I use DVDs and an 80GIG removable drive and keep them in my firesafe. Sounds simplistic but if my machine ever gets stolen or I a huge surge hits and kills my drives, I'm OK.

Just to keep APK happy, here's a link with the definitions of RAID. There's also a fairly hefty discussion going on here.
 
Personally speaking, if you're really serious about this, I'd use a combination of RAID and CD-R/DVD-R (or even tape!) backup - at least make sure that you've got a backup of your most important files (the kind of file that you couldn't live without!)
 
Rgds
AndyF

I find it totally reprehensible that m$ only allows raid 1 with their server products.
 
At least XP PRO should have software mirroring. after all, it is PRO....
 
What is the message? PRo users do not deserve a good hard drive mirror?
 
Despicable.
They should save raid 5 for the servers and raid 0 and 1 for the Pro.
 
I''ve not tested yet(i will shortly) but i BEt you any money, 2003 standard server won't even support raid 5. I would not be surprised.
 
If anyone knows if server 2003 standard can do raid 5, let me know!

Quote:I find it totally reprehensible that m$ only allows raid 1 with their server products.

At least XP PRO should have software mirroring. after all, it is PRO....

What is the message? PRo users do not deserve a good hard drive mirror?

Despicable.
They should save raid 5 for the servers and raid 0 and 1 for the Pro.

I''ve not tested yet(i will shortly) but i BEt you any money, 2003 standard server won't even support raid 5. I would not be surprised.

If anyone knows if server 2003 standard can do raid 5, let me know!

What do you mean by "support RAID 5"?
If you are on about a software solution then you'd be crazy.
There is no way in hell I'd trust a software RAID solution to keep an eye on any of the servers that I run - it has to be a hardware solution all the way.
I expect this is why MS (Oh saying m$...why?) only have software support for RAID 1.

Windows 2000 of course supports any RAID array configuration you like so long as you've got the hardware to go with it.
We run a hardware RAID 5 solution (Some IDE, some SCSI) on all of our Windows 2000 servers.

Going back to a more fundamental question about RAID1, is there any protection against mirroring corrupted files in this set up? Essentially I'm trying to decide if mirroring is worth the wasted disk space over simply having backup software to regularly keep updated copies on another local drive. What do you guys think? Thanks.

hard Drives - constant moving parts wearing out slowly over time
 
DVD - no moving parts - can store away safe and last for hundreds of years if treated right.
 
 
 
your best bet as mentioned is to use a combination of both disk back up and a hard drive.
 
Possibly consider hotswapable har drives that u just pop in when backing up and take out so it is not constantly running.

Quote:Going back to a more fundamental question about RAID1, is there any protection against mirroring corrupted files in this set up? Essentially I'm trying to decide if mirroring is worth the wasted disk space over simply having backup software to regularly keep updated copies on another local drive. What do you guys think? Thanks.

Unfortunately no there isn't any protection against this occuring. This is why you have RAID 5 which adds parity and a few other things to the mix for better data inegrity.

This being said the best option really is a RAID 5 *and* data archiving solutiuons like TAPE

Quote: What do you mean by "support RAID 5"?
If you are on about a software solution then you'd be crazy.
There is no way in hell I'd trust a software RAID solution to keep an eye on any of the servers that I run - it has to be a hardware solution all the way.
I expect this is why MS (Oh saying m$...why?) only have software support for RAID 1.

Windows 2000 of course supports any RAID array configuration you like so long as you've got the hardware to go with it.
We run a hardware RAID 5 solution (Some IDE, some SCSI) on all of our Windows 2000 servers..

Not true. Windows nt 4/windows2000/windows 2003 server all support Raid 5 via software, 2000 and 2003 server suport it on any dynamic disks, no special hardware needed. And 200 pro and XP pro support only Raid 0 (WEAK!) I see no reason not to trust my data with MS software raid. Hardware raid is controlled by software after all (just the built in software on the raid card......)

Software raid just eats up more cpu is all, but does not require expensive raid card.

My point was, Server 2003 is broken up even more than 2000 server was, and it would not surprise me if the standard server won't suport raid 5 but the enterprise will.

Iam also squaking that Windows 2000/xp pro don't do raid 1. It's ridiculous.

My popi

The only thing I would have against any software RAID 5 solution is that unless you have a high-end workstation/entry level dual-xeon server board then you could run into data partity issues. What I mean is that these dual-xeon board all require ECC-REG memory, this is good as I myself use a Promise ATA RAID 5 card, the Supertrak SX6000 which is an I2O controller card that also requires ECC.
 
I've used the RAID Zero solution under XP Pro and it works just fine for my general purpose data, stuff I wouldn't die over losing

Quote: I've used the RAID Zero solution under XP Pro and it works just fine for my general purpose data, stuff I wouldn't die over losing

lol, from where I sit, I will die from losing anything at all.

Almsot a terrabyte of data on my machines, and not enough $$$ to have backup of it all.

Quote:
lol, from where I sit, I will die from losing anything at all.

Almsot a terrabyte of data on my machines, and not enough $$$ to have backup of it all.

Hmm, I don't know wether to laugh or cry for you, that is way too much data to have sitting unarchived :x