Media Server

[h20man]

Cloud based systems are great..... IF you have reliable high speed internet, something that is lacking in the middle of the ocean.

Cheap hard drives are great.... if you are using them in a protected anchorage, something that storms and rough seas do not mimic.

Optical Media is great... if you have enough of them, they do not get scratched, and you do not need instant access.

SSD. True, they cost more, but you can use them at all times, they are low power and pretty damn reliable. But when they fail.... not like having one scratched DVD that does not stop you from looking at other DVD's... so for this to be great you need to have a duplicate SSD setup, or offsite HardDrive copy.

BTW, Dockhead, I am willing to sacrifice and help you keep a duplicate of all your stuff, just in case....... will you do the same for me?

[colemj]

Originally Posted by h20man

Cheap hard drives are great.... if you are using them in a protected anchorage, something that storms and rough seas do not mimic.

But are you really watching movies in storms at sea?

We use a computer as a chart plotter - a very cheap computer, with most probably a very cheap HD - and it has been working perfectly for many years through storms, rough seas, etc.

Our chart plotter also has a hard drive in it. I doubt they are sourcing the highest quality archival ones.

Five years into full-time cruising, we have yet to have a single hard drive fail on us. I just threw out two drives because they were so small they simply were of no use to us. They were easily over 10yrs old - probably 15yrs (how long has it been since an 80GB drive was state of the art?) - and still worked just fine. Both of them have been sitting on the boat in the open unused for the past 5 years.

But we do count on, and plan for, hard drive failure - lots of backups on several drives.

Mark

[h20man]

Originally Posted by colemj

But are you really watching movies in storms at sea?

We use a computer as a chart plotter - a very cheap computer, with most probably a very cheap HD - and it has been working perfectly for many years through storms, rough seas, etc.

Our chart plotter also has a hard drive in it. I doubt they are sourcing the highest quality archival ones.

Five years into full-time cruising, we have yet to have a single hard drive fail on us. I just threw out two drives because they were so small they simply were of no use to us. They were easily over 10yrs old - probably 15yrs (how long has it been since an 80GB drive was state of the art?) - and still worked just fine. Both of them have been sitting on the boat in the open unused for the past 5 years.

But we do count on, and plan for, hard drive failure - lots of backups on several drives.

Mark

I congratulate you that your HD has not failed. I have known several people, and have (unfortunately) experienced the frustration of a drive failure at the worst possible moment.

And yea.. in a rough passage, a movie or music to take your mind of things is always nice....


As to your chart plotter containing a hard drive.. what model are you talking about? I know a lot of them used Flash memory cards as an hard drive was unsuitable. I am curious as to what model that could be. (This is not meant as an attack, rather a serious question.... )

Apple pioneered the idea of using an accelerometer to get the hard to run to a safe place during sharp drops. Some manufacturers attempted to do the same thing.... but that is not something one wants to rely on over and over. While the drive is off (and parked) then... there is less probability of failure...

The tolerances are very small (microscopic) in a hard drive and any shock can blow it in a big way. The term hard drive crash came from the head burying itself in the platter and carving a grave for itself.... Today it is not as often...

As I said, I am willing to 'sacrifice' and keep copies of movies, music, radio plays, and e-books for others.... so if you want, just pm me..

[the_alpine]

So ya - back to the media server topic...

Checkout the raspberry pi running raspbmc. Cheap, powerful, small, energy smart and easy.

[colemj]

Originally Posted by h20man

I congratulate you that your HD has not failed. I have known several people, and have (unfortunately) experienced the frustration of a drive failure at the worst possible moment.

And yea.. in a rough passage, a movie or music to take your mind of things is always nice....


As to your chart plotter containing a hard drive.. what model are you talking about? I know a lot of them used Flash memory cards as an hard drive was unsuitable. I am curious as to what model that could be. (This is not meant as an attack, rather a serious question.... )

Apple pioneered the idea of using an accelerometer to get the hard to run to a safe place during sharp drops. Some manufacturers attempted to do the same thing.... but that is not something one wants to rely on over and over. While the drive is off (and parked) then... there is less probability of failure...

The tolerances are very small (microscopic) in a hard drive and any shock can blow it in a big way. The term hard drive crash came from the head burying itself in the platter and carving a grave for itself.... Today it is not as often...

As I said, I am willing to 'sacrifice' and keep copies of movies, music, radio plays, and e-books for others.... so if you want, just pm me..

Yes, we certainly do plan on our hard drives failing - which is why we keep multiple backups. We have been lucky so far that none have. I have had 3 drives ever fail on me and all of those were in a desktop computer on a solid surface that never was turned off. But that was also 15-20 years ago.

The current Furuno NavNet chartplotter/radar systems use hard drives. Their current Z-Touch models may also, but I don't know.

I have never been seasick (knock on wood), but I don't have the focus on rough passages to watch movies. Music, yes - but that is on a solid state memory device.

Our backups, being stored all the time, do not experience situations that would cause head crashes. We would never consider backing up files while underway. Having a catamaran, rough anchorages are not much of a problem for us either.

Like I said, transferring our media to a "backup" service like you would provide us will cost us $5,000 USD. If we meet up with you out here, we would be happy to take you up on your offer.

Mark

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by h20man

Cloud based systems are great..... IF you have reliable high speed internet, something that is lacking in the middle of the ocean.

Cheap hard drives are great.... if you are using them in a protected anchorage, something that storms and rough seas do not mimic.

Optical Media is great... if you have enough of them, they do not get scratched, and you do not need instant access.

SSD. True, they cost more, but you can use them at all times, they are low power and pretty damn reliable. But when they fail.... not like having one scratched DVD that does not stop you from looking at other DVD's... so for this to be great you need to have a duplicate SSD setup, or offsite HardDrive copy.

BTW, Dockhead, I am willing to sacrifice and help you keep a duplicate of all your stuff, just in case....... will you do the same for me?

SSDs now have typical MTBF of 1-1.5 million hours. !!! Nor is there anything to stop you splitting your collection over 2-4 SSD drives. It's silly to backup SSD with rotary drives. You are in essence backing up a hyper reliable system unto a far less reliable media, that doesnt make sense.

Dave

[h20man]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

SSDs now have typical MTBF of 1-1.5 million hours. !!! Nor is there anything to stop you splitting your collection over 2-4 SSD drives. It's silly to backup SSD with rotary drives. You are in essence backing up a hyper reliable system unto a far less reliable media, that doesnt make sense.

Dave

The rotary drives are running $0.05/GB or less. The SSD is twenty (20) times the price....

The MTBF for a rotary drive is also about 1.2 million hours..

The big deal is the capacity and the cost..... and just as a backup it is extremely affordable.. Especially if it is sitting on land...

SSD's are much better then HD's... but.. everything has its place.....

[h20man]

Originally Posted by colemj

Yes, we certainly do plan on our hard drives failing - which is why we keep multiple backups. We have been lucky so far that none have. I have had 3 drives ever fail on me and all of those were in a desktop computer on a solid surface that never was turned off. But that was also 15-20 years ago.

The current Furuno NavNet chartplotter/radar systems use hard drives. Their current Z-Touch models may also, but I don't know.

I have never been seasick (knock on wood), but I don't have the focus on rough passages to watch movies. Music, yes - but that is on a solid state memory device.

Our backups, being stored all the time, do not experience situations that would cause head crashes. We would never consider backing up files while underway. Having a catamaran, rough anchorages are not much of a problem for us either.

Like I said, transferring our media to a "backup" service like you would provide us will cost us $5,000 USD. If we meet up with you out here, we would be happy to take you up on your offer.

Mark

Mark... you have a deal.. and I won't even charge you $5000. I could do it for free for you as a friend.. Of course I would ask that you also have a copy of my stuff backed up as well.. Reciprocity....

So we have a deal.. when we met up we do a swap.. ok?

[kmason]

Originally Posted by maytrix

2B. You could get a Drobo. This is a standalone device that can fit a variety of number of hard drives and gives you the same redundancy. There's a number of configuration options for this as well.

You really can't get any better than a Drobo when it comes to RAID (actually beyond RAID technology). USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt interface.