Cheaper alternative to external RAID 1?

[Mortis Angelus]

Hello,

First off I want to tell that I'm very new to this with RAID and I'm not sure of how everything works in a software/hardware level, apart from that I know the basic differences between different RAID-configs (thank you wikipedia).

Now the question: Is there a cheaper alternative to external RAID-controllers?

My case:

I photograph and do video, and I've collected quite a lot of material soon to fill up my 1 TB of data. I want to expand the storage to 2 TB, but to have so many eggs in the same basket is dangerous without a backup. Even if the photos and videos were divided onto different disks they still can fail one and one, and every single photo that is not a product pic is irreplaceable imho.

So I want an automated backup system that is not affected by whichever computer I plug it into.

Now from what I understand, if I use the Windows software RAID it only works with the correct computer - i.e. the one that you set up the RAID - or have I misunderstood the concept here?

My storage plan:

2 x 2 TB 3.5" HDD 7200 RPM in RAID 1 to ensure backup.

PROBLEM: This is a really, REALLY expensive setup, and I'm looking for alternatives that could do what I want without costing a kidney or two.

 

[mcnumpty23]

have a read about windows storage spaces

its sort of a software raid but much better

i have been playing about with it with 6 old hard drives i had lying about

pretty useful and cheap to implement as mechanical drives are so cheap now

or like me if you have a few lying around you can use those

it can also take more drives if i choose becuase when setting it up i picked a maximum size of 16tb even though my drives didnt actually come close to that

it features good redundancy options in case a drive fails

though it may only be included in windows 8 8.1 10 and server cant remember seeing it in 7

 

[TyrOd]

Hello,

First off I want to tell that I'm very new to this with RAID and I'm not sure of how everything works in a software/hardware level, apart from that I know the basic differences between different RAID-configs (thank you wikipedia).

Now the question: Is there a cheaper alternative to external RAID-controllers?

My case:

I photograph and do video, and I've collected quite a lot of material soon to fill up my 1 TB of data. I want to expand the storage to 2 TB, but to have so many eggs in the same basket is dangerous without a backup. Even if the photos and videos were divided onto different disks they still can fail one and one, and every single photo that is not a product pic is irreplaceable imho.

So I want an automated backup system that is not affected by whichever computer I plug it into.

Now from what I understand, if I use the Windows software RAID it only works with the correct computer - i.e. the one that you set up the RAID - or have I misunderstood the concept here?

My storage plan:

2 x 2 TB 3.5" HDD 7200 RPM in RAID 1 to ensure backup.

PROBLEM: This is a really, REALLY expensive setup, and I'm looking for alternatives that could do what I want without costing a kidney or two.

RAID has nothing to do with backup.
The cheapest alternative is to buy a bigger drive for primary storage and run automated back up to a cheap single external drive using windows backup or any other back-up software.

RAID 1 by itself WILL NOT reduce overall chance of data loss. It will only allow you continuous accessibility to your data as is if 1 drive fails.

If you encounter a virus, data, corruption, accidental deletion, RAID controller failure/configuration corruption, etc... you'll still lose data without a backup.