[SOLVED] Is it possible to have a Hot Spare drive that also serves as a backup in a RAID 1 system

[CabbageChampion]

Is it possible to have two drives that are mirrored across each other(Raid 1) and a third Hot Spare drive that serves as both a hot spare and contains incremental backups of the data. In other words the third would have a dual purpose of a Hot Spare and a backup. In the case of a drive failure, it would ok if the back up data is erased to mirror the other healthy drive. The end goal would that one could remove and replace the hot spare and then use that old drive as a backup of the data at a previous time. Specifically I am trying to use an Adaptec RAID controller for the RAID 1 configuration and Acronis for the backing up of the data that will be written to the Hot Spare.

 

[kanewolf]

I do not know any RAID controller that supports such config. To do the backups, the "spare" drive would have to be host accessible. That would make it ineligible to be a hot spare. A hot spare is accessible only by the controller.

 

[USAFRet]

No.
An Acronis backup is not hot enough to serve as a drop in replacement for a dead RAID 1 member. The array would have to be rebuilt anyway.

Every action you take, or indeed none at all...data is written to the drive(s). Moving the mouse, clicking in a window, moving a window...all generate changes, however tiny.
A RAID 1 mirrors those in realtime. Acronis does not.