Raid 1 Setup Question

TheJay

Hello, when I built my computer I planned to have a Rad 1 configuration.

I purchased three 500GB Sata Spinpoint drives, planning to have Windows installed on one, My Documents and Programs on the second (with two partitions) and then the third drive to backup My Documents and Programs. Unfortunately I never got around to actually setting it up and configuring it properly.

I would like to know how I would go about setting up this configration now so that I do not have to use any special programs to backup my data.

If anyone knows or has any advice, I would be extremely grateful to receive it.

Thank you!

TheJay

Oh, I almost forgot.

I also have a 250GB Western Digital MyBook External Hard Drive that I use to backup my documents as well, is there a way to backup My Documents to two sources simaltaniously using a raid configuration?

sysadmin

Hi Oimi,

RAID1 basically mirrors 1 disk to another so that you have everything backed up onto another hard disk should one fail.

Your PC will need to have a RAID card in it in order to do RAID. These can sometimes be onboard. You can achieve RAID through software installed on your computer but this method can be slow.

You mentioned installing windows on one hard drive and having your my docs etc on another drive. This will not give you any redundancy in the event of a failure.

Your best bet would be to setup RAID1 on your 2 drives. Then install windows as normal. This will then mean that you have windows and all your documents on drive 1 and they will automatically copy onto drive 2.

For another safety precaution you could put your 3rd 500GB drive in as a seperate drive and then use a program called synctoy to synchronize all your files to it. The first time it runs it will take a while because it will have to copy everything but every time after that it only copies files that are new or have had changes made to them

Hope this helps

isofa

As sysadmin says, better to use a dedicated hardware solution.

But if you have XP Pro (or I'm sure full versions of Vista) you can do it in software.

Open the Computer Management tool from Admin Tools (or right click My Computer and choose Manage)

Then open the tree to Storage > Disk Management. You now have to setup a Mirror Volume on some empty space.

I suggest you search the Help within Computer Management for "mirrored volume" the help path is Contents > Disk Management > How To > Manage dynamic volumes > Manage a mirrored volume > Create a mirrored volume.

I doubt you can add the external drive to the RAID setup, but you can setup some auto backup systems to run daily.

TheJay

Many thanks for your suggestions!

I should have included my system specs before:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 2.66GHz 1066MHz FSB Socket 775 Motherboard: ASUS P5K-E/WIFI-AP AiLifestyle Series P35 Socket 775 Socket eSATA 8 channel Audio ATX Motherboard RAM: Corsair TwinX 2x2GB DDR2 Storage: 3 x Samsung SpinPoint HD501LJ 500GB SATAII Hard Drive 16MB Cache - OEM Graphics card(s): BFG 8800GTX OC2 768MB GDDR3 Dual DVI HDTV Out HDCP enabled PCI-E Graphics Card PSU: Corsair HX Series 620W Modular PSU - ATX12V v2.2 APFC Case: Kandalf LCS Monitor(s): Samsung 22" LE22S86BDX HD Ready Freeview Widescreen LCD TV
I am quite sure it is possible for me to set up a RAID 1 configuration, although now that I have told you what motherboard I have installed you can see for yourselves.

I suppose having both Windows and Documents on one drive and then setting up a mirror to another drive has its advantages.

Although, for performance related reasons it is better to have Windows on a different hard disk drive so that the Windows drive can run at full speed, whilst the other drive with My Documents and Programs can be mirrored as performance is not so much of an issue.

I have a program called SyncBack installed, which sounds as though it does the same thing as the program you mentioned. Do you have any experience of SyncBack?

isofa

You could also use Microsoft's free SyncToy to sync files between 2 drives.

TheJay

Thank you for your suggestion isofa!

What does everyone think about what I have just said? Anyone got technical advice on setting up a RAID 1 configuration?

esuhl

Personally I stay clear of RAID configurations because a friend's experience after his RAID controller failed. Because the RAID hardware was proprietry, the only way he could recover the data from the array was to find an *identical* motherboard. Unfortunately the motherboard he has was no longer manufactured. Eventually he found one, but it kind of made the data redundancy pointless.

totalsolutions

Three drives and raid, you need Raid 5 - gives you fail safe redundancy

TheJay

totalsolutions wrote: »

Three drives and raid, you need Raid 5 - gives you fail safe redundancy

Hello totalsolutions, thank you for your suggestion. Could you please elaborate and tell me how to set this up and how it would work?

TheJay

Hello?????