Data Storage Solutions
Option 1: External Hard Disks (HD)
At this time (winter 2008) 500Gb external Lacie HD with USBII enclosure of costs about $130. A new “brick”” configuration with 500Gb is now available for a similar price. Advantages are that connecting them with USB cables is easy and require no installation, and it is easy to connect several such HDs to a single computer. The USBII interface is fast enough. The disadvantage is that there are sometimes reliabilities issues with those connections, and that a backup solution is necessary.
Options 2: RAID 5 storage
RAID 5 is a configuration of a disk array, which combine several HDs into a single, fault tolerant drive. The cost of a Raid system is relatively high (about $1000 per terabyte), but storage is extremely fast, and fairly fault tolerant. RAID 5 can withstand the failure of up to 2 drives without losing any bit of data. It is usually “hot swappable” which means that when a HD has failed, you simply replace it without powering down.
Option 3: burning DVDs
The solution is no longer recommended. We used to use is to save data to DVD/R media. The cost of labor and media no longer justify this option.
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