[SOLVED] How to Set Up Two Hard Drives - is it RAID I need?

[Oasis Curator]

I have a spare 4TB hard drive.
It's been sat in the drawer for at least a year or two now but I can't think what to do with it.
I have a 1TB or 2TB drive that I use as a periodic storage hard drive. This is in a Western Digital case, their "My Book" series.

I am wondering if I could get the hard drive out of the caddy (not sure how yet) and put it in something like this:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Drive-Enclosure-Yottamaster-Aluminum-USB3-0-2-Bay/dp/B085D9ZF3F

Then set up both hard drives as some sort of RAID - essentially copies of each other so if one fails, all the data is still covered by the second hard drive.

Perhaps selling the 2TB WD My Book would be better to re-coop some of the cost of the newer enclosure, although then I'd be down a drive (but could buy a new 4TB one so the drives are the same size).

Any pointers would be great.

 

[USAFRet]

A USB dock, and store regular backups on it.

 

[pmjm]

Unfortunately many RAID controllers will require identical hard drives. You may not be able to mix a 2TB and a 4TB (at the very least, even if it works you'll be losing 2TB of usable space from your 4TB drive).

A better approach would be to set them up as independent drives and do periodic clones. You can set up something like FreeFileSync to do this for you, or there are also commercial cloning solutions that'll do this realtime too.

 

[USAFRet]

Skip the whole RAID thing. It is NOT a backup method.

 

[Oasis Curator]

Skip the whole RAID thing. It is NOT a backup method.

No but if it allows me to have two copies of something, somewhat automatically (forgetting the mis-match of drive sizes), then it could make use of that extra drive.
I could clone it but that means time for me to do it, and surely it'll clone everything every time, not just add any different files?
If I can copy to one drive and it automatically copies to two, which provides me with two lots of the data, then I'm up for that!

 

[hotaru.hino]

No but if it allows me to have two copies of something, somewhat automatically (forgetting the mis-match of drive sizes), then it could make use of that extra drive.
I could clone it but that means time for me to do it, and surely it'll clone everything every time, not just add any different files?
If I can copy to one drive and it automatically copies to two, which provides me with two lots of the data, then I'm up for that!

RAID is not a backup solution because a backup solution is such that in the event that you need data recovery of any sort, you can recover that data. This includes data loss from a storage drive dying, bit rot corrupting a file, external software messing with the files (e.g., ransomeware), or because you accidentally deleted a file and it's too late to recover it.

RAID 1 mirrors everything that goes on. It may help with a dead storage or bit rot from one drive, but if you delete a file accidentally, the RAID is going to mirror that. And if some other software causes data corruption or say you suffer from a ransomeware attack, RAID will happily mirror that too.

There's also the possibility that if one drive is hosed, you can't access the other anyway unless it's in the RAID system it started from, because the storage drive is expecting to be in a RAID set up. So what's the point of having a "backup" if you can't access it in another place?

All RAID does (except RAID 0) is provide a buffer so that you can enact backup and recovery measures when a drive fails.

 

[Oasis Curator]

I understand but I also think about what is more likely to happen.
Some files I have are backed up via two different cloud services, one DVD, one memory stick, one external hard drive and on the actual PC too - so pretty covered there.
But it's more likely the drive will start failing rather than anything else. I'm not saying anything else won't happen, but where do you stop backing up? At 10 copies? 20?
This seems like a useful way of putting a drive that's currently sitting in a drawer with no hope of being used, into use.

It's a shame that yet again, instead of simply answering the question, there's now a discussion on why I shouldn't bother at all.
I've already made the decision (I'd rather use the hard drive than it continue to sit in the drawer doing nothing) and while it may not be the solution others would employ, it's the system I want... it's a question of how to do it.

I've been backing up on to an external hard drive for years, without any sign of a ransomware attack and no deleting of files by accident.
The hard drive isn't connected to the PC all the time and I could even protect myself further by disconnecting from the internet before plugging it in - but that's too much hassle for the likelihood of anything bad happening anyway.
The ONLY thing that really worries me is if the hard drive fails, which on the basis of probability, is the most likely thing to happen. If I have two hard drives with the same data, I will always have a backup of the backup.

 

[hotaru.hino]

If you're trying to consolidate your backup solution and use a RAID 1 (or whatever) for hardware failure protection, then sure, this is perfectly fine. And for this I would suggest buying a multi-bay NAS box if you want something easy-peasy to setup.

But keep in mind, for all intents and purposes of backing data up, a backup solution using RAID only counts as one copy regardless of how many copies the RAID system actually has.

 

[USAFRet]

No but if it allows me to have two copies of something, somewhat automatically (forgetting the mis-match of drive sizes), then it could make use of that extra drive.
I could clone it but that means time for me to do it, and surely it'll clone everything every time, not just add any different files?
If I can copy to one drive and it automatically copies to two, which provides me with two lots of the data, then I'm up for that!

No, it isn't "2 copies". The user and the OS sees a single copy. Just tha behind the scenes it exists on 2 physical drives.
Delete a file, and it is gone gone gone.

RAID 1 is good for continued uptime, not data security.


A free tool like Macrium Reflect will do a series of Images onto that drive, on whatever schedule you set.
Full, and then a series of Differential or Incremental.
That is the basis for my whole backup routine.
Images...not clones.

A Full image, followed by a rolling series of incremental/differential. Keep 30 days, deleting the eldest as it goes.
All automated.

What is your backup situation at home?

What is your backup situation at home? And if you don't do that, why not? Every single day, I read multiple threads here of "How do I get my stuff back?" or "That drive had 5 years of photos of my kids!!" Be it a dead drive, dropped phone, virus, accidental deletion, formatting the wrong...

forums.tomshardware.com