RAID 1 for external Harddrives?

[meulemaster]

Hello experts Colonel Noob here,

I have a question concerning backing up my data. So here is the deal.

I currently have a 2TB WD mirror edition that is setup in RAID 1 so it will mirror all my data. Now I also have a bunch of other drives laying around which I also feel the need to back up and currently I am doing this by doing a whole bunch of dragging and dropping and copying and pasting etc etc etc and this is making me very tired.

I know that a setup is possible in disk utility but I am not at all sure about how to configure it so I wont lose any of my data.

Some details about my setup:

Mac OS X 10.5.6
PowerPc G5
Harddrives: two 1TB WD MyBooks, and two 500gig WD Mybooks --> these pairs need to mirror each other and make my life less of a hassle.

Any suggestions?Tips?

And I apologize if this is a really dumb question....

Cheers,

Colin from Holland

 

[senorfrog97]

I'm interested in a solution to this as well

 

[rylin]

The easy way out when backing up large amounts of data is to use:
* More harddrives, if you want to be able to access everything with short notice
* Tape, if you don't mind having to wait while the tapes are seeking and uncompressing your data

For the harddrive solution, have a look at QNAP's products.
They'll handle RAID, iSCSI, CIFS/SMB, NFS etc. at a reasonable price.

Personally, I'm considering a QNAP TS-509 or 609, though I might opt to build my own instead.

Or do you just want to archive your current disks to the 2TB unit?

Always keep in mind that RAID is not backup -- it's for reliability and/or performance.

If this isn't the answer you're looking for, I'm afraid I didn't quite understand the question

 

[dagomike]

I think you're likely to have a performance hit with the RAID 1. I would rather just build an external case with good cooling and a proven, top of the line server drive, then use Time Machine. The idea here is you'll have a backup solution that's less likely to fail, plus have the ability to go back to a specific date and fix a user generated oops. Can't do that with RAID. Like said, RAID isn't a backup. It's operational redundancy. If you need even more reliability than a HDD, go tape.

 

[slughead]

lol server drive... Modern SATAs are stupidly reliable.

Your performance hit is not going to be noticeable. Did you hear someone say they noticed a performance hit? They were lying, or they're insane.

save your money, use a RAID 1.

Disk utility has a software RAID option that works just fine. It does RAID0 and RAID 1. I guess you want RAID1.

as for transferring your data beforehand, you can probably make an image of the drive with disk util, but that'd be huge.

 

[Trip.Tucker]

lol server drive... Modern SATAs are stupidly reliable.

Your performance hit is not going to be noticeable. Did you hear someone say they noticed a performance hit? They were lying, or they're insane.

save your money, use a RAID 1.

Disk utility has a software RAID option that works just fine. It does RAID0 and RAID 1. I guess you want RAID1.

as for transferring your data beforehand, you can probably make an image of the drive with disk util, but that'd be huge.

Raid 1 does incur a small performance hit as data is written and then verified.

You really should Google mfp and server drives before giggling about a topic you don't seem to understand.

A little punctuation and capitilization goes a long way so people don't immediately read your post as having come from a 12 year old.

 

[Cromulent]

lol server drive... Modern SATAs are stupidly reliable.

Yet not as reliable as server drives.

 

[misterredman]

To the OP: This is very important:

Always keep in mind that RAID is not backup -- it's for reliability and/or performance.

What exactly do you want to accomplish? Knowing that would help give a better answer.

 

[slughead]

Raid 1 does incur a small performance hit as data is written and then verified.

You really should Google mfp and server drives before giggling about a topic you don't seem to understand.

I know two things about server drives: They cost 3 times as much, and they're not 3 times as reliable. There is no reason for someone not running a server to not just use a RAID 1 (or even Time Machine and no RAID, for chrissake).

This, as far as we know, is an average person. Why are server drives a necessity??

That's what I was saying. I can giggle about server drives all I want: they're over-priced and nobody but eccentric weirdos and big corporations should use them.

Did I say ANYTHING that was false? No. I'm telling this guy to use a RAID 1 or time machine, and guess what? he'll probably be fine with it. The end.

A little punctuation and capitilization goes a long way so people don't immediately read your post as having come from a 12 year old.

Thanks for that! Clearly, I care!