Mirror - Drive Pool or Neither?

GM2 · 21 Mar 2013 at 23:28

Have 240GB SSD with Win 8 OS etc.

Just got 2x 1TB HDD for storage.

Thinking to use them alongside each other, so everything gets written to both disks, effectively automatic 'back up' if one fails.

Am I better to mirror them, or use drive pool or neither?

Thanks

Sin_Chase · 21 Mar 2013 at 23:46

Raid is not backup.

RAID-1 will survive a single disk failure but any file corruption/deletion/changes will be mirrored.

Drive pool is not backup either.

If you want RAID speed benefits and redundancy for failure then use RAID-1.
If you want pure backup then only write to one disk and use the second as a backup target.

GM2 · 21 Mar 2013 at 23:50

Sin_Chase said:
If you want pure backup then only write to one disk and use the second as a backup target.

This ^^^

What's the best way to achieve it though?

And presumably, each disk just needs to be a Simple Volume, nothing else?

Thanks

Sin_Chase · 21 Mar 2013 at 23:53

Install them as single disks. Install your backup program of choice, or use the built in Windows backup and select the other disk as the target.

GM2 · 21 Mar 2013 at 23:57

OK - simple really!

Thanks

m_cozzy · 24 Mar 2013 at 13:40

Unless your house burns down or you get burgled. I use a dock & keep the backup drive at work.

JonJ678 · 24 Mar 2013 at 16:35

It's nice to have the second disk in a different computer attached to the network to ward off PSU failures and so forth. I tend to rsync to a USB stick which is then unplugged for important data (usually small, my 16gb volume has lots of space left) and leave the bulk crap to disappear if the raid fails. I don't really care if a load of tv episodes are deleted through bad luck.

GM2 · 25 Mar 2013 at 09:40

m_cozzy said:
Unless your house burns down or you get burgled. I use a dock & keep the backup drive at work.

Good point.

Most of the stuff I'm looking to back up is photos and videos (as in home vids - not downloaded films).

These obviously don't change much, just get added to, so keeping a copy 'off site' is not too hard - it just needs to be swapped for an updated version periodically.

I'm using Dropbox for most documents etc., which gives an instant back up and the ability to access from multiple devices in multipe locations.

This is really about protecting stuff that hasn't been backed up yet from equipment faliure - but some very valid points and suggestions have been made.

yashiro · 25 Mar 2013 at 12:19

GM2 said:
Have 240GB SSD with Win 8 OS etc.

Just got 2x 1TB HDD for storage.

Thinking to use them alongside each other, so everything gets written to both disks, effectively automatic 'back up' if one fails.

Am I better to mirror them, or use drive pool or neither?

Thanks

Terrible idea. Just use Macrium and/or Crashplan to backup your SSD to the HDD at regular intervals instead.

GM2 · 26 Mar 2013 at 13:40

yashiro said:
Terrible idea.

Thanks!

yashiro said:
Just use Macrium and/or Crashplan to backup your SSD to the HDD at regular intervals instead.

Thanks for the suggestions. Do they do different things? Is one better than the other?

yashiro · 26 Mar 2013 at 14:12

Macrium Free Edition only creates full disk images. You have to pay to use the file and folder backup method. You should ALWAYS keep at least one good disk image.

Crashplan is usually regarded as the best file and folder backup suite.