Backup MBP & 3 Lacie drives - RAID array?

[Peter Cushion]

Hi

I have recently had a 500 GB Lacie drive fail on me. 'Luckily', it was one of my newest so the data was not as sorely missed as it could have been. This has got me thinking about backup though. I am not as concerned with me deleting a file and then wanting it back - more with hardware failing and everything on it being lost.

The three Lacies are 500GB, 320GB, 250GB and are connected via Firewire 800 to my MBP. I believe Raid 1 mirrored is the way to go, i.e. I don't want the speed from being striped. How do I connect the RAID array - gigabit ethernet? The 500GB has eSATA (?) but the rest did not.

Any places to start looking would be greatly appreciated as this is all new and difficult for me. I went Mac due to the 'it just works' thing, but now it seems I've got to get my hands dirty!

TIA for any advice on where/how to start - cheers pc

 

[merl1n]

Hi

I have recently had a 500 GB Lacie drive fail on me. 'Luckily', it was one of my newest so the data was not as sorely missed as it could have been. This has got me thinking about backup though. I am not as concerned with me deleting a file and then wanting it back - more with hardware failing and everything on it being lost.

The three Lacies are 500GB, 320GB, 250GB and are connected via Firewire 800 to my MBP. I believe Raid 1 mirrored is the way to go, i.e. I don't want the speed from being striped. How do I connect the RAID array - gigabit ethernet? The 500GB has eSATA (?) but the rest did not.

Any places to start looking would be greatly appreciated as this is all new and difficult for me. I went Mac due to the 'it just works' thing, but now it seems I've got to get my hands dirty!

TIA for any advice on where/how to start - cheers pc

Since the drives are all different sizes, the maximum RAID1 volume you can create would be 250GB (the smallest drive) for a 3 disk RAID1 volume, or 320GB for a 2 disk RAID1 volume. You can partition the two larger drives or one larger drive, (and use the free space for something else) but your RAID partitions must all be the same size. You can connect them via Firewire 800 in a daisy chain.

Use Disk Utility to create the RAID1 volume.

 

[Peter Cushion]

Oh right. I was hoping there would be some magic backup software that would create a backup file for each Lacie drive, say once a week, and distribute it across the discs. I don't want to get anything off the array unless one of the Lacies fails. I can handle losing a week's worth of file changes.

cheers PC