The basic idea of LOCKSS is always what I think of when it comes to
archival: lots of copies. For my own personal archival stuff, I do use a
Drobo...and have recommended that we get one of the new Drobo Pros for use
here in the library. But not for archival, just for storage. For things that
I really do not want to ever go away, I make sure that I have 3 copies: one
remote, and at least two local.

There are bigadvantages to the Drobo over traditional RAID, and with about
the same amount of risks overall. The Drobo is growable, and can use mix and
match drives, which gives it, IMO, a leg up over traditional RAID. I'm a
huge, huge fan. But for things I really care about, I'd have one copy on a
server, one copy on a drobo, and another copy in the cloud somewhere.

Jason


On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 8:10 AM, Edward Iglesias
<[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> As I was trying to figure out what to do with half a terabyte of
> archival TIFFS it occurred to me that perhaps someone else had this
> problem.  We are starting to produce massive amounts of digital
> objects (videos, archival TIFFS, audio interviews).  Up until now we
> have been dealing with ways to display them to the public.  Now we are
> starting to look at "dark archives" like OCLC's digital archive
> product.  I would welcome any suggestions from those of you who have
> dealt with this on an archival level.  It's one thing to stick the
> stuff up on a server, but then what?  Our CIO suggested storage
> appliances like this one
>
>
> http://www.drobo.com/products/index.php
>
> but I am wary of the proprietary RAID system.
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
>
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Edward Iglesias
> Systems Librarian
> Central Connecticut State University
>



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