raid vs external drive

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currently debating whether to go for a pair of sata WD 500GB drives and raid them so everything copies from the one to the other

or to get a 500GB sata WD and also an external 500GB drive something like a seagate to manually back up to on a weekly basis

few questions

1
if a psu blew and took out one internal hard drive isnt it pretty likely it would also kill the other internal hard drive

2
if a virus got on a raid setup wouldnt it infect both drives giving both the exact same problem and lead to all data being compromised


im not sure if im missing something here as it appears that a raid system is a far from comprehensive method of backing up data
 
The two methods you mention safeguard against different things, as you've kind of touched on:
A mirrored RAID is an excellent way of avoiding data loss due to drive failure, and to a lesser extent, file corruption. A virus or something laying waste your system will trash data on both drives, though.
An external scheduled backup system will let you avoid virus trouble as long as it isn't one that will affect your whole system, you catch it before it spreads that far, or your backup drive is disconnected from the system between backups. While this also safeguards against data loss due to drive failure to some extent, your system is only as good as your last backup.
Basically, decide on what's important and how you're going to use it. In my server I have a mirrored RAID to boot from as reliability and 24/7 uptime is more important and I'm failry vigilant against virus attacks and security. My media drive, however, does however have a scheduled backup as the data on that drive changes much less often but it would still be very annoying to lose it.
Hope this helps :)
 
thx for reply


http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_zdpcm/is_200305/ai_ziff41075

"You will also find adding or replacing drives easier with SATA. You won't have to power down your PC before connecting a new drive, because SATA allows for hot-pluggable connections, so you can add or remove SATA drives while your PC is running. "


got me thinking


DRIVE 1 500GB sata II boot drive inside the pc permanently powered up with windows and everything on

Drive 2 500GB sata II drive internally mounted which i only powered up when wanting to back up files manually from the first drive

just need some kind of switch which would turn the power off from the psu without risking damaging it by just pulling it apart... im sure it cant be that had to find



advantages

no cost of an esata enclosure

maintain the full sata II data transfer rate

no chance of it falling off desk . As the second drive only backs up this pc not being able to walk around from pc to pc is not an issue



DOES THIS SOUND LIKE A GOOD IDEA ???

does anyone already do it or am i overlooking something ;)

.
 
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Personally I'd go the eSATA caddy route. Messing about with internal power cabling is something which can go badly wrong - I have a pair of Hitachis in the cupboard which were quite impressively knackered by a bodged SATA power converter cable.

Caddies aren't that expensive and are a totally hassle free solution, there's no speed penalty if you stick with eSATA either.
 
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