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- 28 Nov 2003
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The more I try and learn about backups and safe storage the more questions I have.
Here's my latest. I have two identical SATA III 1 Gb hard drives, designated "D Drive" under Win 7 64 bit Pro. They are under an Intel software RAID 1 on a Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 3 motherboard. All appears well. I have the OS and my two mail apps on C: Drive which is an SSD drive. I use Second Copy to automatically back up both mail apps to the RAID 1 D drives each night. I also use Z-DBackup to make a system image of the C Drive once a week, which it creates on the RAID1 pair. The RAID 1 pair (D Drive) with the system image is backed up to LTO4 tape once a week.
What happens if on of the RAID 1 pair of SATA III drives fails? I guess the Intel software RAID flags a fault? I then have to work out which of the 2 drives is dead, and swap it out? What if an identical drive is no longer available? Will any 1 Gb or larger SATA III drive work, paired with the one remaining original working drive?? Does the RAID rebuild occur automagically? How long might one expect it to take?
With a truly unlucky chain of events, leaving the PC dead or missing, say from a power surge, theft or whatever, and I just have my tape, how do I go about getting the C Drive image from it to a new PC? Do I run a repair disc, load the tape deck drivers and the SCSI card drivers (it runs on SCSI on an Adaptec card), then will there be enough "stuff" on the new PC to load the Z-Dat software and restore from said tape? I guess I should be brave and "create" a fault and see if it all works *BEFORE* a real world failure...
As an aside, if the motherboard croaked and I had to replace it with a currently available one, can I be reassured another board would still read the software RAID 1 created hard drive pair?
Finally:
If I bought a new NAS box and put 2 SATA drives in it as a RAID 1 pairing, and at a later stage the box hardware croaked, would a different, currently available box necessarily be able to read the drives? I can't see much redundancy in them if this is not the case, as the risk of hard drive failure is just moved to the risk of the box hardware failing. I am not sure if I am understanding how they work correctly or not.... Thanks
Here's my latest. I have two identical SATA III 1 Gb hard drives, designated "D Drive" under Win 7 64 bit Pro. They are under an Intel software RAID 1 on a Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 3 motherboard. All appears well. I have the OS and my two mail apps on C: Drive which is an SSD drive. I use Second Copy to automatically back up both mail apps to the RAID 1 D drives each night. I also use Z-DBackup to make a system image of the C Drive once a week, which it creates on the RAID1 pair. The RAID 1 pair (D Drive) with the system image is backed up to LTO4 tape once a week.
What happens if on of the RAID 1 pair of SATA III drives fails? I guess the Intel software RAID flags a fault? I then have to work out which of the 2 drives is dead, and swap it out? What if an identical drive is no longer available? Will any 1 Gb or larger SATA III drive work, paired with the one remaining original working drive?? Does the RAID rebuild occur automagically? How long might one expect it to take?
With a truly unlucky chain of events, leaving the PC dead or missing, say from a power surge, theft or whatever, and I just have my tape, how do I go about getting the C Drive image from it to a new PC? Do I run a repair disc, load the tape deck drivers and the SCSI card drivers (it runs on SCSI on an Adaptec card), then will there be enough "stuff" on the new PC to load the Z-Dat software and restore from said tape? I guess I should be brave and "create" a fault and see if it all works *BEFORE* a real world failure...
As an aside, if the motherboard croaked and I had to replace it with a currently available one, can I be reassured another board would still read the software RAID 1 created hard drive pair?
Finally:
If I bought a new NAS box and put 2 SATA drives in it as a RAID 1 pairing, and at a later stage the box hardware croaked, would a different, currently available box necessarily be able to read the drives? I can't see much redundancy in them if this is not the case, as the risk of hard drive failure is just moved to the risk of the box hardware failing. I am not sure if I am understanding how they work correctly or not.... Thanks
