Raid 0 + backup

Hi,

I'm interested in getting 2x160GB barracuda 7200.9 drives to stripe in raid 0 for great speed and storage capacity.

I want automatically back up just my work folder to a seperate single 80 gig drive, which will be housed either in this machine or on the network. I'd like windows to automatically do this back up once a day or when I turn off the pc. Please advise.

Of course the downside of a stripe is that you have double the chance of a critical failure -- either one of the drives dieing results in you losing all your data.

There's various backup programs that can automagically copy things around for you, or you can do a quick & dirty scheduled xcopy command:

In the windows scheduler, use something like this:

xcopy c:\myworkfolder\* d:\mydestinationfolder\ /e /c /h /o

(Including empty folders, continue on errors, including system+hidden files, copy file ownership & permissions)

You can also add a /M to only copy changed files. It won't remove deleted files from the destination folder, only copy new ones into it.

But like everything else, use at your own risk.

Make sure you do back up, loss of either drive in raid 0 will Zap all your data on those drives (essentially doubles your chance of loss). Not a real problem if you just have games / reloadable stuff on there, but a real bummer if you have development work.

I find syncback works quite well (backs up all my stuff onto 2 separate backup servers) http://www.2brightsparks.com/

Go Raid 10 baby...
But really... why RAID on a home system? Burn backups and use the second HD to backup SAVE your files and you are double protected... OK no auto MIRROR but not as slow.

Had the freeware version of DFIncBackup recommended to us on these very forums, and I've found it to be very capable and professionally presented. I pass on that recommendation to you in lieu of any experience with RAID. :o)

Which RAID is better for video editing?

Raid 0 (striping) for speed. Or SCSI... etc for video editing speed.

If the network keeps backups there is no danger when you lose data. That or use Raid 0+1

Eventually I decided to buy 2 250 gig hitachi's. Benchmarks showed they met the raptor in some cases so I will not be using Raid 0.

I hear you can do raid 0+1 which is raid with the error bit recorded. So, speed and security, but you need 3 drives for that. I am happy with 2.

I have RAID0 on my home system. Why do I need to backup or worry about data integrity on my home system? I burn my projects off from time to time - what I want is speed.

It seems silly to have 1 hard disk in this day and age when I already have dual channel ram, dual processors and dual graphics cards, why 1 hard disk when HD access has such a major influence on system performance?

Besides it's nice booting up from cold in under 10 seconds on a 3 month old install of XP Pro :).

As for backing it up, that isn't what RAID0 is about. I'd consider extending to a RAID10 stack on a mission critical machine, but failing that XP Pro has the backup utility built in and you could put a backup script created with it into the scheduler - although i'd preffer to have it as something I manually launch so it doesn't interfere with my late night online gaming :)

a lot of that is overkill... simply have two machines... or backup to cd or dvd regularly... like when you are ready to sign off for the day...

also, what about Ghost.. ing your drives... quick, easy to do...

i've gotta agree with rook up there on this one...

(hey Becks... Welcome Back... haven't seen you posting for a while)

--Mike