RAID 1 and HDD help!

[roland.g]

I am looking to get a RAID 1 mirror solution to free up space on my internal drive. This drive will only be used for iTunes (iPhoto will be left internal) and the data on the internal will be backed up to a separate drive via Time Machine but this data will not, hence the RAID 1 mirror. This is my first foray into RAID but from all my research looks like the best option.

I am looking at getting a NewerTech Guardian Maximus RAID 1 case from OWC, just the case, though they do have a couple other options that are slightly cheaper. Thought about the Drobo but just don't trust it. Would love a OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 but I can't afford it.

I am then looking to put 2 2TB drives into the RAID case. As this drive will house all iTunes which is always running and movies and music are often streamed to my Apple TV, and I have a growing collection of HD movies now too, I am curious on the need for a pair of 7200 vs. 5900 or 5400 drives since the files are 2-6 GB in size. Also looking at manufacturer. Seagate, Western Digital, Hitachi, Samsung.

Please any feedback and votes would be great.

 

[ChrisA]

I am looking to get a RAID 1 mirror solution to free up space on my internal drive. This drive will only be used for iTunes (iPhoto will be left internal) and the data on the internal will be backed up to a separate drive via Time Machine but this data will not, hence the RAID 1 mirror. .

RAID is NOT a backup solution or a replacement for one. Your best best to to buy two external drives and use one to backup the other. You gain very little by using RAID. Two external drives is more secure (lower risk of data loss) and costs less.

Or just buy a larger Time Machine drive.

 

[talmy]

Ditto. And that's a bare minimum. You need an offsite backup for best security, and you need at least two of them (at least three total copies of your files!) Also, while TimeMachine is great for recovering accidentally deleted or edited file, it's no substitute for having (in addition) an image backup using SuperDuper!, Carbon Copy Cloner, or equivalent.

RAID 1 is only good for drive failures when down time cannot be tolerated. It doesn't protect you against controller failures, accidental deletion of files, theft, fire,...

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Not to continue beating the dead horse; but I have to concur.

RAID-1 is *NOT AT ALL* a replacement for backing up. It is *SOLELY* about maintaining maximum uptime in case of hardware failure. And I can't imagine an iTunes library is that important that you can't live without it for the half hour to two hours it would take to restore a backup.

It would actually make a lot *MORE* sense to put the iPhoto library on a RAID (in addition to backing up, of course,) as it's the kind of thing that in general, you REALLY don't want to lose.

My setup is as follows:
iTunes on a 2 TB drive that doubles as my Time Machine backup drive. (Yup, that's right, if my backup drive fails, I lose my iTunes.) However, I separately back up the 'purchased items' to a shared drive on another machine. So if my direct-connect backup drive fails, I can always re-import my CDs and DVDs, and the purchased items are stored on a second machine.)
iPhoto and my iMovie imports are on a RAID-1 enclosure (Western Digital MyBook Pro,) and are both backed up to the 2 TB drive. This is almost full, I really need to separate out iPhoto and iMovie. I'll probably set up an internal RAID-1 on my rather puny 146 GB drives that I've been using as scratch drives. 146 GB is still plenty big for my iPhoto library. Again, continue to back up to external drive.

Whenever I leave the house for more than a weekend, I put the "primary" drives in my in-house fireproof safe, and take the backup drive to someone else's house.

 

[roland.g]

I went with a Guardian Maximus and am putting 2 2TB Hitachi 7200 RPM drives in it. After reading the responses, maybe this wasn't the best way to go, but I feel fairly confident in the solution. I suppose I can get a 2TB MyBook Essentials from Costco $169.99 and manually copy a mix of the Time Machine files and iTunes files (purchases and whatever else fits) onto that for offsite storage. Though I am not sure at this juncture where that would be.

My other option would be to keep the 2TB drives and send back the Maximus case, get 2 cases and put them in there, using the store and copy solution. Though I probably would want to use a incremental copy software to backup the new data to the 2nd drive.

EDIT:

Thanks for all the feedback, somehow I didn't see your responses before I ordered Thursday morning, but I went ahead after much thought and told them I will be sending back the RAID 1 for a full refund. I lose $10 shipping on my stupidity. And I ordered instead 2 drive cases for my 2 bare drives I had ordered. One will be my data drive and is a quad interface, and the other is the backup for that, which obviously I can move offsite. The second case is FW400 and USB, a little cheaper. I think it would be overkill to pay for two FW800 drive cases. I can use CCCs incremental backup features, or some other software to backup and may consider leaving out all the non-purchased video.

Thanks again.