Hard Dizzle Drives

[Spit-wad]

So I thought I had like 100 gigs to spare, but I looked today and apparently my 500GB drive is full.

Time to buy more of that yummy cheap hard drive space.

Specs in sig. I have a 500gb internal, which I currently backup to a 500gb external.

2 questions:

1. I was thinking about getting 2 1TB drives and doing RAID1.
My motherboard says "Integrated SATA 3Gb/s with RAID function" on gigabyte's website (ga-ep35-ds3r)
Does that mean I don't need a raid controller?
If not, recommend one to me?

Is it easy to setup RAID1? Never had more than one internal hard drive before...

2. Right now, these are the two I'm looking at:
Newegg.com - SAMSUNG Spinpoint F1 HD103UJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - Internal Hard Drives
Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drives - Internal Hard Drives

I'm planning on leaving my OS and programs installed on my 500 gig, so the 1TB drives will pretty much just be storage.

Does that mean it would be better to get the Caviar Green?
Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EADS 1TB 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - Internal Hard Drives

Which one should I go with? I'd love to save the $10x2=$20, but if another hard drive is worth it, then it's worth considering.

Not how I intended to spend my birthday money, but I guess it could be worse

Thanks for any responses

 

[Hefemeister]

IMO the green's are just fine for data drives.

Raid1 is nice for important data where you need up time if a drive fails but do not plan on having it as your backup solution.

off topic:
Darn Barcelona just scored another.

 

[synergy]

RAID is a piece of cake to set up. You just need to enable it in the BIOS (usually under "integrated peripherals" or similar), set the drives to be used in the array (in the RAID settings), enter RAID setup after reboot to select the type of RAID you want (in this case mirrored/1), and you are up. Where you're leaving your OS in place you will need to install the drivers and hopefully you won't have any issues after that.

I would go with whichever WD drive is cheaper and/or has the best ratings.

 

[Spit-wad]

IMO the green's are just fine for data drives.

Raid1 is nice for important data where you need up time if a drive fails but do not plan on having it as your backup solution.

The only reason I'm getting 2 is to have it as backup... I thought RAID1 = mirroring, which seems like a backup to me. I don't need 100% up time, but I'd rather not have another external hard drive... how is raid1 not a backup solution?

 

[synergy]

It is a backup solution. The point of having RAID 1 is for redundancy of data. If one drive fails the array can be rebuilt from the existing drive (once the bad drive is replaced.)

EDIT: I think what Hefe might be referring to is the fact that you can't count on 2 TB of data being available as backup when it's in a RAID 1. Since one drive mirrors the other it is essentially like that second drive doesn't exist (in terms of space available.)

 

[wafflehammer]

The only reason I'm getting 2 is to have it as backup... I thought RAID1 = mirroring, which seems like a backup to me. I don't need 100% up time, but I'd rather not have another external hard drive... how is raid1 not a backup solution?

yea but if 1 fails they both fail...that's why it's not good for backup


i don't think you'll need a raid controller. I think they are for boards without integrated and i think they take some strain off the cpu

 

[Hefemeister]

If you get a nasty virus on one drive it is on the other.
If you accidentally delete a file it deleted off both drives.
If a file is corrupted it is corrupted on both drives.
I have had people with raid1 and one drive failed and they did not notice until the second drive failed.

Do not get me wrong raid1 is great insurance against a drive failure. For home use and home data it should suffice. Just giving you all the info. Sometimes it just gives a false sense of security.

I have installed raid1 and raid5 for many businesses but still run a backup protocol.

Edit:

EDIT: I think what Hefe might be referring to is the fact that you can't count on 2 TB of data being available as backup when it's in a RAID 1. Since one drive mirrors the other it is essentially like that second drive doesn't exist (in terms of space available.)

I was aware that raid1 is mirrored so you only get 1tb.

yea but if 1 fails they both fail...that's why it's not good for backup

You are thinking or raid0 which is a stripped array where if one drive fails all data is gone.
raid1 one is a mirrored array where if one drive fails data is still intact.

 

[synergy]

Oh right, I see what you're saying. Yea, it's more for assurance against hardware failure. I've also had RAID 1 arrays nuked because of file corruption and there's nothing you can do but rebuild it. However, if one drive fails that doesn't mean they are both toast.

 

[kmote]

http://www.techist.com/forums/1549962-post17.html my explanation from a little while ago.

 

[Spit-wad]

ok, so maybe raid isn't what I want.


So... is there automatic backup software that typically comes with external hard drives that I can use with an internal? So I would just format and install the 2 drives, and have one automatically backup every night or something?