What Is RAID? (A Quick Lesson) -

RAID is basically a set of two or more hard disk drives that are essentially “synced” together. By syncing the drives in what is called a “RAID Array” the drives then will copy your data to multiple drives. For more on RAID check out this lengthy wikipedia post.

Why Is RAID NOT A Backup Solution?

Many people, not just photographers think that RAID is an instant backup. It’s understandable given that RAID will essentially copy the same file to a second, third, fourth, fifth, twentieth hard drive without you having to do anything. On top of that it speeds up your computer because instead of opening the file from one of those hard drives it will use all of them. By doing this you open gigabytes of files in seconds and “feel” like you have backups of all of them.

RAID has a fatal flaw though if any one of those drives has a problem, writes the file incorrectly, a virus infects them or the hard drive itself stops working the entire RAID system is gone. Aside from all of these flaws we have one last flaw that is present in every computer, cell phone, car, and other consumer electronic on the planet, human error. All of these are reasons why RAID is not a backup solution and why if you are using RAID currently for backup you may want to reconsider.

If It’s Not For Backup What Is RAID For?

RAID is awesome for a few things, the main thing that we in the photography community enjoy it most for is speed! Remember just a minute ago when we said RAID will increase your speed by reading the same file on each of the hard drives? Ok, stick with us because this is what photographers need to use RAID for and why you’ll enjoy it. Lets pretend you have a NAS (Network Attached Storage Device) and it has 4 hard drive inside of it that total 4 Terabytes of drives. Each drive has a maximum speed that it can read and write, we’ll say it’s 100mbps (graphic left).

Because each drive can only read and or write at 100 megabytes per second opening a large file will take a long time. The hard drive has to spin the discs inside of it, the head reader has to scan the disks and find your files and then it all has to be sent to your processor so it can be run and displayed on your screen.

This is where RAID comes in,  it basically adds some rocket fuel to your computer. So lets pretend we just added RAID to this same setup, and because we’re going to keep this simple and not discuss all the different types of raid and use a simple example. like the one to the right.

We’ve enabled the RAID setup on the computer and now our 4 drives disappear and the computer sees all 4 drives as 1 hard drive. It’s also using half of our drives to “mirror” the data, so what this means is instead of having 4 Terabytes of storage we have 2 terabytes of storage and 2 terabytes of mirrors.

So you lose half of your storage but you gain speed, so now one file is copied over to multiple drives and now when you open a file it opens much faster than it would have before because it’s going to open the file using all the drives. This would give us a theoretical speed of 400 megabytes per second when opening a file instead of 100 megabytes per second giving use a 400% speed increase. The other neat thing about RAID is that if you’re using the right types you gain more speed with each additional set of drives you add to the array.

So If We Don’t Use RAID For Backup What do We Use For Backup?

Well, if you think of things like NAS, Drobo’s, and such as external hard drives (just with more risk) than you can work from there to create a backup solution that works for you. Though what we would recommend is that you keep your RAID devices as your “working” drives and use separate drives, online storage, DVD’s and servers for your backups. This will keep your data safe but still with a high speed access while you’re working on it. We’ll be covering more about data backup solutions in the coming days and weeks so stay tuned.

Still confused or have questions? Leave a comment below.

If you’re looking for easy onsite backup for the studio or the ability to know how to remotely access your NAS or possibly don’t even know what a NAS is or why you need to access it with a remote than there’s a few solutions for all those troubles announced and even released today at CES!

First up is an NAS (Network Attached Storage) Drive from Dane-Elec. Sporting an easy to use “USB Key” that allows you to connect to your drive even when you’re on the go such as Imaging or WPPI. What makes this drive special is that it’s perfect if you don’t know what a MAC address hex key is or how to properly configure the drive or your network for remote access. Early word is that this usual promise of simplicity really comes with a lot of headaches but that My Ditto actually does what it says and is perfect for you non-network types that don’t want to take have to take a Cisco class before you remotely connect to your hard drive in your hotel. More impressive features include dual bay drives with support for RAID 0 or 1, dual USB ports in case the internal storage isn’t quite enough to satisfy you, compatibility with iTunes and DNLA. My Ditto will run you a premium price of $249 for the 1tb flavor and comes out in March, hopefully some benchmarks to follow in the near future. http://www.my-ditto.com/

Don’t need remote access but want a simple way to backup and access your files while in the studio or at your computer? Rebit has both announced and released the “SaveMe” backup system. Both in software only and a software/hardware combination. At the heart of the system is  what Rebit’s calls their “exclusive SmartSave™ Personalization Technology” which adjust how the space is used on a hard drive dynamically based on the size of your backup and the amount of “historical data” but always keeps enough space on the drive to ensure a complete backup.

Rebit says the software works out of the box with no complicated setups and that a drive can be used for both backup and personal storage so you can save files directly to the drive (so long as the SmartSave™ isn’t using it all to backup your system we would guess). The SmartSave™ Technology seems to be one that I will agree with Rebit that many other backup solutions have not completely considered, and allows for the drive to be more useful as well as more balanced saving you from having to do many of the little things other systems require.

Single system software for Rebit will run you $49.95 and multiple computers will cost you $79.95 for the software. Bundle the software with a portable or desktop external drive for between $149.95 (160GB) up to $319.95 (1TB multiple systems).  More details and where to buy at their site http://www.rebit.com .

Now having not used either of these products (yet) we would say that if you took the Rebit software and the My Ditto drive you would have a great little backup solution with on the go access to your files. That said these look like two great products we can’t wait to get our hands on!

More from CES to come!