I have started my own journey into Backblaze storage

[The Computer Audiophile]

Awesome. Keep us updated on how it goes. 

 

I'm using iDrive and have been very happy so far. The interface is less than stellar, but the price for 20TB is right. 

 

https://www.idrive.com/pricing

[The Computer Audiophile]

Just now, AudioDoctor said:

 

You're not wrong, that's a great price!

I have a feeling the other shoe will drop and the price will shoot up, just like Amazon storage did years ago.

[The Computer Audiophile]

38 minutes ago, Rsmaximasr said:

I’ve been in the IT/storage (hdd, NAS, SAN, raid, solid state storage ssd/nvme) environment for over 4 decades, and have used every RAID configuration available on EMC/Netapp/LSI/other storage arrays. 
I have to ask why any personal/small business/even large businesses storage setup would require a NAS or SAN? I wrote a paper that’s still on websites describing why DAS is a much better way to go over a NAS or SAN.

You have many options for setting up storage for your environment and if you want that storage replicated offsite. Word of caution, anytime you go outside of your network, you have to worry about security; who actually has access to your data, and is your data being backed up. 
 

Many people think that just because you are using a RAID setup on a NAS/SAN or replicating data to a remote site your data is protected, you would be wrong. I worked at a large company that the DBA’s replicated the databases to 5 different servers and they told management they would never lose data. I told them that was false, because if any piece of data gets corrupted/deleted/inadvertently modified, that data is replicated to all your sites/replicated storage servers in seconds. This is why backups are so critical. Taking snapshots throughout the day is a good way of recovering your data to a later point in time than just using your last backup.

 

I use a DAS environment for my storage, using hdd and a mix of ssd/nvme m.2 storage. If you need more storage than the computer has available, consider getting a jbod unit from owc and use their soft raid to make it a RAID 1 configuration. Then get a good reliable backup process going that takes daily backups with hourly snapshots if possible. 
 

If you need to replicate your data offsite, setup an sftp/rsync process to do this syncing. I rotate my backup drives and store my last 2 in an offsite vault/safe in case of a robbery or fire

 

NAS is by far the easiest way to provide several music servers access to 14TB of music, schedule automatic backups to locally attached USB drives, schedule automatic encrypted offsite backups to iDrive, and keep the local disks in my basement (far from my listening room).

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, AudioDoctor said:

A Mac Studio Ultra M3 with ECC RAM and a Thunderbolt connected Thunderbay 8 on which I can use ZFS is my dream storage array but that's not possible. SoftRAID doesn't protect against bit rot or corrupted data.

Plus, if you want to give access to other apps, music servers, or even via SFTP, a desktop OS is far from ideal. A Linux appliance NAS is literally built to do all of this. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

5 minutes ago, Rsmaximasr said:

Yes, I have hands on experience with IBM SSA disks, to EMC Symmetrix systems, Netapp filer systems, LSI storage subsystems, and my last 10 years was designing/implementing and testing enterprise solid state storage technologies into some of the biggest enterprises in the world. 
 

My last 2 years, I started working and demonstrating around the country the use of CEPH, which is a unified storage system. If you’re into technology, look into CEPH, which CEPH users will also state you don’t need NAS or SAN. 
 

Do you know why SAN and NAS were invented? Back in the early days, disk drives were very expensive and once a hdd was attached to a machine, and it wasn’t being utilized, you were paying a lot of money for nothing. HDDs were isolated islands that couldn’t be utilized. Now, hdds are cheap.

In a perfect world, checksums/buffering systems and other methods would help protect your data. We aren’t in a perfect world especially in home systems. For example, how many connections (usb or  Ethernet) for home systems, hba’s for commercial SAN systems? 100% of home systems use 1 connection to the SAN/NAS/DAS, whereas in commercial environments would have many hba’s or network connections to the storage. I’ve had to do restores from tape/disk using EMC/Netapp/LSI systems. For failures, you can have a failure in the usb/Ethernet/FireWire/fibre connection that corrupts data, the OS could send garbage down the line, or you can be hacked where your data is changed (no checksum will fix this) or a user modifies  data incorrectly (again no checksum will fix this).

I know ZFS, wasn’t my favorite. It has some nice features. I preferred ASM for the last 15 years, which is much faster and had better features. It doesn’t matter what OS you are using, I’ve used most of them (IBM mainframes, Solaris, aix, most enterprise Linux, and OSX, never windows because that was the worst OS and still is.

 

 

 

 

Hi @Rsmaximasr, you’re bring back some memories now :~)

 

I setup a Symmetrix system to asynchronously mirror data across the country, as one of my last projects before leaving the corporate world. 
 

I’m still struggling to see how you propose we solve our needs using DAS. I know it can be done, but it’s unpleasant as heck in my opinion, compared to a Linux appliance built for this purpose. 
 

- Many machines accessing music at a time

- Simple drive replacement when one or more fail

- Music access from outside the network

- Encrypted offsite backup (automated)

- Backup to USB disks (automated)

- SFTP access from outside

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 hour ago, Rsmaximasr said:

I have many endpoints and also use Roon ARC for streaming to the cars. Remember, music data is small. I’m used to building large databases with thousands of concurrent users, now that’s real data throughput and had all hba’s in a large AIX server saturated. I also setup CEPH over 7 servers with 100Gb networks and saturated the network using MySQL. You can stream to 20 concurrent  endpoints with Roon  and you might get 1 or 2% disk utilization, half of 1 rotation of the hdd can read a whole album into memory. DAS access is the fastest without the overhead of RAID. RAID 5/6 is terribly slow on writes, ok for reads. RAID 1 or 10 is expensive and can be as fast as DAS. 
You can build a RAID 1 using multiple drives on any apple computer. You can purchase a cheap jbod from owc with or without softraid to handle RAID 0 thru 5. 
If using Linux use mdadm over a bunch of das disks. 
All I’m saying is that there are many options out there. I loved ASM which can be implemented over DAS, the best feature of EMC were bcv’s. Check out CEPH.

 

I think we are on different wavelengths. None of us are concerned about throughput to multiple devices. We are concerned with access for multiple devices, which means everything from UPnP to SMB to SFTP to Roon, etc...

 

it sounds like you've setup what's effectively a NAS, but gone through the trouble to recreate the wheel. Describing how little throughput music actually uses, then talking about how slow RAID 5/6 are, is a bit strange, but again, I think we are on different wavelengths. 

 

A purpose built linux appliance that can do everything one needs versus a kludge desktop with all those pieces added on, doesn't seem like much of a content for me. I'll take the NAS every time. Unless shown why I shouldn't. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

On 8/14/2023 at 6:40 PM, AudioDoctor said:

edit: I did pay for a year of 24/7 phone support so that if I have questions I can get help and hopefully learn enough from that year that I won't need it anymore.

That by itself is a huge selling point. When I have a QNAP issue, support is good but it can take a week or more to get it resolved via messaging. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

12 minutes ago, AudioDoctor said:

One thing to note, if anyone is considering this, that I did not before uploading to Backblaze is that Xfinity/Comcast has a data limit on my internet that I am not allowed to go over without incurring charges. I have never come close to that number until August while uploading to Backblaze.

 

 

See if you can get CenturyLink. Unlimited 1Gbps up/down for $65 per month on this side of town :~)

[The Computer Audiophile]

16 minutes ago, actuel audio said:

Backblaze is the final back up and, if I ever have to use it, I have bigger problems!

Ha! I agree. 
 

Take a look at iDrive. Cheap pricing, for now. The MO of all these companies is to get you in with low prices, the increase down the road. Such is life. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, Dan Gravell said:

For most people it's absolutely fine for storing music to playback from. I appreciate readers here may have different priorities to others, but music streaming seems to work for many people.

Direct from Backblaze? 

[The Computer Audiophile]

3 minutes ago, Dan Gravell said:

B2, yes.

Via which app?

[The Computer Audiophile]

Just an FYI. My first year at iDrive is almost up for renewal. I went into my account and clicked the “don’t renew” option, thinking I would be offered a better renewal price. Turns out, I was lucky. I got 50% off the one year renewal price.