OK, I have way too many drives! That's my starting point!

I essentially split up my content so not to lose everything if one drive crashes. For example, I have OS on one drive, Kontakt libraries on one drive, favourite Kontakt libraries on another, sample libraries on another, music on another, photos on another etc etc, you get the gist of it.

However, I now have an about 6 drives inside my PC and a bundle of external drives. I am looking to consolidate these and wondering if there is something out there that is cheap where I could put multiple drives in it and would only use one power supply and one connection to my PC?

Any recommendations for an as cheap as possible solution?

Cheers in advance!

 

dvd backup ?

 

didn't read all your thread but :

www.amazon.com/Inateck-Superspeed-Ports-PCI-Expansion/dp/B00FPIMICA

 

What about NAS? (and, of course, security backup media)

 

I have the same problem as you.
Over time I have been buying hard drives with more capacity.
I use an external 4-slot SATA drive. And I'm changing the HDDs.
I do not trust backing up to DVD, a little space and even if you save them perfectly they stop working.

something like that:

 

This looks perfect. Maybe 2 of these is what I need. A tad pricey if buying 2 though. Is there anything similar but cheaper?

 

A NAS is a good solution, and along the right lines, but they are just way too expensive for me at the moment so looking for a cheaper solution.

 

@Bunford

A little bit of tech info for you.

1) Backblaze report: 8-terabyte HDDs lasting a long time - HGST Most Reliable

2) Plextor EX1 Portable USB 3.1 Gen 2 SSD review

Hope it helps.

 

The way in which I've dealt with this (on a Mac, though it makes no differnce) is to daisy-chain three Firewire 800 drives. Some portable drives which require power supplies also run bus-powered, and can run off the A/C-powered one which is first in line. In general, though all the "spaghetti" I've got goin' on around my computer makes me wanna grab the marinara and parm.

If you do ever use DVDs, use the JVC gold discs, which are essentially archival-grade.

 

What qualities make them archival grade discs?

 

Diamond Guard Resin on the recording side of the disc. I don't know if that's what JVC uses, though.

 

This Noontec external 4x hard drive enclosure looks pretty good and it is not that expensive actually, but it does cost almost as much as a 2x NAS drives. A good and not too expensive NAS 4x external HD enclosure is this Synology DS414.

The cheapest solution is just to buy one of these SATA to USB3 adapters, and possibly an additional USB3 card if you need more USB3 ports. They work great with 2.5" HDs [I use only 2.5" for archival purposes], no additional power is needed. The second USB connector is needed for 3.5" HDs. It is very cool, hot swappable, and very cheap, but you can only connect one drive at the time, or use multiple cables.

 

Last edited: Feb 2, 2017

Try adding external drives to ur desktop? If u run out of SATA slots, just sacrifice (irrelevant) DVD writer? If not, why not (short-term) bastardize an old desktop? It's what they're there for. Cost? Ethernet cable, SATA cables? W/ ie Vienna Ensemble thing, it's easy to stream stuff to play around w/. Albeit latency =( Also, if u add a monitor and old GFX card, pretty easy to use it as meter / analysis tool, too. Or stream media etcs, if it's always on. Also backup. So useful!

In long term, try to consolodate everything on bigger HD, and start adding more SSD. It's teh future (present)! Can't tell u how cool it is to be able to effectively "stream" Kontakt libs from SSD w/ no (little) memory cost / loading etcs. Although they seem bit expensive, 6-8TB drives are well worth it. I mean, one drive can prolly hold most of (all?) the libraries u will need. Even after Berlin Brass came out :D

(then start adding SSD afterwards...? I mean, 1TB SSD = $250)

 

I have no 5.25" bays in my machine, nevermind a DVD drive. And burning TB worth of data on DVD drives is a tad impractical!

 

I have enough USB ports. I'm just trying to get rid of the tons of drives, data and power cables causing a rats nest!

 

My setup is currently:

Internal:
* 240GB SSD as primary OS drive
* 750GB SSHD for main Kontakt libraries
* 120GB HDD for photos
* 1TB HDD for backup of all music related installers
* 1TB HDD as main data drive
* 1TB HDD as project and scratch drive

External 3.5":
* 5TB HDD for Kontakt libraries
* 5TB HDD for music sample libraries
* 2TB HDD for music and video
* 2TB HDD for sound design sample libraries
* 2TB HDD for games

External 2.5":
* 500GB backup drive
* 1TB portable to share with my laptop to use software/libraries out and about

As you can see, it's a ridiculous amount of drives accumulated and results in tons of data and power cabling. I am just looking for a way to be able to consolidate these down to a few drives and then house them in something that only has one or two data and power cables.

 

If it's not necessary to have all of the hard disks connected at all times, one or two of these $10 adapters could be it. Just connect a HD to it as necessary. I use one of these adapters connected to my Dell monitor so I can get quick access to my archive collection of stuff on 2.5" hard disks.

Holy fuck, are you trying to run a media streaming service like Solarmovie there? You've got some TBs. I also have a film collection on a couple of 2.5" hard disks and a couple of hundred of DVDs that accumulated last 15 or so years.

 

NAS (network attached storage) prices have come down to consumer price levels over recent years. With that said, you get what you pay for, but there is a lot of data to review before selecting a NAS device for your storage needs. I use a couple from a company called Synology and purchase my own disks based on my needs, but there are probably 150+ vendors who offer commercial products. Units can be found for well under $200.

You can also take an older, but reliable PC and turn it into a disk-farm. Put a couple good disk controllers into it, up-date new hard drives, one or two Gig ethernet cards and you have a pretty decent solution. That would be kind of overkill, but just something to put into the thought process. Microsoft used to have something called Windows Storage Server which was a stripped down O/S and streamlined for passing files back and forth.

Good luck.
V

 

2 answers for your problem, 1 you already said you don't like and the other 1 i bet you wont like either.

1, a nas box and stick your drives in that, yes they can be expensive but they do exactly what you want.

2, go through all your kontakt and sample libraries and figure out which ones you actually use and delete the rest. I did this when i realized that i had nearly 20TB's of kontakt, wav and rex files, most of which i would never realistically use. i am now down to about 4TB's and i can actually find stuff when i need it as well.

You can also use the now empty drives to do a complete backup of all your other drives and keep it upto date as well.

 

Ever seen a drive toaster? Hot swappable and they got em with esata.
I have this one and it can accommodate both 3.5 and 2.5 sata drives.


I got tired of buying enclosures and now store them in the antistatic mylar sleeve. I spin them up every once and a while to keep the moving parts moving, the ones I dont use often anyways

 

Last edited: Feb 2, 2017