disk #3. Hard disk #1 becomes the backup. Hard disk #3 gets synced with hard disk #2 until they mirror each other. Then, relabel the disks 1->2, 2->3, 3->1. * People are being encouraged to save (or at least back up) their data on the network if it is really important.

JoelSutherland 18y ago
"The consumer market demands higher capacity over safety." My contention is that this is beginning to change. Short of video (and at the risk of being wrong in 5 years) there is nothing to do with a 500GB drive. I think given the trade-off, consumers would choose safety.
- briansmith 18y ago
  For the same price point, maybe. But, hard drives are one of the most expensive components of a laptop. Choosing between $500 and $600 is a big deal. Network backup like Mozy is competitively priced, especially when you consider the high chance of catastrophic loss that laptops have (stolen, lost, dropped, flooded). Plus, if you were going to trade 50% of capacity for safety, there are a lot of other kinds of safety precautions to consider. For example, file history versioning (like a local, always-on Mozy or Dropbox or Subversion) would probably protect the user from more data loss than RAID, because most data loss is due to human error, not mechanical failure. That said, I would really like my laptop to have RAID-1. Actually, I have two 100GB hard drives and an Ultrabay...maybe I will give it a shot on my Linux partition.