Im going to be buying a second 2TB drive later this week and was thinking about putting them in RAID1. I realized that i cant do that without formatting both drives (this wont work since I only have one drive with all my info on it). I then thought of just manually backing up all the files, and then it hit me. Even if I could RAID1 without format I would still rather do a backup scheme since RAID1 isnt as reliable. I understand that I get double read speeds, but I would have to conform to one controller (unless i did windows based) and if a virus took out one drive (deleted everything) it would automatically do the same to the other, or if I accidentally delete somthing on one drive ti will do the deletion to the other as well. Are there any real benefits to RAID1 besides read speeds that i havent considered? I pretty much have my heart set on a manual backup setup.
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Manual backup safer than RAID1?
- Thread starter Smoblikat
- Start date
yhelothar
Lifer
How is RAID1 not backup? It's basically a real-time backup of your drive.
RAID1 also doesn't does not give you double read speeds. That's RAID0. RAID1 has no performance gains since it's basically copying the exact same information on both drive. RAID0 is where there are performance gains as you're copying half the data on one drive and half on the other.
RAID1 also doesn't does not give you double read speeds. That's RAID0. RAID1 has no performance gains since it's basically copying the exact same information on both drive. RAID0 is where there are performance gains as you're copying half the data on one drive and half on the other.
mv2devnull
Golden Member
Yes, every file that you mistakenly convert to crap will be carefully written to both drives. How do you restore the original from that?
Engineer
Elite Member
Raid1 is redundancy, not a backup. If you delete a file on RAID1, it's gone. If you delete a file and it's backed up, you have a copy. I guess it can be considered a hardware backup (in case one drive fails) but it's not backing up your files.
Concillian
Diamond Member
RAID 1 protects against random hard drive failure.
Manual (external) backups can be done to protect against more, like
- lightning strike takes out your entire computer
- if kept off-site or in a fireproof safe, can protect against a house fire
- accidental deletion / corruption
Part of a backup strategy is managing frequency. Too frequent (RAID1) leads to exposure to accidents & viruses. Not frequent enough has obvious issues as well.
Whatever you choose, make it as easy and automated as possible, because if it's too cumbersome, you might start skipping it.
Manual (external) backups can be done to protect against more, like
- lightning strike takes out your entire computer
- if kept off-site or in a fireproof safe, can protect against a house fire
- accidental deletion / corruption
Part of a backup strategy is managing frequency. Too frequent (RAID1) leads to exposure to accidents & viruses. Not frequent enough has obvious issues as well.
Whatever you choose, make it as easy and automated as possible, because if it's too cumbersome, you might start skipping it.
yhelothar
Lifer
It's still somewhat of a backup, as you mentioned.
It's definitely not the ultimate backup, which I totally agree.
RAID0 isnt RAID, and it gives double reads AND writes, I believe RAID1 gives double reads since the information is in the exact same place and the exact same information.
From wiki:
In RAID 1 (mirroring without parity or striping), data is written identically to two drives, thereby producing a "mirrored set"; at least two drives are required to constitute such an array. While more constituent drives may be employed, many implementations deal with a maximum of only two; of course, it might be possible to use such a limited level 1 RAID itself as a constituent of a level 1 RAID, effectively masking the limitation.[citation needed] The array continues to operate as long as at least one drive is functioning. With appropriate operating system support, there can be increased read performance, and only a minimal write performance reduction; implementing RAID 1 with a separate controller for each drive in order to perform simultaneous reads (and writes) is sometimes called multiplexing (or duplexing when there are only two drives).
Ad from this site:
http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=200417
So it gives double reads, and nearly the same write speeds as a single drive. Though, from all of the posts in this thread I am quite confident that I made the right choice in doing a manual backup scheme. I will probobly have it run automatically wednesday nights or somthing like that.
Last edited:
yhelothar
Lifer
Yes you get double reads, but you said double read speed in your OP.
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yhelothar
Lifer
It IS double read speed.
0% = Single disk, this shows speeds in percentage.
OK I just read your link. Interesting, I never knew RAID1 and RAID0 had identical read performance. It does make sense how that would work.
yhelothar
Lifer
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2319/2
This is where I first learned about RAID. It says it usually doesn't provide performance benefits, and the double read with RAID1 only comes with high performance controllers(I assume hardware RAID and not the software RAID that's integrated onto the motherboard.)
This is where I first learned about RAID. It says it usually doesn't provide performance benefits, and the double read with RAID1 only comes with high performance controllers(I assume hardware RAID and not the software RAID that's integrated onto the motherboard.)
Do you have some data on that corruption? it would be interesting to know.
I think its just what happens when you run RAID1, same data in the same spot means you can get half from each drive.
Silenus
Senior member
RAID of any kind is not a backup AT ALL. Unless your thinking about it as a physical backup of a physical drive....not as any kind of DATA backup. But it's better not to use the "backup" word at all when talking about RAID. It is simply hardware redundancy to keep you going in case of a physical drive failure.
It's easy to see why when you simply list what RAID protects again, and what a backup protects against:
RAID-
1) Protects against a physical drive failure while maintaining up time.
BACKUP-
1) Protects against physical drive failure (with some downtime while restoring).
2) Protects against unintended changes/corruption to important data.
3) Protects against accidental deletion of important data.
4) Protects against catastrophic loss of hardware/data due to lighting, fire, flood (with offsite backup especially).
5) Gives version history of important data (depending on backup solution).
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