Backing up backups vs RAID-1

[OrphanBoy]

Hi guys

I'm thinking about getting a network-attached mini PC with two 1TB drives in it so that I can regularly back up the other PCs in my house onto it. I recently did this with an external USB drive but the filesystem died whilst using it once!

So by putting it on the network I'm hoping to mitigate this type of fault by not allowing the backing-up PC direct access to the disk and filesystem by using the network instead. However there's always the chance that the PC hosting the backup drives damages the filesystem somehow. RAID-1ing the backup disk will only protect against hardware failures, not against accidently deleting the contents of the disk nor filesystem failures.

So has anyone ever considered backing up the backup drive instead of just mirroring the disk with RAID-1?

Cheer guys!

 

[Yamahahahahaha]

RAID isn't a backup.

I should elaborate...
The only true backup is offline and off site.

Something which is online and connected is still vulnerable to a slip of the fingers, an accidental format, a nasty virus or a bolt of lightning.

 

[CBJ]

I have RAID 1 on the system drive of my older work PC, mainly to ensure up-time rather than as an alternative to backups. I have a USB drive and a NAS for backups, but I don't actually need to do much in the way of backing up anyway as almost everything on there can just be reinstalled if required.

Incidentally backing up to the network under Vista is a bit of a nuisance as you can't do a full system backup to a network drive, as I just discovered. You can, however, under Windows 7.

 

[OrphanBoy]

I should elaborate...
The only true backup is offline and off site.

Haha, yeah true! I figured that a USB hard drive is still "on-site" since it's in my room next to my machine and the most off-site place I could put it would be this mini PC in my loft, attached via Ethernet! (but what if the loft leaks?!)

Anyway - so if RAID isn't a backup, what would you call it?

Incidentally backing up to the network under Vista is a bit of a nuisance as you can't do a full system backup to a network drive, as I just discovered. You can, however, under Windows 7.

Ah nuts, I was hoping that Vista could do it fine. I've got Win7 HP and that definitely doesn't allow you to backup to a network drive so I'm thinking of getting some third-party tool. I was hoping that my Vista laptop wouldn't have this restriction too

 

[CBJ]

Anyway - so if RAID isn't a backup, what would you call it?

It decreases the chances of data loss and increases the up-time of your PC. Someone else's PC that I look after just lost a disk in a RAID 1 array, and all the chap using it knew about it was that it was giving him a message during boot up about something being "degraded". I'll be replacing the drive later this week and he won't have lost any data or had any time when he was unable to use the PC. His backups, which he takes regularly and sensibly took an extra one of when he started getting the messages, are there to protect him this week, and also in case of double disk or RAID controller failure.

I've got Win7 HP and that definitely doesn't allow you to backup to a network drive so I'm thinking of getting some third-party tool. I was hoping that my Vista laptop wouldn't have this restriction too

I didn't realise Windows 7 HP couldn't do that, but checking on the edition comparison I can see you're absolutely right. I'm glad I got Ultimate now! I spent an hour or so last night reading people's workarounds for doing do a system backup under Vista and gave up. I'll have to back up my Vista machine some other way before I start fiddling with the RAID setup.

 

[OrphanBoy]

So what's the deal with the Vista backup tool - can it not write to a network drive?
And what're the thoughts on the backup of the backup scheme? ie dual drives which contain backups, yet aren't mirrored?

 

[CBJ]

The Windows 7 Ultimate system backup screen looks like this:

Under Vista Ultimate it looks like this:

Mapping a network drive doesn't help as it doesn't get listed in the first drop-down.

Regarding the dual backup, my NAS server also runs two drives in RAID 1 and that's what I do most of my backups to. Having RAID 1 there does the same as it does on the PC; it reduces the chances of failure a bit, and means the NAS can keep running in the case of a single disk failure reducing downtime.

 

[erolz]

Raid 1 is about redundancy not backup. The purpose of raid 1 is to allow a system to keep running in the event of a physical HD failure and not to protect a system against data loss.

Physical failure of a HD is not the ONLY way you can loose data, its just one of many and raid1 setup only protects your data against this one possible cause of data loss, but not against all the others which is why raid1 is NOT a backup solution.

Which is pretty much what OPs have already said.