Mirrored HD's? Why?

[KillyKillall]

Why would someone mirror 2-80GB drives on a server rather than install 1-160 GB drive? Is thre any reason to do so?

 

[Leros]

In case one harddrive fails, you still have your data on the other. For important data, mirroing can be vital.

 

[KillyKillall]

Is it hard to set it up? How would one go about doing that?

 

[albumleaf]

google raid.

 

[KoolDrew]

Originally posted by: JToxic
In case one harddrive fails, you still have your data on the other. For important data, mirroing can be vital.

 

[KillyKillall]

Thanks. I appreciate it. I don't know why I never figured that out in my head..I guess I've just never really needed to set it up before.

 

[JackMDS]

You can also mirror Drives across Network and into NAS. ( http://www.ezlan.net.nas.html )

It can be set easy with software that does it automatically like this one: viceversa

:sun:

 

[EULA]

Originally posted by: JToxic
In case one harddrive fails, you still have your data on the other. For important data, mirroing can be vital.

saved my ass a couple times...

 

[Zepper]

Mirroring (RAID 1) is for minimizing down time (The same data is written to two drives almost simultaneously. If one drive goes bad, the other soldiers on until you have time to replace the bad one). It is not considered adequate for bulletproof data backup. I use a big, cheap HD in a FW or USB2 enclosure for backup. I believe that mirroring can be done right in WinXP w/o needing any other hardware or software at all - but it may be the Pro version...
. Most of the cheap IDE RAID controllers (that can do RAID levels 0, 1 and 0+1) aren't capable of "Hot-Swap". Hot-Swap is nice because you can swap out a bad drive without stopping the computer at all - but quite a bit more expensive, the drive cage alone is over $100.

.bh.

 

[0roo0roo]

things that spin at thousands of rpms per second are just asking to die.

 

[Bar81]

If you care about your data, you use RAID 1 at the very least.

 

[theMan]

Originally posted by: KillyKillall
Is it hard to set it up? How would one go about doing that?

first of all, you need to have a raid capable motherboard. then you have to follow the instructions for the board. there is usually a program, a lot of times before the OS loads that you use to set things up.

 

[0roo0roo]

or an addon board

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: KillyKillall
Is it hard to set it up? How would one go about doing that?

Mirroring is pretty simple to set up. All you need are two identicle hardrives and a controller card with error control. Raid Volumes are generaly setup by the user in the controller cards BIOS.

http://www.lsilogic.com/products/megaraid/scsi_320_4x.html

or a pci-express version
http://www.lsilogic.com/products/megaraid/megaraid_320_2e.html

 

[Zepper]

Note to Killy: I substantially edited my earlier post - worth a second look!

Here are some links with RAID info:

SR-RAID1
SR RAID2
AT RAID1
AT RAID2

If you decide to try some RAID and it is not already available on your mobo, I have a new IBM (LSI MegaRAID ATA 133-2) 71P8592 kit available for cheap. PM me.

.bh.

 

[FoxyProxy]

They run better when they can see each other!

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: KillyKillall
Why would someone mirror 2-80GB drives on a server rather than install 1-160 GB drive? Is thre any reason to do so?

Also when you mirror 2 80GB Drives you will only has 80gb of storage avalable. In order to get 160gb of storage you will need two 160gb Hard Drives.

 

[Continuity27]

Well, think of it this way.

You need 80GB of storage, and you demand it to be up all the time and protected.

You can do RAID 1 (Mirroring) which uses two 80GB drives. They are identical copies of each other, when you write something, it gets written to both. If one dies, you simply pull it out, put in a new 80GB drive, the RAID rebuilds itself in the background, all the while you have the other drive fully operational still doing all the work the other left off at.

It helps to have a case that offers easily hot swappable drives and either SCSI or SATA drives due to the ability to hot-swap. Otherwise you'll need to turn off the computer and/or open the case to add a new drive to the array.

 

[Jadow]

Raid 5 is what real pimps use