Raid 1 Hard drive

[Ramzoner]

Hi guys! Currently im using 1 ssd for the OS , and 1 hard drive for storage , im thinking about buying 1 more hard drive to backup my files. My question is can i keep all my files and just mirror my current drive to the new one , or i should format it and then mirror it. Thank you!

 

[SkyNetRising]

Mirror raid is not the same thing as backup.
If you damage/delete some file on mirror raid, both copies of the file get damaged/deleted. It is redundancy measure in case, if one drive dies.

 

[Ramzoner]

I need it so if one of the hard drives die , i still have my files.

 

[finitekosmos]

Just to re-iterate what SkyNetRising has said, RAID 1 is not a solution for this issue. You could try to obtain a disk imaging tool and use it to make a backup copy of one drive to another, or you could simply backup individual files to another drive. But RAID 1 is a redundancy mechanism not a backup solution, the idea is that the two drives in the RAID 1 Array are an exact mirror right down to deleted files. if you delete a file it is automatically deleted from both drives, if a file is damaged it is potentially damaged on both drives.

 

[SkyNetRising]

If you're sure, mirror raid is what you need..
there are different ways of creating raid.

Some of them require reformatting of drives involved.

 

[USAFRet]

I need it so if one of the hard drives die , i still have my files.

And RAID 1 does nothing for the far more common forms of data loss.
Accidental deletion, ransomware encryption, corruption, virus....

 

[Ramzoner]

So what can i do to have my files protected?

 

[USAFRet]

So what can i do to have my files protected?

Institute an actual backup routine.

Read here: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-3383768/backup-situation-home.html