Raid 1 vs. Incremental Backup Solution for Media Server

[hazard902]

Okay, so I have purchased two 2TB Seagate hard drives and want to find a solution to protect my large media library. I was looking at a dual bay external hard drive enclosure Nexstar MX that has an option for RAID 0 and 1. They also offer a model for 100 dollars cheaper that does not have RAID. I was wondering what would be the best route to go: lower cost hard drive enclosure coupled with a nightly incremental backup solution, or the more expensive enclosure with RAID 1 enabled between the two hard drives.

Any input is appreciated, thanks!

 

[saint19]

Be careful, Win vista and Win 7 don't support more that 2TB on RAID array.

 

[goobaah]

Windows 7 supports larger than 2 TB volumes. If you want it to be continuous space you have to partition the drive as GPT, not MBR. I cannot confirm Vista.

I like to keep my most important stuff backed up OUTSIDE and DISCONNECTED from my computer. If you follow my approach and have a need to backup 2 TB of data, I would put one of the 2TB drives inside your computer, and then buy good external eSATA enclosure and connect it only when you want to back up your data.. You will have to decide how often that is. Then, disconnect it from the computer and the wall when you are not using it.

 

[saint19]

^Yes, can support 2TB or more. BUT NOT IN RAID 0.

 

[endorphines]

^Yes, can support 2TB or more. BUT NOT IN RAID 0.

you're just plain wrong. check your facts. explain to me how i have a 6tb raid array in windows running right now.

intel places an artificial limit on array size in their chipsets that set at 2tb, and it's got nothing to do with RAID 0, it's on all raid levels. donno about amd's chipsets.

if you've got a raid solution that says it supports 2tb + and you partition it GPT, you're good to go, in vista as well.

personally i'd go with raid 1 if you're not going to miss the capacity provided by the extra drive.

 

[saint19]

you're just plain wrong. check your facts. explain to me how i have a 6tb raid array in windows running right now.

intel places an artificial limit on array size in their chipsets that set at 2tb, and it's got nothing to do with RAID 0, it's on all raid levels. donno about amd's chipsets.

if you've got a raid solution that says it supports 2tb + and you partition it GPT, you're good to go, in vista as well.

personally i'd go with raid 1 if you're not going to miss the capacity provided by the extra drive.

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In what RAID array?

 

[goobaah]

There are some older intel, amd, and nvidia chipsets that do not support > 2TB arrays. It is not an artificial limit but a limitation of the LBA addressing of the chipset itself. There is no way around it. You can create a RAID 0 , 10, or 5 array and go past this barrier.
This does not matter here since he wants data security with a RAID 1. He just wanted to know how best to spend his hard earned $$. The cost of that device is really high considering what it does. You have to think, what happens if the device fails? Are you sure that you can just pull out a drive and read it? Will you have to buy the exact same enclosure to get the data off the drives? Will this be available in two years if you need to do this? I dont know the answer to these questions, but I would not trust my data all in one of those things.