How redundant is RAID 1?

L31mr0d

Ok so i'm setting up a PC for my parents, I have 2xSeagate 250GB drives.

They specifically requested that it automatically backs up their photos and files on the computer. Now my first thought for this was to set up a RAID 1, which has been set up.

But now in heindsight, i'm thinking, they are more likely to lose their photos from a virus than a harddrive failure, would I be right? So I'm thinking that as its a RAID 1, both drives would get infected with the same virus thus if one drive becomes irrecoverable, the other will also.

So should I leave the RAID 1 intact? Or should I set up XP MCE on 1 drive then install some program specifically to backup only files and photos (say in the my documents folder) onto the second drive? What programs would you's recommend for doing it?

zilog_jones

I doubt most viruses will do much damage to photos or any documents.

watty

In order of likely hood:
1) Accidental user Deletion
2) Hard drive failure *
3) PSU fail and blow controllers on Drive (data recoverable though)
4) Deliberate deletion by someone else using PC
5) Faulty Mem/CPu /OS damages files
6) Virus or Trojan

* Only (2) is protected by RAID1

zilog_jones

Good points there.

I use SyncToy (available somewhere on the MS website) for making backups of files to my external hard disk. However I don't know well it does backups automatically - it can be done through Task Scheduler (explained clearly in the Help), but I've never tried it myself.

Villain

Schedule a backup using the built in backup with XP, Raid 1 for simply backing up photos and documents is a bit OTT imo.

L31mr0d

watty wrote:

In order of likely hood:
1) Accidental user Deletion
2) Hard drive failure *
3) PSU fail and blow controllers on Drive (data recoverable though)
4) Deliberate deletion by someone else using PC
5) Faulty Mem/CPu /OS damages files
6) Virus or Trojan

* Only (2) is protected by RAID1

good points. gives me plenty food for thought. I hadn't factored that my parents, unwittingly, might delete their photos. Heres a question, as its raid 1, can I just turn off the RAID in the BIOS then boot normally from one of the drives then wipe the other one?

BostonB

RAID is not the immediate answer to this problem. What happens if the PC and RAID is stolen in a break in? Lots of precious photos lost.

Do some googling on "backup strategies"

For example.

http://free-backup.info/separation-is-critical-to-your-backup-strategy.html

leeroybrown

The problem is that people confuse redundancy with backup. As was pointed out above a two drive RAID1 will only protect against a single drive failure. While this is by far the most likely hardware problem to cause data loss it doesn't cover everything. Redundancy is just a way to minimise disruption caused by one or more failures not to prevent data loss.

Given that your parents requested backup of the photos then I would suggest the easiest solution would be an external hard drive with some automated backup software. Just plug it in occasionally and update the backup. Ideally it should only be plugged in for backups and be stored elsewhere.

L31mr0d

they need an all-in-one automated solution. An external HDD isn't really an option, they are already giving out about the amount of space the NSK1300 case I have it in is taking up. Plus I already have 2 drives, there's no point buying another external drive at this point.

I have no problem demolishing the RAID 1, but i'd like to put in place a decent backup alternative. I won't be at my parents house very often so it needs to be automated and happen whenever my parents put new photos on the drive. Burglery is the last of my worries really so I don't need the photos to be held in a safe in some remote corner of the house. I'll be showing my parents how to do DVD backups anyway, so that tide them over.

I'm looking into some type of software that will give a dvd backup alert every time a folder increases in size by say 4.4GB's? Anyone know of such a notification software?