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Planning a new build next year when Vista SP1 is released, and have started thinking about my drive configuration. Right now I have (4) 74GB Raptors: OS, Office/Games, Apps, Data/Documents. Then a 200GB backup drive. Genie Backup backs up the data/docs drive to the backup drive each night, and a few select files to my FTP site.
I've found that having 5 drives is louder and more complex than I want. I'm moving towards simplicity. I'm thinking a 150GB Raptor for OS/apps and a 500GB for data/docs. As for backup, I want to have an external drive I can put in a fire safe. Not sure if I need the fault tolerance of RAID or not. Here's one of my questions: if I have data/docs in a RAID 1 array, and the PC dies, can I pull out one of those drives, stick it in a USB enclosure, and plug it into another PC and see the data/docs? Or has being part of an array mean that it will only be able to be read as an array by a RAID controller, same as RAID 0 or RAID 5? I need my data in the event of a PC failure more than I need a dead drive to be transparent to me while I wait on a replacement.
As far as data surviving a house meltdown, I'm thinking either an auto nightly backup with two external USB drives, one always connected to the PC, the other always in a fire safe, swapped every few days, or a single external USB drive that I pull out of the safe for a weekly manual backup. Also considering one of those trayless SATA hot swap internal drive bays, and just swap the drive(s), and have a USB enclosure on hand if I need to hook the backup drive to another PC. My question here for either method is whether swapping an externally enclosed drive or an internal drive will cause Vista to assign a different drive letter. I'd hate to have to reassign the letter each time I swap.
Finally, any recommendations for software? I've used Ghost and Acronis before, but found them to be bloated. I don't need processes added to startup that are going to run 24/7. Genie Backup is great in that it sets itself up using the Task Scheduler... it fires up overnight, runs, and shuts down, never anything running when it doesn't need to be. Also supports backup to FTP. But as with most backup programs, it creates a backup file that has to be browsed and the files extracted. I'd be interested in something that's more along the lines of a sync, where each night it makes sure my backup drive is a mirror of my data/docs drive, and does it by only modifying what's changed rather than dumping the entire drive every night. I looked at rsync but I'm not familiar with Linux and don't have time to be. I've done a copy script on the SBS2003 box at work, but like I said, I'd prefer not to dump the entire drive every night to capture a few new emails and updated MS Money file.
TIA.
I've found that having 5 drives is louder and more complex than I want. I'm moving towards simplicity. I'm thinking a 150GB Raptor for OS/apps and a 500GB for data/docs. As for backup, I want to have an external drive I can put in a fire safe. Not sure if I need the fault tolerance of RAID or not. Here's one of my questions: if I have data/docs in a RAID 1 array, and the PC dies, can I pull out one of those drives, stick it in a USB enclosure, and plug it into another PC and see the data/docs? Or has being part of an array mean that it will only be able to be read as an array by a RAID controller, same as RAID 0 or RAID 5? I need my data in the event of a PC failure more than I need a dead drive to be transparent to me while I wait on a replacement.
As far as data surviving a house meltdown, I'm thinking either an auto nightly backup with two external USB drives, one always connected to the PC, the other always in a fire safe, swapped every few days, or a single external USB drive that I pull out of the safe for a weekly manual backup. Also considering one of those trayless SATA hot swap internal drive bays, and just swap the drive(s), and have a USB enclosure on hand if I need to hook the backup drive to another PC. My question here for either method is whether swapping an externally enclosed drive or an internal drive will cause Vista to assign a different drive letter. I'd hate to have to reassign the letter each time I swap.
Finally, any recommendations for software? I've used Ghost and Acronis before, but found them to be bloated. I don't need processes added to startup that are going to run 24/7. Genie Backup is great in that it sets itself up using the Task Scheduler... it fires up overnight, runs, and shuts down, never anything running when it doesn't need to be. Also supports backup to FTP. But as with most backup programs, it creates a backup file that has to be browsed and the files extracted. I'd be interested in something that's more along the lines of a sync, where each night it makes sure my backup drive is a mirror of my data/docs drive, and does it by only modifying what's changed rather than dumping the entire drive every night. I looked at rsync but I'm not familiar with Linux and don't have time to be. I've done a copy script on the SBS2003 box at work, but like I said, I'd prefer not to dump the entire drive every night to capture a few new emails and updated MS Money file.
TIA.