RAID 1 Help ?

lloydcars18 · 6 Aug 2016 at 13:18

Hi guys how you doing.

i have a western digital 1tb hdd arriving today and want to run it in raid 1 with my samsung 1 tb which has about 500gb of data on it and i want to keep the data im running windows 7 with my specs below any help appreciated

bremen1874 · 6 Aug 2016 at 13:43

The first thing you'll want is a reliable backup of your data. Going from a single drive to RAID1 should be safe, but you never know.

Rroff · 6 Aug 2016 at 13:46

You are going to need to backup that data one way or another (you shouldn't rely on RAID for backup either) - the simplest options for setting up that RAID array don't preserve data and the more complex ones that can aren't guaranteed not to lose or damage your data.

lloydcars18 · 6 Aug 2016 at 13:51

you think i should do a continuous back up to the new drive somehow instead of raid 1

Craig321 · 6 Aug 2016 at 13:53

Raid 1 will only give you failover, not a backup and it won't give you any additional performance, so IMO it's kind of useless in a home machine.

So yes, a continuous or daily backup would be ideal if you want a backup.

Something like CrashPlan (free for local backups) or xcopy will do the trick. Windows File History might be good in this case actually.

I would also at least make the new drive external. If something decides to blow your PSU, then it could easily take both disks with it. Or, have an online backup alongside the local one.

Rroff · 6 Aug 2016 at 13:54

RAID 1 is good for uptime convenience i.e. your system doesn't fall apart if 1 drive fails and some degree of redundancy but I wouldn't rely on it as a sole backup if that was your intention - I keep a copy of anything critical on a USB external drive as well as the internal RAID.

Craig321 said:
and it won't give you any additional performance, so IMO it's kind of useless in a home machine.

You do get some read speed benefits over a single drive - write speeds can even be very slightly slower than a single drive though.

lloydcars18 · 6 Aug 2016 at 14:19

my old drive is failing want the new drive for a backup for when it does goes as its a 7 year old drive now.

bremen1874 · 6 Aug 2016 at 14:53

If your old drive is failing just replace it. Use Macrium Reflect or similar software to copy old to new and then swap it out.

Then sort out an ongoing backup solution if there's data you care about.

lloydcars18 · 6 Aug 2016 at 17:30

then i wont have a back up when my old drive failures can i just continue with the new drive?

Craig321 · 6 Aug 2016 at 17:31

If you want to keep your old drive until it dies, you should mirror it over to the new one, use the new one as main and use the old one as a backup.

Rroff said:
RAID 1 is good for uptime convenience i.e. your system doesn't fall apart if 1 drive fails and some degree of redundancy but I wouldn't rely on it as a sole backup if that was your intention - I keep a copy of anything critical on a USB external drive as well as the internal RAID.

You do get some read speed benefits over a single drive - write speeds can even be very slightly slower than a single drive though.

Huh, nice, didn't realise that

I always thought the 2nd disk is effectively dormant (apart from being written to). I guess the reads are similar to RAID0 then

lloydcars18 · 6 Aug 2016 at 18:09

i see what your saying but think you mean use new one as backup though dont want new drive failing then left with crappy drive.

Steampunk · 6 Aug 2016 at 20:57

lloydcars18 said:
Hi guys how you doing.

i have a western digital 1tb hdd arriving today and want to run it in raid 1 with my samsung 1 tb which has about 500gb of data on it and i want to keep the data im running windows 7 with my specs below any help appreciated

As you're running an Intel chipset, just install the Intel Rapid Storage stuff, then you can use it to migrate the data from your current disk into a RAID1 array. It's pretty simple if your drive interface is already running in RAID mode. You just add the second disk, then tell it to make an array and copy the data from the first disk.

nutcase · 6 Aug 2016 at 21:28

RAID is not a backup. Repeat 100 times.

If the old drive is failing, clone it over now to the new drive. Buy another drive to then use as a backup. External is best so you can detach it and store it elsewhere when you're not running the backup.

Mercutio · 6 Aug 2016 at 23:28

For most folks, the contents of the user directory (or somewhere else you throw all that kind of stuff) is usually enough.

It's a pretty easy bunch of data to throw in a container of choice (a zip or a directory or a specific folder based backup) and move the backup of it offline/off site somewhere.
There's plenty of cloud storage around (just zip and encrypt if you don't trust your *cough* "self pics" anywhere).

Pretty much everything else is expendable. Steam is just an overnight download away from being back on it's feet and most other stuff can be reinstalled.

I'd echo all the points about raid 1 is not a backup heavily. It's a... mild "anti-drive fail" strategy at best.

Steampunk · 7 Aug 2016 at 08:33

lloydcars18 said:
my old drive is failing want the new drive for a backup for when it does goes as its a 7 year old drive now.

RAID is for high availability, not backup. If your drive is failing get a new one and use something like Macrium Reflect to image the original disk to the new one.

lloydcars18 · 7 Aug 2016 at 18:50

done a windows back up to new drive just copied everything but whats strange is had about 300gb of data but has took up 400gb on new drive any suggestions?

neil_g · 9 Aug 2016 at 12:10

did you use raid in the end? as that will take an overhead (100gb sounds a touch steep though).