HDD just died.... raid 1 next time?

SupermotoMX · 21 Mar 2011 at 13:06

samsung f3 500gig drive just died (mechanical clicking), luckily it is working *knocks on wood* long enough to retrieve data, so i MIGHT be lucky.
sent it for RMA.....

should i pickup a seccond and put them in raid 1 so i have double the chance of not losing data? i have never done raid 1 backup... so i know hardly anything about it could some1 explain how it works? (internet sources say different things)

DragonQ · 21 Mar 2011 at 13:19

RAID 1 isn't backup, it's redundancy. It simply means that your data is safe if one of the two HDDs fail. Of course, if this happens you should stop using the PC until you can replace the broken drive and then it will rebuild the RAID array.

How much is an F3 500 GB these days? Surely it's a lot less than your data is worth to you (assuming you have things like family photos/videos, music, work/school/uni related stuff, etc.)! Your motherboard supports RAID 1 out of the box too so it should simply be a case of looking in the BIOS for RAID options.

joxang · 21 Mar 2011 at 13:30

DragonQ said:
RAID 1 isn't backup, it's redundancy. It simply means that your data is safe if one of the two HDDs fail. Of course, if this happens you should stop using the PC until you can replace the broken drive and then it will rebuild the RAID array.

This. Redundancy against mechanical disk failure ONLY. You don't use RAID 1 to backup because only some small percentage of data loss is attributable to disk failure. You're more likely to have software/OS issues.

Get a drive of the same size and just back up manually. It's easy, and it would be a 'true backup'.

matthab · 21 Mar 2011 at 13:31

I put my OS on 1 single WD black and all my media/documents on a 2tb RAID1 erray. Its verys easy to set up and doesnt take very long.

Just remember its not a backup but redundancy...

SupermotoMX · 21 Mar 2011 at 13:40

do you have to setup raid then install the OS, or can you install the OS, then setup raid a few days later when the seccond drive arrives?

im aware its not a true backup, but i just think it is going to give me abit more of a chance to keeping hold of coursework + photos, and keeping the OS without me having to reinstall and re setup all my settings (which takes atleast a day)

joxang · 21 Mar 2011 at 13:42

SupermotoMX said:
im aware its not a true backup, but i just think it is going to give me abit more of a chance to keeping hold of coursework + photos, and keeping the OS without me having to reinstall and re setup all my settings (which takes atleast a day)

It's coursework and photos....You're not running a server that has files changing every 3 minutes and needs to be back online 15mins after a drive failure. Why don't you back your work up to a second drive, or an external? Or use dropbox?? Why are people obsessed with 'RAID 1'

???

Same applies to 'RAID 0' where everyone jumps on the bandwagon expecting massive decrease in app loading time then don't get that much of an improvement and lose all their data when one of the drives fails.

gropingmantis · 21 Mar 2011 at 13:49

RAID1 then backup the array onto RAID5, its the only way to be sure.

SupermotoMX · 21 Mar 2011 at 14:22

joxang said:
It's coursework and photos....You're not running a server that has files changing every 3 minutes and needs to be back online 15mins after a drive failure. Why don't you back your work up to a second drive, or an external? Or use dropbox?? Why are people obsessed with 'RAID 1' ???

we are only human, we all forget (me most of all) think i have convinced myself of going raid1 now, if anything to stop my worrying about loosing everything.

joxang · 21 Mar 2011 at 14:33

Lol fine.

I don't of any way that you can directly set up RAID 1 on your current disk without losing all your data. You'll have to clone it and boot up via a temporary disk, then set up the RAID array. Then clone it back to the primary disk and it should mirror across the array.

OspreyO · 22 Mar 2011 at 15:39

Have a couple of external backup disks. one for this week, one for a few months back. Don't keep them together in case someone breaks in and nicked the lot.