protection against data loss... RAID?

K

kick

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 24, 2005
Messages
210
My current approach is simply duplication of data - I have a large number of digital images that exist on an internal hdd, are copied to an external hdd then periodically burned to DVD.

I've been looking at RAID for a while now but my question is, which is the "better" option with respect to reliability:

1) use nVidia/Intel solutions integrated on motherboard
2) use dedicated PCI Express controller (eg: HighPoint)
3) use external USB/FireWire/eSATA/Gigabit RAID enclosure

My thoughts/concerns re: the above are:

1) The array is tied to the particular system (controller type at least) and isn't terribly portable, rebuilds are done in software which i'm not too sure about and the stability of the array could be affected by other components in the system. I have setup a few RAID0 and RAID1 arrays using Intel's Matrix Storage Technology and everything went fairly well tho.

2) Dedicated h/w controllers can be costly and i'm a little suspect of the quality of lower-end "consumer" oriented cards. I have played with a HighPoint 23xx and had no problems.

3) It sounds like a good idea but it looks like you need to spend quite a bit of money to get a quality product that won't fail in < 1 year. Some of the interfaces leave a little to be desired.

I'm considering a new PC upgrade next month so now is a good time to think about things. At the moment, i'm currently looking at an AM2 machine using the nForce 570 SLI chipset. If I end up using the integrated controller I should probably do a little more reading and understand any differences re: nVidia RAID vs Intel Matrix Storage. I'm also open to some of the affordable controllers from HighPoint, Promise, etc.

Thoughts?
 
kick said:
1) use nVidia/Intel solutions integrated on motherboard
2) use dedicated PCI Express controller (eg: HighPoint)
3) use external USB/FireWire/eSATA/Gigabit RAID enclosure
Click to expand...

None of the above. RAID is to ensure online availability, not reliability.

What you are already doing - backing up to an external drive, is a good solution. You could add a second (or third) external drive and use a rotation to provide a bit more security and store the drives at a different site so that if something happens to your computer, it won't also happen to your backups.
 
I am with Michael. Keeping an external copy or copies of your data should be done. RAID won't protect you from a virus shredding your files apart, or from you accidentally deleting them, or from any other unforeseen events.
 
I didn't mean to give the impression that i'd trust 100% in a RAID array for all of my backup/duplication purposes and cease all other activites. I was thinking more like a RAID1 array on the integrated SATA controller or dedicated PCI Express controller to give an added level of protection for regular day-to-day operations (eg: photos that haven't been sorted yet, post-processing that still in progress, etc). I would still duplicate that data offline, be it an external HDD or DVD, at some interval.
 
For that you might do better with two independent drives, and some software that makes an incremental backup to the second drive (your editing software may even have a built-in function similar to this). RAID 1 would help protect against drive failure, which will likely only be an issue on the scale of once per several years. Automatic incremental backups will protect against a wider variety of things, and file versioning may be desirable even aside from data security.
 
Thanks. I'll put the considerations of RAID on hold for now and focus on improving my existing process. I did a bit of searching and came across a few handy, and free, file/directory sync utilities, such as Microsoft's on SyncToy and SyncBack (noted some bad reviews for the MS tool so it's probably off the list). Thanks for the input.
 
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