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I second that. Compact NASes are a good solution, they have a small footprint, simple management interfaces and can easily go >10TB with current hard disk sizes. We use QNAPs and run them in RAID5 mode. It is important to appreciate that RAID is made to protect against sudden disk failure and should really be regarded only as a mechanism to ensure long 'uptime'. It does *not* protect against somebody hacking into your machine and wiping everything or a water spill, for example. You would want a second off-site backup for that, either another NAS (these can be set up to mirror) or similar. We use a campus wide tape backup system provided by university IT with nightly backups.

Christian 

-- 
Christian Soeller PhD - Dept. of Physiology - Univ. of Auckland
Sent with Sparrow (http://www.sparrowmailapp.com/?sig)


On Friday, 8 June 2012 at 7:15 AM, Craig Brideau wrote:

> *****
> To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
> http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
> *****
> 
> Blu Ray missed the boat. For the price of a a Blu Ray system and all the
> disks you need for your backup, you could buy several 1 TB hard drives.
> Everyone is pretty much moving to hard disks, even for longer term storage
> these days. Oddly enough, Tape Drives are still in use for long term
> storage, since their price per GB is still competitive. They are still
> very slow, whereas hard disks give you pretty much immediate access. We
> have a RAID5 system and a Drobo system for our own lab.
> 
> Craig
> 
> 
> On Thu, Jun 7, 2012 at 10:35 AM, Johan Henriksson <[log in to unmask] (mailto:[log in to unmask])> wrote:
> 
> > *****
> > To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
> > http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
> > *****
> > 
> > On Thu, Jun 7, 2012 at 6:24 PM, Watkins, Simon C <[log in to unmask] (mailto:[log in to unmask])>
> > wrote:
> > 
> > > *****
> > > To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
> > > http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
> > > *****
> > > 
> > > All: as we all create larger and larger data sets, has anyone moved to
> > the
> > > 50 gig Blu ray disks for data archive? If so whats the best software and
> > > burner currently? Prices seemed to have dropped a bunch and I am
> > > 
> > 
> > thinking
> > > of moving to this format to save time and space for time lapse data sets.
> > > Looking forward to this debate
> > > Simon
> > > 
> > 
> > 
> > no, we moved toward a RAID6 system, Dell r510, so plenty of disks can be
> > fitted and upgraded over time. archiving is one thing, but disks degrade
> > over time. this way we know if things degrade, can do something about, and
> > we have fast access to all the data. I wouldn't be surprised if the cost is
> > about the same. (we bought the disks 3rd party to get them cheap)
> > 
> > if you are running into space limitations, make sure you are using
> > compression first. this gives you about 10x more space right away
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > /Johan
> > 
> > --
> > -----------------------------------------------------------
> > Johan Henriksson, PhD
> > Karolinska Institutet
> > http://mahogny.areta.org http://www.endrov.net
> > 
> 
> 
>