So here'sa deal.

My backup needs have gotten stupid. Currently I have a Mac Mini server with a 1TB drive backing up two MBAirs (and the Mini). Everything vital is up on Dropbox, of course, but when you work with media, that's tough. The Mini is also steward of a 1TB drive including my music, which is also backed up on Google Music (I think - haven't touched it in ages but haven't turned it off, either). All told, the little Time Machine is backing up ~450GB, which puts 1TB at "just barely enough." However, it's a Seagate and also a dick. It has been unruly for some time now, and has gotten to the point where it dismounts before it can assemble a backup. Fuck you, 4-year-old Seagate.

The real stupidity, though, is the workhorse. Between project files, photo catalogs, sample libraries, virtual instrument patches and other miscellaneous media, an image of the Big Rig comes in at 3.5TB. And it's backing up to a 4TB Mybook.

Obviously, this is an untenable situation.

A year ago I was looking at a big stupid SATA raid enclosure. With the drives, 9TB would have cost me about $2500. But, just to see wazzup, I poked around and discovered that Western Digital is currently rawkin' some drives in a nifty little NAS. Not a well-reviewed one but a little NAS nonetheless.

Problem being: 3.5TB plus 0.5TB x 3 (safety factor) = 12TB. That fucking thing would be effectively full now. Without any expansion. Without more stupid sound libraries added. Without more jobs (which are backed up offline regularly - I've got 2TB of archived media from the past year that isn't included in this). So suddenly we're out of the land of cute.

And once out of the land of cute, I have no mileposts.

The last time I messed around with RAID I rolled my own. Used a little "linux-on-a-card" IDE thing that, in combo with 4 IDE drives, gave me 900GB of RAID5 in ZFS for just under a grand. And then the "linux on a card" thing konked, took the BIOS of the ghetto Dell I was running it all on with it and corrupted the array while it was at it. I had to buy a new motherboard and install Knoppix on it just to rebuild the goddamn array. Which was missing most of the photos I took of the bicentennial orchid show in Bangkok, but I digress. Anyway, it was an unpleasantly technical experience.

So shit like this scares me a titch.

So I appeal to the greater Hubski mind. I know we got lotsa computer kats on here, of which I do not consider myself one. As far as my regular circle of friends is concerned, I'm out there On Beyond Zebra with this shit. I do not want to be anyone's sysop but myself and I don't want to spend too much time learning. But as near as I can tell, the quickest, bestest way to give me a Time Machine backup solution sized for my needs plus expansion involves one of these.

Talk me out of it. Talk me into it. Talk me into something else. Tell me horror stories. Tell me bedtime stories. Just know that I've been vapor-locked on this goddamn decision since Monday which means there are three computers in this house not backing up.