Please Advice on RAID 1 and RAID 5

I think that a RAID 5 array created with one controller probably won't be readable with another controller.

In my experience, Silicon Image is junk for RAID. I'd get a better controller, or don't bother with RAID.

Yes, a RAID 1 drive will work in any machine, for data retrieval purposes.

no need to do raid-1 unless the computer needs to be absolutely up without any downtime.

instead, use the one drive inside, the other drive hook up externally and synchronize to that drive then remove it and store it in another area of the house incase of flood or fire. if your primary drive ever dies just drop in the backup drive and go grab a new drive from the store and use that for the backups and so on and so forth you get the point

benefits are still very minimal downtime, external backup free from worry of viruses or fire or electric surge or other natural disasters.

this is better then raid and how most home pc's should be setup.

Raid 5 is inherently less safe than raid 1, the only benefit is higher capacity. Given the complexity of reconstructing a raid 5 array after failure vs. just taking a raid-1 drive and using it unless you need the higher capacity of raid 5 I'd just use the onboard raid-1.

For my home PC i run a 300gb raid-1 array off my MB for initial data drive and then that's backed up to my raid-6 server array where my movie and music library also exist.

I don't know how much data you're trying to backup, but for true "data" files like documents, tax files, etc I've started using an online backup solution as well. I'm actually backing up several gigabytes of photos in addition to that. It's all done in the background and automatically and gives me an off-site way in case the whole house burns down to have my data backed up.

I've just started using carbonite and find it very nice. Inexpensive and although my initial backup took quite awhile due to many gigabytes of photos, now it's very quick. No connection other than satisfied user thus far.

Cheers.

So I need a USB external hard drive for backup?

Firewire or USB, or you could leave it in the PC, you have options

I am not sure what you mean by "synchronize". Is it a software managed backup program?

Yes, it's software process to match the two drives contents by tracking deletions, name changes, modifications, etc. Try second copy, syncback se, even nero does it i think

I plan to use RAID 1 to store important family pictures, videos, and documents etc. and I constantly update them. So if I use an external backup drive, I have to hook it up very often which effectively will behave just like RAID 1 configuration. I bought 3 300 GB Maxtor drives for only $100 each. I could configure 2 of them in RAID 1 to store important stuff and use the last one for general purposes.

But your suggestion about a backup drive also make sense. I could use it to back up the RAID 1 data every month for extra security since external backup drives are very affordable now.

You can hook it up once or twice a month, that's what I do. The security is a little less, you don't get real-time backup but you don't get the risk of hardware/software corrupting the drive or other disasters. Obviously if you are working on an important project you will want to backup frequently and in that case just leave the external by the pc for the time being.

BTW, what's the performance of back up drives nowaday? Can I remove the backup drive out of its box and plug it into a XP PC to retrieve backup data faster?

If the backup process is reliable, I could use using RAID 5 again because if I do a backup every month or when I have a major update, I can always back it up. Thus, it almost like I have a mirror image of RAID 5.

Just to make sure, incremental backup process will be quick. Right?

Thanks.

Performance is very good with USB 2.0 or firewire, not much slower compared to IDE or SATA.

Raid isn't really a replacement for backing up your data. I think Raid5 boils down to being able to replace a failed hard drive while your server is still up and running making you money. If that doesn't sound like what you're doing, I'd go for the USB2/firewire drive and some backup software. Burn some DVD's too. If you really want raid, these Areca cards are hot these days. Raid 6 and hot spares. yeow.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816131004

Think of it this way. There are A LOT of things that can happen to your data on a computer besides mechanical drive failure. RAID is not a true backup solution (or a good one) for data you don't want to risk losing. RAID is about uptime and/or speed. Yes, I realize it's often misapplied by consumers or mishyped by consumer sources.

Also, look at Microsoft's Synctoy (Win XP Powertoys) which runs through drives/directories and matches files and records. It's free and newer versions are reportedly decent and likely a great solution for your purposes.

I disagree with some of the people above. RAID 5 is useful for home networks. However, they're right - it definitely is NOT backup. Most people use Media Servers for data that is not unique - like DVD rips or a Music Library. If you lose the some of the data or accidentally delete something, it's not critical because you have the original media. Other people like me use it to store HDTV recordings. But, even that, it's "just TV". No biggie if you accidentally delete it, so no backup is needed. RAID 5 protects you from THE MOST LIKELY loss of data that's not caused by a user - a single hard disk electro-mechanical failure. To me, it's worth spending the extra money for RAID 5 for two reasons. First, it presents a single large storage space. Second, if a drive fails, I just replace it and the data is automatically regenerated saving you time from re-ripping media that was lost on a bad disk. The thing you need to be really careful about is using LVM or RAID striping on a large number of disks without redundancy. In some of these scenarios, a single disk failure can cause the loss of all the data on all the drives. That is really bad news - even if you have the original media. I cannot imagine re-ripping a terabyte of media. So, if you don't do RAID 5, make sure that a single disk failure doesn't lose more than a single disk worth of data.

External hard drives like USB 2 or Firewire contain the following:
1. Case
2. Hard drive
3. Power Supply
4. Interface Bridge Board

That's it. They're very simple. You can find cheap external cases that provide everything but the hard drive, but beware of heat dissipation. The Maxtor branded external USB 2.0 hard drive I bought has a thick metal case and a fan to dissipate heat very well. It also has power management so that it can spin down the drive after a user-configurable amount of time. This is very good for a backup drive that stays plugged in for automatically scheduled backups. OTOH, the cheap external enclosure I bought for a different use, has terrible heat dissipation and no power management. It gets very hot to the touch in 15 minutes of use. I connect, use and "safely remove" this drive with every use. Leaving this drive powered is just asking to kill the drive with excessive heat.

- Mike

I just started messing around with SyncBack FREE and it's really a great program! I am looking for a solution to backup my TV Shows that I record on BeyondTV to an external USB Hard Drive and it works flawlessly! It's great with the syncronize option too! I will probably upgrade to the SE version for thirty bucks because it can copy files that are currently open, while the free version cannot.

hi, about your raid5 let see ur board went bad you can buy the same spec's with ur current board, yes still gonna work as long you copy the old config from ur drive to the raid controller (as long its the same spec's from the old bad board or same chipset)

The major hardware RAID vendors have forward compatibility. For example, if you had a 3Ware 8506 controller go bad, you could upgrade to a 9550SX or even a 9650SE and plug the same drives in the same order and your array would be fine. The performance would be better and the interface might be different, but they do provide a migration path. I think they also have lifetime warranty. You get what you pay for.

- Mike