Setting up a RAID1

[MattyT]

Hi,

My friends is really getting into his photography, and wants to start backing up his photo's and PC system in general.

I was wondering, what's the best way to go about setting up a RAID1 from scratch for him?

Make an image of the working system, reformat the HDD and install the additional HDD with RAID controllers? Can I just pop the new HDD in and set the RAID controllers up? Or can I use a RAID Manager app to set it up without having to re-format?

It's an ASUS K7 mobo and a Maxtor DiamondMax HDD. Cheers guys.

 

[BillytheImpaler]

RAID1 is not a backup solution, it is simply redundancy. He should be making incremental backups and should be storing at least one copy off-site. Unless he wants to shell out for a tape backup system the cheapest way to do that, in terms of money and time, is to pick up an external HDD enclosure and a largeish drive. Back up the data to the drive. When it's full, take it out of the enclosure and put it in a safety deposit box or some other secure location unlikely to be burned or drowned.

A professional photographer might fill a 320 GiB backup drive in a month, an amateur might take longer.