Time Machine with a Raid 1 Setup

[andersonmattt]

I have two questions. Firstly, I am considering buying a western digital MyBook Studio Edition II http://www.westerndigital.com/en/pro...sp?driveid=621. If I use time machine with this drive, will I be able to remove one of the drives and keep it off-site for safekeeping and have time machine continue to backup on the remaining one as usual?

Secondly, if i remove drive #2 and keep it off site, would dropping it back into the raid setup update drive #2 with drive #1's current time machine backup?

Thanks, I'm new to raid, and I am basically trying to have a time machine backup, and a off site backup. If there's an easier way to do this, it would be much appreciated

 

[r.j.s]

The WD drives are sealed, swapping drives would not be practical.

You need to look at something that is hot-swappable: http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=11140

 

[Sleepy Dog]

The WD drives are sealed, swapping drives would not be practical.

You need to look at something that is hot-swappable: http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=11140

There is a MyBook Word Edition II, which does have removable drives.

 

[andersonmattt]

The studio II has hot swapable drives, I belive. Check out the link

 

[r.j.s]

There is a MyBook Word Edition II, which does have removable drives.

World editions are also NAS, not local drives.

The studio II has hot swapable drives, I belive. Check out the link

I don't see it anywhere ... and my two Studio II drives in the office are not hot-swappable.

 

[andersonmattt]

Ok, well assuming I do get a hot swapable raid drive, I still need the original questions answered. Can I remove one drive and have time machine backu nas normal, then replace the drive and have it copy all the data?

 

[nanofrog]

If I use time machine with this drive, will I be able to remove one of the drives and keep it off-site for safekeeping and have time machine continue to backup on the remaining one as usual?

Yes, but it's not meant for that. It will immediately enter a degraded state when you pull the drive.

Secondly, if i remove drive #2 and keep it off site, would dropping it back into the raid setup update drive #2 with drive #1's current time machine backup?

Yes, its the rebuild process.

Thanks, I'm new to raid, and I am basically trying to have a time machine backup, and a off site backup. If there's an easier way to do this, it would be much appreciated

RAID 1 isn't meant to do what you're intending. You just need to set the backup to work on two separate drives. If that doesn't work (automatic settings), you'd use TM to make a backup. Then duplicate that to another drive.

 

[andersonmattt]

Well, I understand that raid 1 is not intended for this purpose, but it just seems much easier to plug in a drive and have raid to duplicate the disk for me.

 

[nanofrog]

Well, I understand that raid 1 is not intended for this purpose, but it just seems much easier to plug in a drive and have raid to duplicate the disk for me.

I figured that was the case. 🙂 It seems an easy way to do it on the surface, but unfortunately, RAID has a fit when it's running in a degraded state. It's unstable at this point, and failures can happen. As it's a backup, it's not critical, unless the primary data is corrupted/lost, and the backups are also toast. At that point, I don't think you'd be a very happy camper, particularly as you're trying to have a proper backup system in the first place. 😀

 

[andersonmattt]

Oh well. I guess I'll just have to manualy duplicate the disk. Not a big deal. Thank you all