On 21 May 2004 01:39:00 GMT, (TANKIE) wrote:

I have a ton of files (50 gig and growing) that I am very tired of backing up
and managing. I saw a RAID card for $60 for a PC that runs 2 mirrored hard
drives. Also saw 120 gig hard drives for $60.

Hmmm… for $180 I get true RAID with BIG drives in my desktop! This means
that I don't have to make periodic CD backups nearly so often. Change
something on one drive and it gets done on both without me having to think
about it. And it is very unlikely that both drives will go down at once.

A severe power surge or virus that takes down one would be quite likely to
take down the 2nd as well. Well, the virus just corrupts the files or
other logical mischief, but same difference so far as the data is
concerned.


What happens if one drive dies? Does the other one seamlessly take over, or
must the PC be rebooted? Do I have to take it apart to swap cables, or would it
just keep running? If it just keeps running, how do I know that a drive is
dead?

The manufacturer's utility will alert you when the drive has failed. Many
such utilities (maybe all of them by now?) will even email you. The
system will keep running and you would have access to all files still,
providing it really is just one of the two drives that failed, not some
other issue that would affect the whole PC.

RAID1 isn't as great a data backup strategy as it is a way to keep
important systems up and providing service 24/7 with no interruptions.



Are there any drawbacks to running RAID on a PC? Anyone have experience
mirroring drives like this? Your comments appreciated.

thanks

It is an additional level of safety but not a good replacement for backup
to a seperate system, drive or preferribly removable data, or for those
with really important data it's suggested to keep the backup off-site.

If for whatever reason you do feel a drive failure is likely you might
first determine WHY. The drawbacks are subtle, more noise, more heat and
electricity usage, over double the cost for drives and controller, and in
many cases the drive I/O is significantly slower from any configuration of
"PC" PCI IDE RAID than it would be from a southbridge-integrated IDE
controller. Read speeds are faster than if a single drive array but still
you might find a single drive attached to southbridge controller is
signficantly faster, though for many storage purposes it doesn't matter
how fast it is, should still be well above 30MB/s.