I recently had a problem with a 4-disk array that was mirrored and striped. I'm still recovering from it, and the incident raised some questions in my mind.

It might be safer to arrange my disks in to RAID groups and stripe each of them, then use one, and do a daily backup to the other. This way, if there is a problem with one set, the RAID controller shouldn't automatically propagate it to the other. It seems that it might be easier to recover from an outage in this configuration.

The disadvantage would be the need to do the update daily, and the fact that if there is an outage, it would mean losing all data since the most recent backup.

To do the backup, one could use backup software and store in some sort of archive format, or use something like the Unix rsync, and keep a live copy.

Does anyone have thoughts or comments on this idea?

Thanks,

David

hello dbritch

could you please do a sig of your hardware configuration so we can give you better advice? Then we can see how big your HD are etc etc.....

Everyone has their own ideas about the safest way to run an array. Two things to be aware of are that any HDD that is permanently attached to your system and running full time is a backup only in the case of a HDD mechanical failure.

In a mirror array, if one drive gets corrupted the other, in all likelihood, will suffer the same fate since they are duplicates of each other. RAID 1 is only protection against Disk Failure, nothing else.

The only way to truly back up your hard drive is to have an independent drive hooked up externally, in its own enclosure, that is not connected unless it is being used. You can use e-SATA or link it to a free SATA port through a PCI hole and get normal SATA speed read/write. When you are done backing up or using it, turn the thing off which will protect it from Viruses or system failures.

I'll have to echo that. I run RAID 0 on all of the systems in the house and back up to externals. The only time that has failed me is on my wife's machine. She steadfastly refuses to turn off the external when the backup is not running. It takes me less than 45 minutes to restore my raid completely from the external.