RAID 1 Question.

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A2TheRizzo

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 18, 2006
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Hello, last week I got my 2x320GB Seagate Barracuda drives. I stuck one inside my computer, and I put one inside a rosewill external enclosure. Basically I want my external to back up everything that's on the one I put inside, without having to drag and drop in the case that I might miss something.

So basically, if I'm correct, I should be able to set those two up in RAID 1 in the BIOS, am I right?

But here's the real question. I'm using eSATA on my external, SATA on the inside. But let's say I took out my external to use on my laptop or anything else that needed it. Could I boot up my desktop fine with just one of the drives or would I have to turn RAID1 off?

I know it's confusing, but I can explain better if needed.

Thanks.:)
 
That's an interesting question. It would depend if your eSATA connection is attached to the same RAID controller that your onboard SATA connection is. If not, then it is theoretically possible to set it up through Windows' RAID management / drive management feature. As long as the eSATA drive doesn't show up as removable disk.
 
If that doesn't work out, there is software out there that will periodically backup your drive using a method called differential backup. Basically it will do a full backup of your drive once and then every time the software runs after that it will only backup the changes you made to your drive. It's faster than doing a full backup every time.

But then again if you can get the RAID 1 working you won't need that.
 
Raid 1 isn't backup. Suppose you're writing your thesis and the machine crashes, and Word can't read the document. If you plug in your other raid 1 disk, it'll immediately sync to the drive in the system, destroying the good copy on the external drive! If you use a real backup program like Dantz Retrospect, you could pull out a copy from yesterday or a month ago, and it wouldn't be affected by the corruption. Use backup programs for backup, and raid 1 for uptime.

PS: I am Not Happy that so many motherboard manufacturers are making boards with 1 internal and 1 external sata port. It's not a good idea, but they're set on implementing it. :mad:
 
unhappy_mage said:
Raid 1 isn't backup. Suppose you're writing your thesis and the machine crashes, and Word can't read the document. If you plug in your other raid 1 disk, it'll immediately sync to the drive in the system, destroying the good copy on the external drive! If you use a real backup program like Dantz Retrospect, you could pull out a copy from yesterday or a month ago, and it wouldn't be affected by the corruption. Use backup programs for backup, and raid 1 for uptime.

PS: I am Not Happy that so many motherboard manufacturers are making boards with 1 internal and 1 external sata port. It's not a good idea, but they're set on implementing it. :mad:
Click to expand...

I like the eSATA connection, but it always comes at the cost of internal SATA connectors. That I am NOT happy about.
 
Dan_D said:
I like the eSATA connection, but it always comes at the cost of internal SATA connectors. That I am NOT happy about.
Click to expand...
Not really; most of the makers I've seen doing this implement a seperate sata chipset specifically for the 1 external/1 internal thing. So if there was no reason for the external sata, there would be no reason for the extra chipset. Thus, you'd lose an internal port if you got rid of that chipset.
 
unhappy_mage said:
Not really; most of the makers I've seen doing this implement a seperate sata chipset specifically for the 1 external/1 internal thing. So if there was no reason for the external sata, there would be no reason for the extra chipset. Thus, you'd lose an internal port if you got rid of that chipset.
Click to expand...

Actually that isn't what I am talking about. You do lose an internal connector. In the case of many ASUS boards for example you'll have a NVIDIA/ATI/Intel chipset and that gives you your base 4 or 6 ports. Then they'll integrate a Silicon Image 3132 chip after that. Those support 4 devices. You'll can have anywhere from 2 to 4 ports on that chipset, but in the case of several boards I've reviewed you'll have a single internal SATA port and one eSATA port. It just kind of bothers me because the Silicon Image 3132 controller, is useless for RAID unless you go eSATA.

Take my situation for example. I have 4 HDD's and 1 Optical drive. I have four regular SATA ports attached to the NVRAID controller. The Optical drive is SATA and the Silicon Image 3132 controller, doesn't support Optical drives. So, how can I have all four of my drives done in two seperate arrays? The answer is: I can't. Not on a board equipped like so. If I had two or three ports, and then one eSATA connector, then I'd be fine with that. Rarely have I seen boards setup in this manner. It is usually a 4x1 with 1 eSATA port. Plus the internal SATA port is usually in a bad place as if it were intended for eSATA bracket use.

On my current motherboard I have only four SATA ports, so an add-in controller was required in order to get my RAID-1 array setup. Since I had to use one of the NVIDIA SATA ports for my optical drive.
 
Okay, well do any of you know a good free hard drive backup program?

And I'm running a sata cable thru the pci slots with an adapter I purchased, so they're both connected to the mobo.

Thanks.
 
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