Redundancy + Windows RAID

[martonbaksa]

Hello All,

I currently have a server running in an old-ish dell optiplex that I found for free. I purchased a Seagate Barracuda 8tb and plan to add 2 more of them in the future to have a total of 16tb of storage in Windows-based RAID 5. I also have 2 250GB hard drives in the machine (both of which installed at factory), 1 being a boot drive. I know that Windows RAID 5 will protect me against 1 drive failure of the 8tb ones, I am nervous about the primary boot drive failing as it's quite old and if I am not wrong, the RAID 5 configuration for the rest of the drives? Therefore, if the primary boot drive fails, the data on the RAID 5 array is also gone? If so, can I use the other 250gb drive to be a backup of the primary boot drive, most importantly holding the configuration for the 16tb array, so that, it can be rebuilt somehow given a boot drive failiure? What would y'all recommend without spending too much more money as 3*8 TB is already stretching the bank.

Thanks,

Marton

[BloodKnight7]

Try a RAID 1 for your boot drive (x2 250GB drives)... 1 drive fails the other will have a mirror of all the information.

[martonbaksa]

Hi,

Does Windows allow this natively?

Thanks,

Marton

[vanished]

This is not directly along the lines of your question but it is, I think, very important.  What is your backup strategy?  You've got (or will have) 16 TB of capacity, I assume this is being copied to some 16 TB array or drive or something somewhere?

[martonbaksa]

This is my backup server where I dump all of my backups of other computers, archived projects and everything else really, hence my want for redundancy so that it doesn't all go wrong.

Thanks again,

Marton

[vanished]

24 minutes ago, martonbaksa said:

This is my backup server where I dump all of my backups of other computers, archived projects and everything else really, hence my want for redundancy so that it doesn't all go wrong.

Thanks again,

Marton

Ah I see, that makes sense.  I have a thing about making sure people don't try to use RAID as/instead of a backup so good to hear that's not the issue

 

To be totally honest, I'm not a huge fan of RAID regardless though.  One of the many reasons is exactly what you're facing here.  You go with RAID because of the redundancy, but the risk of losing it all due to the array falling apart is as much or more than any of the risks it's protecting you against, so is it even helping?

 

That's where I get to another "validity question" - does this need to be 100% 24/7 high availability?  Personally I feel that's the only valid reason for using RAID (at least in the context of RAID for the purpose of redundancy).  You always have the option to just restore from a backup (or in the case here, make a new backup from the various source devices) anyway, so unless the time necessary to do so is unacceptable, RAID is just costing you extra drives and setup hassle for nothing.  That's my opinion at least.

 

As for the extra risk faced momentarily while you are rebuilding the backup (in the event you need to), this is one of the reasons I generally recommend that people have 2 backups, so while one is being remade, you still have 2 copies on hand.  Of course, there are other benefits to having 2 backups too and while any one of them may not justify it I think when taken together they do.  To list just a few of these:

• Ransomware protection if you adhere to the rule of never having more than one backup connected at a time and ensuring files are clean before moving on
• Accidental file deletion protection if you run your backups in a "leapfrog" or staggered manner (and notice in time)
• More redundancy of course
• You can move 1 or more to different locations
• They can use different philosophies - perhaps one that's always connected and syncing, and one that you do occasionally as a long term archive.