Mirroring hard disks

I purchased two 500-GB HDDs, one to rip my (current and future) CD collection to, the other one for backup.

I'd be interested in knowing if anyone has had experience with RAID 1 or similar process to mirror disks, should I do it or not, or should I just copy the contents of one disk to the other from time to time.

If RAID 1 is a good idea, how do I go about it (do I need dedicated software)

My box is Windows XP

Thanks in advance and a happy new year to all.

 

if you bought SATA drives, then RAID could be for you. PATA is still possible but is a little more specialised.

If SATA, your motherboard should have RAID support in the BIOS.

If not, then a healthy backup plan is all I would suggest.

just out of interest, what drives did you buy?

 

Thanks, the HDDs are LaCie "Big disk extreme" with firewire 800/400 and USB interfaces. They run very silent. Would that be SATA, I don't know. As for the BIOS I must admit I never ventured that far...

 

These are external drives, RAID over USB or firewire? I doubt it is possible.

(unless anyone else knows how to do this?)

 

Sir, those Big Disk Extreme drives I believe are already RAID 0 internally (someone correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that they make up the larger disk by combining two smaller drives via striping) - I have the 320Gb version. Anyway, they're SATA drives internally, but your interface to the outside world is constrained by either the FW or USB max speed. FW800 is the king of the hill for this, and USB2 and FW400 are much of a muchness. However, you'll probably be nowhere near any of these limits in practical usage.

 

IAmBoy, subject to the proviso that I might be talking mince, these LaCie drives are basically two smaller drives in a hardware RAID 0 (striping) configuration internally, inside a pretty enclosure, with USB and FW outputs (no SATA or PATA connections). Some LaCies are now available as 'Network Drives', i.e. they have their own assignable IP and Ethernet port.

So, it's not at all like adding two drives inside a PC and much simpler. If Sir has two of these units, then that will be somewhat complicated, but I believe a Mac can do it natively using OSX software raid, and probably a PC can too - but I may be wrong on this too.

 

They are indeed two separate external drives. One is connected to the PC via firewire 400 (all I have) and both units are interconnected by firewire 800.

I really would like not to have to backup manually, as it entails copying loads of data (the complete disk each time, as there is no easy way (AFIK) to know what's been added since last backup), instead of just what's being added

 

Sir, with due respect my good fellow, what I meant was that each distinct LaCie enclosure contains (if I'm not wrong) a pair of matched hard-disk drives, operating via RAID-0 (hardware) and then connected to the outside world as a single, bigger disk.

SO, RAID-ing the already-RAID-ed drives probably won't gain you much.

If you decide you don't want to go down this route, I may be interested in purchasing one of them. I'm not sure you would be able to operate a RAID-1 arrangement using independent FW drives using a PC - perhaps a Mac, I'll check - so the best you might be able to get is the arrangement you have already, and the manual process.

That said, there are lots of software packages which will automate such tasks for you.

Yours, etc.,

Mr John

 

JTC is correct about the internal operation of these disks. The easiest way to use these 2 disks (one for storage the other as backup) would be using backup software to do the job periodically for you. (im fairly sure you could mirror them actually but it really isnt worth the hassle)

You can schedule this, or do it at the click of a button when you choose and it will merely perform an incremental backup - only copying across the most recent files since the last backup. There are plenty of 3rd party and freeware backup programs that will do this.

 

You can raid 1 with windows XP. Its built into the OS and can be done when adding the disks under local compter management - disk management after you have plugged in the disks. It has a performance impact but for CD storage management you should have no problems.

For me, if you dont need the space, mirroring (raid-1) is a good way to go quicker restore and if you lose a disk rebuilding is mostly done for you

 

You may want to consider sending the drives back and getting internal ones?

Unless you plan to unplug them and take them elsewhere, it would be safer. I can imagine a situation where they are RAID1 and you accidently remove one or unplug the power to one. The whole thing would get pretty messed up.

Internal drives are cheaper and most of the time a bit faster (though if those are RAID 0 inside anyway they will be working near the limit of USB or FireWire), when they want to read from buffer that will certainly not be going at its full speed.

The rather nice drive I had before this one managed a sustained rate of 45mb/s which is above what USB 2 can handle I believe. Not to mention when it read from the 8mb buffer.

 

I dont think you can create Software Raid 1 (mirroring) under XP Home or Prof on the same machine its running on (the add mirror option is greyed out even with the disks attached). Perhaps there is an update im unaware of. (although you can hack the required files in order to make the feature available)

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=307880

 

RAID IS NOT A BACKUP. If your OS goes haywire and scribbles on both disks you're screwed. You have a powersupply spike that wipes out both disc controllers you're screwed. You "delete" every file on your system, raid will make sure every file is gone, so you're screwed.

It's what I do. I have a USB2.0 external drive and after I rip 20 or so new CD's I hook up the external drive and copy across the new stuff - it's trivial using linux...

 

Thats what I was going to say! Why not just set an automatic backup. You can set Ghost to create an image of your drive. Set your computer to turn on at 4am (usually a BIOS option) or something and do it for an hour while you are asleep.

 

Thanks to all for the input. I have to pack and leave for an extended week-end, will look at the options when I'm back. Please keep posting while I'm gone

Happy new year to all.