HardDrive

[The_Lhc]

al7478:professorhat:

Not as far as I know. And I work in IT, so I would have thought I would.

(I will add my caveat about not considering RAID as a backup, but as a redundant system - even with RAID, you should always still have a proper backup system in place).

Pretty much waht i meant, and the danger of both drives going must exist.

Theorhetically I suppose but in the real world, it's vanishingly unlikely, as I said before I've worked in IT for 17 years, I must have looked after well over a 1000 systems and of those, the only ones I've ever had to do a system recovery from backup is the ones that DIDN'T have mirrored system disks, I've NEVER had both system disks fail at the same time.

EDIT OK, apologies, folks, i put 2 and 2 together and came up with 5.

Still, RAID, eh? Not all that and a bag o' chips afterall.

Err, yes it is, I'm sorry but this is not an attack on you, but you don't know what you're talking about. RAID does its job and it does it well, but it isn't necessarily right for everyone. That is up to you to weigh up on a cost to benefit ratio.

Personally, i have far too little data to worry about using too many DVDs, and if i did i think id just use a couple of external HDDs

You have so little data you'd use a couple of HDDs? That sounds like an awful lot of not very much data!

and also something like Ghost or Acronis.

But why all that effort? Just get something like the MyBook twin external drive, RAID 1 out of the box, you don't have to do anything at all. This is what's puzzling me, people are prepared to buy external drives and go to the trouble of backing up their stuff manually, so why not just get something that does it for you?

 

[The_Lhc]

cram:Tarquinh:as has been mentioned, but if your goal is archive permanency, then CD/DVD or tape is the only way to go.

I'd probably disagree with you on tape. Absolutely hate it. No doubt doubt borne from horrible experiences years ago with dat tapes that were readable in one drive but not another,

Yeah I remember those, things are much better now though.

coupled with slow backup times.

That's just a function of how much you're prepared to spend!

 

[Alec]

the_lhc:

You have so little data you'd use a couple of HDDs? That sounds like an awful lot of not very much data!

No, I meant if i had enough i would use multiple HDDs, that was quite clear.

and also something like Ghost or Acronis.

But why all that effort? Just get something like the MyBook twin external drive, RAID 1 out of the box, you don't have to do anything at all. This is what's puzzling me, people are prepared to buy external drives and go to the trouble of backing up their stuff manually, so why not just get something that does it for you?

And that backs up as much as Acronis and Ghost can? Not unless you have the necassary software i would have thought. Just to make sure im being clear; there is pretty much nothing that Acronis won't back up - your OS, data, settings...

 

[cram]

the_lhc:But why all that effort? Just get something like the MyBook twin external drive, RAID 1 out of the box, you don't have to do anything at all. This is what's puzzling me, people are prepared to buy external drives and go to the trouble of backing up their stuff manually, so why not just get something that does it for you?

I see backup as a separate discrete copy of my data the status of which is not effected by what may happen to the original. This isn't the case with RAID1 where the same actions will happen to both copies (ie deletion, virus infection, theft etc). With RAID 1 whilst you've duplicated your eggs in a very real sense you're still keeping them in the same basket.

RAID1 is also costly. Firstly I'm doubling my storage costs. That 1Tb drive now becomes £140 rather than £70. You've also halfed the max possible storage within a single enclosure. If your storage requirements are just for a music collection chances are this isn't a big issue. Get into DVD/bluray and using RAID can really hurt.

I've worked in IT similar amount of time to you. I'd agree that real world I've never seen two drives go in an array (though I have seen an array go altogether having due to a rogue controller). I've seen my fair share of hard drive failures over the years but I've also seen my fair share of data loss due to factors other than physical hard drive failure, in the majority of those cases RAID was/would have been of no benefit.

My problem with the use of RAID in a home setup is that all too often people over estimate the protection they have. There absolutely is a place for RAID but I would advise people understand what it is/isn't before implementing it.

 

[Anonymous]

I think you just need to buy one that is right for you and one you are happy with.

ÿI was umming and ahhhing for ages and then went for the WD MYBOOK 1TB and it broke after 1 month! I since have been using the Apple time capsule which is cool as its wireless if you have more than one computer and just recently bought an imomega firewire drive which is also brilliant.ÿ

most reviews have people moaning about the faulty drives.ÿ

 

[professorhat]

Just to clarify what I said about RAID (which seems to have sparked some controversy), I have no issue with RAID systems and fully recommend them (I use one personally). However, there is a very simple reason not to treat it as a backup and that is because the changes are made instantaneously. You only have to not be paying attention and delete the wrong file and it's gone from both drives. If you're relying on RAID, it's gone forever, but if you have a backup, you can restore it from there. Same goes for corrupted files as well, which can happen if an application crashes etc., when that file is corrupted, it's corrupted on both drives.

So by all means, use RAID to protect your data, but use it in conjunction with a backup as well for those reasons. You don't have to, but if you lose data because of the above then don't come crying to me!

 

[professorhat]

the_lhc:I must have looked after well over a 1000 systems and of those, the only ones I've ever had to do a system recovery from backup is the ones that DIDN'T have mirrored system disks, I've NEVER had both system disks fail at the same time.

But I guarantee with that experience you must have restored thousands of files from a backup because someone deleted them or they got corrupted. RAID's no good to you there!

 

[The_Lhc]

professorhat:the_lhc:I must have looked after well over a 1000 systems and of those, the only ones I've ever had to do a system recovery from backup is the ones that DIDN'T have mirrored system disks, I've NEVER had both system disks fail at the same time.
But I guarantee with that experience you must have restored thousands of files from a backup because someone deleted them or they got corrupted. RAID's no good to you there!

Deleted certainly, I can't remember file corruption though, although I'm quite glad about that, I'd hate myself if I could remember everything I've ever restored, so you're probably right.

File deletion however comes under the category of "User stupidity", as I'm sure you're aware! At least unofficially anyway, they don't seem to give that as an option on our helpdesk software...